The Original

Westworld gets one of the dream opening every series expects to get. The wonderful landscapes and the western background opening is the perfect opening it deserved. Great concept, good casting and amazing performances have delivered something really praise worthy. Evan Rachel Wood and Louis Herthum deliver master class performances which adds to the amazement because it is just the beginning and they have acted their heart out. This episode has the potential to blow your minds with the concept it is trying to tell which is beyond comprehension. The mystery factor and the secrets yet to be revealed adds to rje tension and excitement of the viewer. Surprise twists and the climax makes every viewer longing for more from the series.

The pilot of this series lived up-to expectations, with a nice set-up of theme park and well established characters within the theme park, who follow normal repetitive daily routine in the theme park with minor changes everyday.

The show gives viewer a perspective of normal old school western world in the beginning, only to bring out the sci-fi element swiftly in the story. At the beginning the sci-fi element seems quite normal, justifying the theme-park element of the story. But, eventually the pilot elaborated more on sci-fi element and gave audience a slight hint of self-developed instincts in some of the characters.

This show with its unique representation is going to dwell into different aspects of human behavior in conjunction with artificial intelligence. And will also elaborate on the philosophical as well as psychological outlook of human nature and its consequences.

One of the Show's And Pilot's best features (much like Game of Thrones) is that it distances itself to such a degree from anything you've seen before, that anything could happen. The particularly brilliant spin here is that even as we hope to learn the rules, glitches and human interference are pushing those rules aside, so it becomes a wonderfully maddening game of "the more we know the limits, the less there are limits." It plays off of the disconnect it forces you to have by virtue of its own world creation, by shifting these limits, and throwing out your natural reaction to what you're watching. It becomes an amazing dance, as you watch a gunfight while realizing that you don't know what you're supposed to do with it really, or what watching it means. You're used to watching gunfights while knowing the good guys are going to win, but this is a whole new game. 'Westworld' straddles the future and the past of your imagination. In the first episode we get to see this 'Westworld' and it's inhabitants. Guns, Bots, Beautiful girls and an uncertain future make for potential gold with this show. As always HBO delivers in the drama department once again

Like that long awaited locomotive pulling into Tucson for the first time, Westworld is finally here. Many at HBO have anticipated this day with just as much reverence and optimism as the 1880 denizens of that famous railroad town from the Old West, watching anxiously as the smoke clouds plumed beneath the fading Arizona light. Of course, in spite of the dust, horses, gunplay, and even coal-powered engine from that oft-romanticized era, Westworld is not a Western; nay, for all we know it's not even located in North America. This craftiness is on display in the very opening scenes where those familiar with Crichton's 1973 movie of the same name are thrown for a devious and perfectly orchestrated loop by Nolan (who also directed the episode) and Joy's script. For those who may never have seen the original Westworld, the general set-up is that two buddies from Chicago plan to get their rocks off by visiting Westworld. For one of them, it is his first time in town while the other is an old pro. Within minutes of arriving, however, they're both shooting Yul Brynner's infamous Gunslinger robot (the Man in Black) dead and being the toast of the town. Also, once more, it raises new insights about Dolores' purpose. She is apparently the oldest robot still operating in the park. She's "the original." That means she has a lifetime of reveries, decades of them, waiting to be awakened like her one-time father. Memories of abuse; memories of exploitation; memories of this world being far less than the vastness of rose-tinted potential. Where she, or the series, will go from there is still way too early to know. However, already the hooks are in. It is a very difficult thing, even for HBO's best shows, to grab viewers so completely in the first hour, but Westworld is firing without any blanks at the moment. Despite being based on a movie of meagre length, the premiere suggests a vast web of story threads to carry the series for what could easily be years to come.

Westworld has quickly become one of HBO's breakout hits. The show's not even two years old yet and it's still attracting new viewers who probably never saw the original film from 1973. The series is a serialised take on the original movie and tells a completely different story from it, but keeps the same philosophical questions and dilemmas in place.

'The Original' shows us that Westworld is a holiday attraction that's like the world's most seamless video game experience except the whole theme park consists of robots who actually believe they're part of the American Old West. This introductory episode is a beautifully shot and bloody affair that we've come to expect from HBO, and the delivery of this episode makes me wonder about the future of the series once it's no longer running side by side with Game of Thrones. I think Westworld easily has strong legs on its own.

Another golden chapter to HBO's ever-growing library of quality programming.