The series — with a solid logical foundation and world-building — is lovingly crafted, marrying its Wild West aesthetic with cold sci-fi elements of the labs that run the park in a way that feels believably connected … The series even broaches philosophical musings, à la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as to whether it would be better to live a safe life where our pain is erased, or a life of free will with all of its mistakes and hurt. The choice is not always clear. Like Game of Thrones, Westworld is a sprawling story, but it’s never as disparate as the world of Westeros and what lies beyond the Narrow Sea. What matters here is the notion that everything is contained, intimate, and carefully crafted, and fans of Crichton will immediately feel the familiarity with his most famous stories’ themes: where what we overly-confident Homo sapiens create and try and control quickly spirals out beyond our abilities. We are not gods, only tinkerers, and the characters of Westworld are starting to learn that trying to control what we don’t understand can lead to catastrophic effects.
