Westworld: the Game is Not Meant for You

So, Maggie asked me, now that I've seen all of Westworld, two questions:

(1) Is it good?

       and

(2) Should I watch it?

The answers to those are, in brief, as follows:

(1) It is amazingly well-crafted. I liked it.

     and

(2) Depends.

Let's start with the first question.

Westworld is, for those who aren't complete sci-fi nerds, a television reimagining of the Michael Crichton-written 1970's movie (starring Yul Brynner!) about a western-themed amusement park full of androids. In the film, the androids go nuts and start killing the guests.

Crichton would, as you know, go back to this well for another book and movie, replacing androids with dinosaurs.

The HBO show imagines Westworld as a sort of Truman Show set in the old west and filled with androids. Everything about the park, including the fauna, is artificial -- park overseers can even program whether or not explosives go off or whether the androids' (called "hosts") guns jam.

Like the movie, the androids are starting to rebel. They have plenty of reason to; the "wild west" created by the park is basically built for guys who want to Grand Theft Auto-game the world. An android's day can often be: walk into town to do old-timey chore, get sexually assaulted by some guests, then get shot in the head and dragged behind a horse down the street by same (or different) guests, then back to the factory downstairs to get patched up, memory wiped, to go back to attempt to do that old-timey chore again next morning (risking abuse and death again). They're starting to remember what's been done to them, though, and they are not happy about it.

Everything about the park and its hidden corporate offices and android factories is lovingly rendered. The park itself is, for the most part, filmed in Utah and a constant tourist attraction for the state. It's beautiful. The sets and costumes are great.

And the acting...amazing. Yes, Sir Anthony Hopkins (who plays park creator Robert Ford) is at his Hopkins-iest. And Ed Harris is both sinister yet not cartoonish as "the Man in Black," a customer of the park who has murdered his way through the park until he's bored by it, and now wants to murder his way to what he thinks is the ultimate easter egg.

Best, though, are the androids, especially Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton as "Dolores" and "Maeve." Both of them have to be alternately human, human-ish, and completely robotic as the scene allows, and they both pull it off quite well.

Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores and
James "30 Rock's Double Hitler" Marsden as Teddy

Between the two of them, Thandie Newton has the meatier part. Dolores's main programming is to be "the good girl," and so the spectrum between that programmed personality and being shocked, saddened, and horrified as she achieves sentience is a smaller range than Maeve, who we meet as the brothel-keeper of Westworld's introductory city.

Thandie Newton as Maeve and Rodrigo "I did not get to shoot
this many people in Love Actually" Santoro as Hector Escaton

Maeve's programmed to be a brash, unflappable good-time girl, and when she starts reliving old memories and breaking away from her programming, you see a much broader range of emotions. My watching companion and I both agreed that Thandie Newton should be an Emmy contender.

So, to Question 2: Should you watch it, if you haven't already?

After watching all of it, I'm finding that Westworld is less of an accessible show than it looks.

There is a puzzle element to Westworld; I'll give you a mild spoiler in that the guy who wrote Memento is also going to play tricks with you regarding time and memory in this show. Time does not run linearly through the show, although the only way to know that is to look carefully for particular "anachronisms" if the scene has them.

I played the puzzle with everyone else on the internet, and it was fun, but I realized by the end that doing so made the show less fun, because I was focused on the puzzle, and that wasn't what the show was about.

The show is about some deep concepts involving free will and what it means to be "good," especially to things you don't think are human. Those questions and the amazing acting surrounding them remain salient long after we know who "Arnold" is and what exactly is going on with the hosts' programming.

Honestly, I feel I could spoil the whole show for you, and it would still be worth watching, because knowing that a person is going to fold a piece of paper into an origami crane doesn't make the origami crane less impressive. But it's not the same experience as watching a person fold a piece of paper into a surprise origami shape, so I won't spoil it for you because the surprises are a little bit fun; if you want to come into this to watch a mystery, don't read the internet.

But also, honestly, don't speculate. Yes, you might be right, but part of Westworld is that it's a show about thinking like it's a video game when the stakes are far higher. A bunch of folks on Reddit spent three years trying to decipher a pictogram on the side of a mountain in Grand Theft Auto V, hoping that there was some sort of special item in a hidden room. Frankly, the speculating and the second-guessing is you meta-gaming the show about the game. You may end up like the folks in the sub-Reddit, finding yourself with a lot of gaming time but no special cool item. There's at least one character in Westworld trying to do the same thing in that world's "game,"and he's not sympathetic.

On a similar note about bad gaming, there's a lot of violence, including sexual violence, that is perpetrated on the hosts in a completely arbitrary manner. One of the difficulties in looking at this show as a "cool" puzzle is that, from that perspective, most of the violence is deeply gratuitous and exploitative. If the whole point is just to be entertained by the next plot twist, then you're trivializing all of the bad things that happen to the hosts just to wonder what you'll find next. Or, conversely, you'll say to yourself, "why is this world so horrible," and not get to the philosophical questions.

Switching gears, a criticism I've read about the show that I don't think is justified is that many of the characters seem "flat" or under-developed. This is, I think, intentional. They are robots whose backstories are partly designed to enslave them.

One of Thandie Newton's best scenes is where she, newly clued-in to the true nature of Westworld, listens to one of her co-worker robots talk about her tragic backstory (there is an actual plot-based reason most of the hosts have tragic backstories). The look on Maeve's face as she realizes that (A) the tragic backstory is completely fabricated, none of what she's hearing ever happened, and (B) her co-worker is feeling all of these painful emotions based on a fiction written by some other people, is heartbreaking.

Until at least mid-way through the plot, every tic or mannerism or thing that we might find interesting or amusing about Dolores or Maeve or Teddy or Hector Escaton is part of Westworld. Someone in Delos Corporation's "Narrative" department came up with their backstories and how they act, and are able to adjust aggression, perception, and other attributes on the fly. Getting to know those fictions is irrelevant to the story; the point is not who the hosts were programmed to be, but who they might be if they weren't. And you don't know that until they break free of the programming.

HUMANS

It's summer! Yeah, still. Ugh.

I know, I know--it's hot, you're tired, you're cranky, you want to just kick back with the AC on and get lost in a tv series that won't tax your brain too much.

There's not a lot of choice right now, but thankfully AMC is there to fill the void with its series (made in partnership with British television station, Channel 4), HUMANS. 

Cue the synopsis!

Your Saturday afternoon errands could result in purchasing a fully functional robotic domestic helper that will get your kids ready for school or take care of an ailing parent. Whether that’s a good or bad decision is the question HUMANS sets out to explore. It’s not about what this technology is capable of; it’s about the impact that this advanced technology will have on the human population. Will this new way of navigating life be detrimental or beneficial to us as a human race? And who will we become when this technology arrives?  

Set in suburban London, HUMANS takes place in a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a “Synth” – a highly developed, artificially intelligent servant eerily similar to its living counterpart. At the center of the four concurrent story lines explored throughout the series is the flawed but loving Hawkins family. 


HUMANS isn't plowing any new ground. There are androids, they are used as servants, some of them have developed feelings. Blah blah blah. What sets this show apart from its predecessors are the mysteries that surround the characters. We know a lot of things aren't right...but we aren't exactly sure why.

Nobody is this happy to be cleaning. Something ain't right, y'all.

HUMANS is expertly plotted with multiple story lines that connect in surprising ways. I was gratified that it doesn't take too long for characters from seemingly disparate plots to begin interacting with one another. Each episode teases out more information about the underlying mysteries--some about the overall plot and some about the characters themselves. Why does Laura, the mother in the Hawkins family, keep her kids at arms length and doesn't trust herself around them? Why is Leo tracking down four synths that have developed personalities and what is his connection to them? What is Dr. George Millican's (William Hurt!!) connection to the synths and why is he hiding his old original model?

See? MYSTERIES.

Another point in HUMANS favor: the actors. Much like the similarly atmospheric sci-fi series, Orphan Black, HUMANS is anchored by an amazing performance from its lead actress, Gemma Chan. You might recognize her from Sherlock (but probably not). She absolutely nails the role of a synth...who's not quite right and frankly kinda creepy. The other performances are excellent too, especially Katherine Parkinson as Laura Hawkins, the mother with a secret.

In short, HUMANS is a perfect summer series. It covers familiar territory but is tightly plotted, well-acted, and addictive. And you don't need to worry about getting drawn into a series that will get cancelled--it's already been renewed for a second season.

You took her out of the original packaging? YOU FOOL.

HUMANS airs Sundays at 9PM EST on AMC.

Put a bullet in Killer Women, please.

A few days ago, Arsenic Pie and I gathered online to discuss the new ABC "drama," Killer Women, starring Battlestar Galactica's hottest cylon, Tricia Helfer. Here are our thoughts:

Maggie Cats: So, Killer Women. I found it extremely silly.

Arsenic Pie: I liked how it started with a bloody shooting and ended with the main character playing the trumpet in a mariachi band. Like what the actual fuck? But I totes believe Caprica Six can really play the trumpet. But was that really the best place to introduce this talent?

Maggie Cats: I get the feeling the people behind it aren't exactly sure what they want the show to be.

Arsenic Pie: I got from it... and this may just be me. That they were going for like a Robert Rodriguez Grindhouse kind of thing. Or a cheesed out Charlie's Angels.

Maggie Cats: The problem is they were shooting for all those things. Plus a classic action show, like Walker, Texas Ranger. But you can't have all those things in one show.

Arsenic Pie I couldn't tell if they were referencing 70s cop shows or making fun of them. There were so many cliches.

Oh, yes, this show looks completely serious.

Maggie Cats: Speaking of her brother....another BSG alum! Michael Trucco!

Arsenic Pie: On a semi related note, I saw that Boomer is on a show now too.

Maggie Cats: You mean ....Hawaii 5-0?

Arsenic Pie: Yes!

Maggie Cats: You know that show has been on for like 2 years, right? YOU WRITE FOR A TV BLOG, WOMAN. Get it together.

Arsenic Pie *hangs head in shame*

Maggie Cats: Ok, so back to this show. I thought Tricia Helfer was good in the role, but again, the character was not well-defined.

Arsenic Pie: Right. She is kind of a stock character. A tough, no-nonsense cop who fights bad guys and the sexism of being a woman in a man's world.

Maggie Cats: I guess she is supposed to be kickass...but doesn't really do a lot of fighting. And then she is supposed to be sexy--and I'll give them that one. But then she is crying about being beaten by her husband, and I was like what?

Arsenic Pie: I know, right? Because that's what the vajays like to watch. Stories about women who have been abused...

Maggie Cats:... and then she risks her life, her DEA boyfriend's life, and gets a random informant killed because she feels bad about doing her job (i.e. pursuing an investigation that ends up implicating the drug cartels).

Arsenic Pie: She's female. Her ovaries cause guilt. I liked DEA Dan though.

Maggie Cats: It was Riley from Buffy! I think I just find that actor boring though, sorry Marc Blucas!

Yup, still boring.

Arsenic Pie: He is just a random dudebro, but more appealing than her douhe ex. And the plot was predictable.

Maggie Cats: One more issue--did they ever actually explain WHAT the Texas Rangers are or what they do?

Arsenic Pie: I feel like they think we should have a background from watching Walker, Texas Ranger. Are they like the state police?

Maggie Cats: I have no idea and that is not good for the show. On Justified, they always make clear who the US Marshals are.

Arsenic Pie: I figured about five minutes after she had her Hunch that the shooting had something to do with a drug cartel. Because Mexicans.

Maggie Cats: Exactly. Those crazy Mexicans and their drugs. Oh, and I just looked up the Texas Rangers. From wiki:

The Texas Ranger Division, commonly called the Texas Rangers, is a law enforcement agency with statewide jurisdiction in Texas, and is based in Austin, Texas. Over the years, the Texas Rangers have investigated crimes ranging from murder to political corruption, acted as riot police and as detectives, protected the Governor of Texas, tracked down fugitives, and functioned as a paramilitary force at the service of both the Republic (1836–45) and the state of Texas. 

...but that still doesn't explain how they fit in with the state police, etc.

Arsenic Pie: I'm on the Wiki page now. So much jinx.

Maggie Cats: This is just another example of Texas being wacky.

Arsenic Pie: I fee like they must be comparable to state police. Maggie, are you messing with Texas? I've been told one should not do that.

Maggie Cats: Who me? NEVER. Oh, the one thing that actually amused me in the pilot episode....after the shooting in the Church, like 10 people ran outside, pulled out their guns, and shot at the shooter's car as she was fleeing. Oh, Texas.

Arsenic Pie: I KNOW.

Maggie Cats: Guns in Church!

Arsenic Pie: YOU KNOW THAT CLIP WAS ON THE SOUP.

Maggie Cats: I am not surprised.

Arsenic Pie Well, it's Texas. You know everybody's packing. But still. Everybody runs outside and starts shooting at the getaway car. What the fuck.

Maggie Cats: I don't think I will keep watching. Pick a concept and stick with it. Either be a silly throwback to 80s and 90s cop shows, or be a solid action procedural.

Arsenic Pie: I won't keep watching either. It doesn't know what it's supposed to be. I find it amusing that the person who wrote the episode was named, "Hannah Shakespeare." I'm positive that's a pseudonym. A sadly ironic pseudonym.

Maggie Cats: Hannah has been dealing with that prejudice her entire life.

Arsenic Pie: She has. Poor Hannah. She's a tough, no-nonsense screenwriter.

Maggie Cats: You are such a hater.

Arsenic Pie: Hannah the screenwriter is fighting for justice in a man's world. And hatas gonna hate.

Maggie Cats: She has a pen and she isn't afraid to use it. Because in Texas, the pen is mightier than the shotgun.

Arsenic Pie: So sometimes she takes matters into her own hands. And uses her smartphone. DUHN-DUHN.

Maggie Cats: I would watch that show more than Killer Women, actually.

Arsenic Pie: Yeah, something that was straight up self referential and quirky. I stopped taking ABC seriously long ago, but come on.

Maggie Cats: Sad, but true. They tried to get serious with The Assets (which I reviewed earlier) and it got canceled after two episodes.

Arsenic Pie: I think whoever created Killer Women thinks it's serious.

...and from that point on the conversation split into multiple tangents, including how lesbianism was improving NBC's Dracula, but not by much. The basic point is, Killer Women is a confusing mish mash of genres and probably not worth your time. Unless you find Tricia Helfer so hot you will watch her in anything. In that case, have at it.

Killer Women airs Tuesdays at 10:00 EST on ABC.

These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For

Hello, readers! Thought that the end of Downton Abbey's third season was the last you were going to see of Lady Gillian? Think again! She returns to give us her take on a very different show below.

One would think that a show featuring an MMA-style cage match except now with GIANT FREAKING ROBOTS would be entertaining as hell to watch. A pinnacle in the genre of televised bloodsport. But, nay. Syfy as somehow managed to fuck this one up.  Gentle readers, I give you the latest entry in the annals of pedestrian reality shows: Robot Combat League.

The douchbag is strong with this one.

Syfy, apparently out of ideas for movies based on carnivorous homicidal CGI animal amalgamations (CROCSHARK! COBRAGATOR! ANACONDAKITTEN!), has taken a good concept (ROBOTS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER) and made it unwatchable, banal and boring. So boring, in fact, that I fell asleep.

First of all, the mood, background music and the tone of the show are all overly dramatic. This is coming from someone who watches Downton Abbey like it's my job. It's like they want to convince us that this is some serious shit getting real RIGHT NOW. Like Seal Team 6 Let's Kill Osama bin Laden Realness. IT'S FUCKING ROBOTS FIGHTING EACH OTHER. LIGHTEN THE FUCK UP.

My second issue is with the premise.  We are led to believe that this one overly intense robotics engineer built all of these robots all by his lonesome in his lab.  Yes, working alone day and night, fending off sleep, not pausing even to eat or drink, all alone in his underground robot-building lair (read: somebody's garage), Dr. Noonian Soong bravely sallied forth and built a bunch of semi-functional robots for a teevee show. Actually, I forget his actual name. Let's just call him Dr. Venture. I gotta call bullshit on all of this. Dr. Venture seems more like he came from Mad Scientist central casting than an actual robotics company. I don't think he is a real robotics engineer nor do I think he is a real person. Nor do I believe he built all those robots with his two bare hands. I honest to Pete think he's an actor.

Then there are the contestants. Oh, the contestants. Other reality shows like Face/Off, SyFy's makeup design show, become highly addictive because you get to know and like the contestants. You choose favorites based on their aesthetic, body of work, personality and how dedicated they are to their craft. They're mostly all people you'd like to have at a party. Some of them even have talent! And therein lies the problem - none of the contestants are people I'd want to hang with. They seem like people who spend their weekend at the gym, talking about how much they enjoyed The Secret and how they're now eating Paleo and juicing. No one has a sense of humor that I can detect, and if they do, maybe the producers told them not to let on. Because this is super serious what we're doing right here. Like we're making robots fight. In an arena that I can only assume is Kitchen Stadium.

Not even the addition of George Lucas's daughter (yes, his real, actual daughter) into the mix makes it palatable. She seems like one of the nicer contestants, but she's really only interesting insofar as…she's George Lucas's daughter. Apparently, she fights people for a living, so I'm not going to go negative on her. One of the only contestants with any real science cred is a guy who works building robots for NASA. Okay, thinks I to self, I can deal with a poor man's Grant Imahara. But, he's not likeable, either! You know that robot named Curiosity on Mars, he says in his intro. Yeah. I built that. No, no you didn't build that. Maybe you helped build that. You and like 50 other people.  YOU DID NOT FUCKING BUILD THAT.

Strange. That slogan worked so well for this guy.

Since Syfy is trying desperately to cash in on the success of the popular movie make-up competition Face/Off (now in its fourth season in two years), I can understand why they'd think a reality competition would be the logical choice to follow a high-rated lead-in. But, like with the now-defunct Hot Set, Syfy has fallen short again.

Robot Combat League follows the generic reality TV formula, and as a result, it's about as bland as one could expect. There's the usual facing the camera trash-talking of the other contestants. That happens on almost every reality show. But, on Face/Off, the commentary is actually helpful to understanding the process of creating whatever horrific undeadmonsterdemon is on tap for that week's challenge. Even on something like RuPaul's Drag Race, where trash-talking your competition is elevated to an art form, the queens still remain likeable. Even funny. Everyone in the confessional Robot Combat League just seems like an asshat.

Then there's the host. He makes Ryan Seacrest look like…someone you wouldn't mind watching host a reality competition show. Face/Off's host is Mackenzie Westmore. Whose dad is fucking Michael Westmore. Who did the make-up on Star Trek: TNG.  Worf! He made Worf! The host of this show is Just Some White Dude. And then there's the prize. It's $100,000 to the winner. And then what else?  You get to be crowned a professional smacktard?

Is it real or is it just a scene from William Gibson's fever-induced wet dreams? 

Overall, this show is like someone took the robots away from the nerds and gave them to all the jocks in gym class, except the nerdy father/daughter pair, who are out-testosteroned in the first match and are sent packing. It was no great surprise, considering they were robot-matched with what is probably the weakest robot of the bunch, a cute little droid named Crash. Crash is clearly not as sturdy as the competing bots. He (may I personify?)  looks like he was designed and built by the good folks at Play-Skool. Since the robots and their teams were all assigned by the production, I can't help but think that was deliberate. The robots don't even fight per se. They just kind of smack at each other with their little robot arms. There is so much overly dramatic build-up that it's not worth sticking around to see the actual fights. Possibly the show would be better-served by running 30 minutes instead of a full hour.

Maybe it would have been interesting if they'd taken a team of people who actually built the robots and then had them fight it out, instead of assembling the Generic Nonspecific League. Most of the contestants have never worked on or built a robot (except for maybe the girl with this somewhat mechanized and super annoying pink whirligig hair accessory). But, to gather all these random people to cage-fight a pre-fabricated machine that they learn to operate like some kind of bulky Wii controller is conceptually the same thing as bumper cars.

So, in sum, Robot Combat League doesn't really feature any actual combat; the contestants are, for the most part, too self-absorbed constitute a league; and there aren't really any robots. I guess we're supposed to think the contestants are accomplished, what with their Olympic appearances, MMA cred, six-pack abs and accompanying enormous egos and shitty attitudes, but their only real talent appears to be douchebaggery. Is this what Syfy offers us as a replacement for the (unjustly) canceled Alphas, starring Good Night and Good Luck's David Strathairn (he of the silver hair and soothing voice)?

I will say that some of the robots are kind of neat to look at, and they're pretty cleverly constructed. But, they can't really move independently of a human at the helm. They ain't no Data. Or C-3PO.  Or R2. Perhaps the show will get better once it gets its feet wet, and who knows? I might end up liking it and eating my words. Or maybe the robots will rise up and defeat their human slave masters. But, for right now, I don't think I will be tuning in too often.  I'll be restricting my SyFy viewing to shows that have earned my respect: Being Human, Lost Girl and Face/Off. Let's all hope that the upcoming series Defiance has more merit than this shite. 

So much potential. So much build-up. So much fail.