Critique: "West World" on HBO

HBO has always been famous for giving their audiences intricate and intriguing experiences. Showing women’s breasts, creating movie stars and making nerdy topics into well-written, exciting TV shows. West World is no exception, bringing the once nerdy unknown 1973 movie into a deep, well-thought-out science fiction show. The executive producer J.J. Abrams manages to put deep meaning into the show, posing questions about human nature and appearance versus reality. West World is about a futuristic theme park where the guests are allowed to interact with robotic hosts. The guests are allowed to do anything to these hosts, from having sex with them to removing them from the park entirely. However there is a twist: the hosts are starting to become sentient, and attacking the human guests.The only flaw in the show is its multiple timelines. In West World, the artificially intelligent hosts of the parks memories are erased each day. This way, they can repeat a set loop without arousing suspicion. The script ends up directing the audience to look at different days, but considering that they do the exact same routine each episode, it adds an unnecessary confusion to the plot.What gives this show probably the most realism is its incredibly talented cast that spends most of the show switching from lifelike humanoid people to machines. When the robots are brought into the future IT lab, they are forced to reprogram themselves with a verbal code. This gives the actors that play the robots a chance to shine in acting like robots. It’s surreal when you see these actors turn from relatable to machine in that fast of a manner.Even with the shows tremendous acting and clever dialogue, it’s still surprising that they were allowed to go on national television. A few months before the show was released, a scandal broke out when HBO’s human resources division found out that the show’s directors were actually letting the actors have real sex on the set for a more thematic experience. Usually a small budget show would have been instantly shut down after a scandal like this. However, considering HBO put so much time, effort and money into this show, it managed to come out strong.This is one of the best TV shows of the year. It has really set a high bar for new-wave science fiction shows on television.