[fitkoh]

I have recently been watching Westworld. On the surface it's a sci fi with robots and artificial intelligence - nothing too special there. Yet underneath the special effects and dramatic storytelling, it brings to mind questions about choice and free will, and elegantly portrays the effects of classism on choice and free will in the modern world without being overly depressing. I was impressed by the way the script was executed throughout the three seasons produced thus far, changing milieus and evolving the characters in a natural but dynamic progression. Plot twists around every corner kept me hooked, without going too far off the base of what the show is about. Sometimes, you watch a show, and after a few seasons, things fall apart... the story starts to seem rushed or not well planned; but I never got that impression of Westworld. There's a fourth season planned but needless to say the shooting was thrown off course because of our little pandemic. Hopefully season 4 will debut sometime in 2022.

I enjoyed the series so much that I looked up some details about the production team, and it's actually based on a movie from the 70's written and directed by Michael Crichton; which helps to explain why the storytelling is so well done - the idea has had almost 50 years to "season," and the production team already had a working prototype to build on. I'll definitely plan on watching the original and seeing how it compares.