Westworld Season 1 Review – Part I (Binge in the time of Corona)

I was recently persuaded by several reviewers to give the first season of Westword a shot. I knew the second season ran off the track into a puppy orphanage, and the third was making a cadaver collage from the remains, but the first season was said to be great. Deep characters engaged in a complex existentialist narrative packed with gratuitous sex and violence. With names like Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, and James Marsden I was expecting B+ with light showers of awesome. I was not expecting a shitstorm. I was not expecting to be so thoroughly disappointed by each and every aspect of the show. I cannot recommend this show, or even this season, to anyone, for any reason. Only die-hard westerns buff might dig the over the top gunfights straight out of Wild Wild West, but that about it. I’m here to make sure your time is not wasted on crap, this show attempts to lure viewers with empty promises, and it will not have my support in any way, not even in silence. This show was always bad and here’s why:

The Title Sequence

The first hole in the boat presents itself before a single word is spoken with the opening title sequence showing zero restraint. The sequence depicts unfinished guest bodies being built and afterward tested, performing different activities, oblivious to their artificiality.

The musical theme and visuals convey the existential loneliness of the hosts, constructed to suffer, playthings in the hands of cruel gods, thinking themselves real only for their pains and pleasures to be more delicious to the customers. And then we see two hosts screwing as they are begin built by the 3D printer and the immersion is taken behind the shed for a shotgun tasting.

What factory is building and testing products at the same time? This would be the equivalent of test-driving a car while installing the brake pads. All other hosts were either built or tested. The title sequence was doing its job, I was about to accept the world and become immersed. So why the change? Because the creators don’t trust the viewer to become emotionally invested in characters through the intricate plot and visual storytelling. Nope, title sequence must assure the viewer that nudity is coming, that this is dark sex fantasy, that this world is so cartoonishly cruel that sex is mechanically bought and sold, ha ha ha, maniacal laugh, mustache twirl. Otherwise, the viewer might tune out in the 20 minutes of the first episode before the first pair of tits. Before a single word is spoken the show is already hacked out shlock that disrespects the intelligence of the audience. Where does it go from here?

The Sex is Boring

There is no easy way of saying this, HBO sex is boring. It might have been sexy during Sex and the City and got a bit racy with the first seasons of True Blood, got boring and then bore right through Game of Thrones. I think we all want more than we did 22 years ago. It’s always the same, flexible women saying seducing lines and then missionary or doggy style.

Woman on top was such a revelation that it was a plot point for Khaleesi in season 1 of Game of Thrones. The mating is usually straight with an occasional sprinkling of gay or bi. Given how urgent it was to shove sex into the opening sequence, you’d think it would be better, dirtier, more authentic. Where is the S&M? Where is squirting? Where is fisting, orgasm denial, older women, voyeurism, erotic asphyxiation? For fuck’s sake and for the sake of fuck, somebody lock the creators in a room with Pornhub until they get in touch with their libido. This is Red Shoe Diary level sex, except when it’s time to throw in the violence. We see women get killed during sex, implied to get raped, kill when they are about to get raped we see Tessa Thompson using sex as psychological warfare against a female subordinate, but we can’t see a woman having an honest, hard orgasm.

I guess HBO doesn’t want its viewers understanding that they don’t really know what a woman looks like when she’s Cumming. So far porn is far sexier and more empowering than this dribble (and the plot is on about the same level).