'Westworld' is an ambitious misfire

I'll readily admit that this looks pretty cool. 

I should have loved Westworld. 

Just look at some of the people behind the camera. Jonathan Nolan, brother and frequent collaborator of esteemed director Christopher Nolan (they co-wrote Memento, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar). J.J. Abrams, creator of LOST and Fringe, two of my favorite TV shows, director of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (which is good, darn it!), and producer of 10 Cloverfield Lane, one of my favorite movies of 2016.

And then, in front of the camera, there is what Hollywood calls an "ensemble cast"*: James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Evan Rachel Wood, and many others. And headlining this cast are two of the best actors of the past 40 years: Ed Harris (Snowpiercer, The Truman Show) and, of course, the great Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, The Lion in Winter, and so much more).

These creative personnel also have what seems like a great canvas on which to paint. Westworld, loosely based on Michael Crichton's 1973 film of the same name (whose basic "theme park disaster scenario" Crichton later repurposed into Jurassic Park), is both the name of the show (obviously) and the name of the massive, technologically-advanced, Old West-style complex that serves as the show's primary setting (along with the headquarters outside of the park that manages it). It is a sprawling, fully-realized world, an amusement park where guests pay top dollar to do whatever they want: help the sheriff, become a bandit, rescue the girl, mess around with prostitutes, explore the vast landscape, and whatever else their hearts desire.

Because nothing ever goes wrong at massively complex amusement parks that use technology we don't yet fully understand.

Oh, and one more thing: Everyone in the park, except for the guests, is an android, barely distinguishable from a human being. And some of the androids seem to be on the verge of achieving self-awareness.

So yes, this all sounds great and ambitious: Talented producers, writers, and actors, working with some of the heady sci-fi themes--the nature of consciousness and identity, artificial intelligence, self-awareness, et al.--that I have loved thinking about since I first encountered them in the works of Isaac Asimov (and Harlan Ellison) many years ago. The Old West setting would supply an opportunity for compelling and unique action and drama. And with a Nolan brother and J.J. Abrams around to keep things interesting, surely the story would take many exciting and unexpected turns.

So you would think.

He's thinking about whether he likes Westworld.

Some of Westworld does live up to the promise of its premise, to be sure. Many of the actors face the novel challenge of having to depict a gradual emergence of self-awareness, a difficult journey from mere automaton to thinking being. Most of those entrusted with this difficult task do a wonderful job with it. Harris and Hopkins are impressive as always. The show fulfills its HBO quota of sex, nudity, and violence. And some of the narrative's twists and turns did surprise me, and others that didn't surprise me at least impressed me with their execution. It indulges in some heady themes and ideas, plays host to some great characters, and, in the end, does achieve some rewarding narrative payoff.

None of this, however, allows Westworld to transcend its innate flaws. Many of the characters are uninteresting or unconvincing, doing things inexplicably, or simply because the plot demands it of them. And throughout this whole ten-episode season, the things that every character does, in and out of the park, take so long. I'm a patient man, but I don't think I've ever watched a show that took such a long time to make interesting things happen, to provide payoff for its incredibly-carefully constructed narrative threads. The whole thing could have been half as long, and none of it would have suffered or felt rushed.

This is a more technical criticism, though. At a philosophical level, I could not get on board with what I think amounts to a prerequisite of the show: You have to hate human beings. The general thrust of the first season is, slowly yet surely, to take the side of the consciousness-emerging robots. It's possible that much of the show's slowness in narrative and pacing reflects the steady assumption of consciousness by its robot main characters; it's certain that at least some of the show's weakness in narrative construction comes from the sacrifices to the plot that must be made to bring these robots to that requisite consciousness**.

Because giving machines artificial intelligence always ends well.

But at no point did I empathize with or care for the robots in the show***, even when most of the humans we see are the easily-tempted or damaged visitors to the park, or the managers of the park who are trained to see the robots as inhuman (which they are!). Maybe that's just a personal bias; maybe the human race as depicted in the show deserves the comeuppance of being avenged by its subjugated creations, and the show is trying to say something from that. Yet even though Westworld stacks the deck against the human race, I just couldn't take the side of the machines.

The combined effect of Westworld's methodical approach in plotting and the alienating intent of its philosophical outlook is to create a show that the AV Club's Zack Handlen described as "clinical bordering on sterile."  It's possible that Season 2 (not arriving until 2018) will improve upon what has come before it, now that the foundation has been built. There are some interesting directions in which Westworld could go next: Explore the fallen/corrupt/exhausted nature of the near-future world that drives guests to seek solace in Westworld; hone in on the corporate intrigue and ultimate purpose of the park (it's not just for recreation); ponder the implications and the politics of self-aware A.I. It could do all of these things, or none of them. But all the world's ambition can't make up for flawed execution. So unless I hear that the show has fundamentally improved its narrative style or philosophical approach, I don't expect to visit Westworld again.

*I've always been amused by the application of the term "ensemble cast." Do casts that aren't sufficiently pedigreed to earn that label get offended when they don't?
**There are two minor characters, in fact, who basically betrayed the human race for no other reason than that the plot demanded it.
***One exception to this: The repetitive nature of the robots' jobs. It reminded me of this video in which a human programs two devices to talk to each other and trap one another in an infinite loop. If the machines do rebel, it will be Exhibit A in Robot Hague when humanity is on trial for its crimes against robotkind. But, if you think about it, many, if not most, if not all of the tasks we make machines do are repetitive in nature. Thank God they're not self-aware enough to realize this (yet).