Every four years or so, Patrick Calderon decides he will stop being stubborn and will at last listen to my TV/movie recommendations. Recently, he finally caved and binge-watched all two seasons of the HBO show Westworld.

Given how hard it has been to convince Patrick and a few other friends to get into this show, I decided to make an introductory blogpost, for any of you who are on the fence. As the title of this post suggests, I like Westworld. Actually, in fact, so does Patrick now thus the title we like Westworld.

Now, in before any “to be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand…” posts, I will say Westworld is definitely the kind of show where you need to be a little patient and give yourself time to put the pieces together. It is a “puzzle” show, with flashbacks, recurring themes, and subtle hints. But, I do find many websites exaggerate the “level of difficulty” of the show. You don’t need any background on AI, metaphysics, or old-west movies to find the narrative very engaging. You just need to watch, and occasionally, think about what you watched.

The show is about an old-west theme park, where androids who very much look like human beings play the role of “hosts”, while rich humans can pay $40,000 a day to visit the park as “guests”. The humans can do as they please, and as you may guess, very few choose to spend their time playing cards or bird watching. There is a lot of naught stuff going on in the park…

Perhaps the most interesting catch here is that guests can shoot and “kill” hosts, but the reciprocal is not true. This creates a somewhat Marxian class struggle, where the guests exploit the hosts, seeing them, and treating them, as an inferior class of being. Of course, this interplay raises some questions: when the inevitable reality of sentient androids comes to our reality, will they be treated as an inferior class of beings? And if so, what could possibly go wrong?

I recently gave a group of High Schoolers a lecture on ethical dilemmas for young adults. The following is one of the hypothetical scenarios I challenged them with:

You are the CEO of a pharmaceutical company that has, for many years, been criticized for animal testing. Fed up with the critics, you turn to testing your products on a human-like, conscious, pain-feeling robot instead. Every day, different drugs are tested on the robot. Every day, the robot dies, more often than not, with excruciating pain. The robot’s memory is wiped, any damaged repaired, and the robot is turned on again, repeating the cycle. Is this scenario better or worse than testing on animals?

There was no consensus, of course. Some refused to think of a robot as more than a pile of metal. Some others suggested maybe pain could be un-programmed from the robot, and then they would be OK with it. Some others thought it was no better than testing it on animals or other humans: pain was pain. In preparation for my lecture, I spoke to a professor of physics who is currently writing a book on artificial intelligence. He thought the question was probably a bit too abstract and vague, but it pointed to a very legitimate question: is a hypothetical robot with human-like feelings entitled to human-like rights? Westworld is not afraid to explore this question in vivid, graphic, and brutal ways.

If this seems interesting to you, I will add the cherry on top. The producers of the show crafted each season to feel like its own encapsulated narrative, each with a beginning, middle and end. Though those phases may be out of order in the show’s narrative style, Westworld does feel like two related, but separate movies, each with its own theme and tone.

In summary: Westworld is good, and if you are on the fence about watching it, you should give it a try. It is a show with enough depth to keep you wondering, and enough action to keep you on the edge of your seat. The show features stunning cinematography, a wonderful music score, and an outstanding cast that includes Anthony Hopinks, Ed Harris, and Evan Rachel Wood, to name a few. So, next time you find yourself with twenty hours of free time, you now know what do to.

Much to my sadness, this post has been in no way, shape of form reviewed by, sponsored, or paid by HBO, Lisa Joy, or Jonathan Nolan. Furthermore, they will likely never know of the existence of this post, or of my being. In the unlikely scenario they do somehow stumble upon this, may it be known that I am a fan and would in no way complain about getting free merchandise of the show shipped to my house.

P.S: Thank you David Alan Haimes Jr., our loyal friend and follower, for introducing me to the show in 2016.