Artificial Intelligence seems to be the current plot device du jour for science fiction television and movies, with multiple series and features exploring what might happen when machines become sentient: Person of Interest, Humans, Her and Ex Machina (see our review) all being fascinating recent releases. And now TV heavyweight HBO, makers of the epic Game of Thrones, have stepped into the ring with Westworld, “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin”, starring the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, and Thandie Newton.
Westworld is based on the 1973 movie of the same name, written and directed by Michael Crichton, which tells the tale of an adult amusement park where visitors can engage in various elements of the ‘Wild West’ theme enacted by humanoid robots – and by engage, I mean do everything from fighting to screwing the androids. Which sounds pretty much right up HBO’s alley…
The series is being brought to television by Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar) and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company – the same pairing which produced Person of Interest. PoI’s multi-season run on CBS has been a hell of a fascinating story arc about artificial intelligence, punctuated by its fair share of mundane mainstream TV procedural elements – so I will be very interested to see what Nolan and company are able to do on a network with a bit more dedication to long-form story-telling.
Westworld will air in 2016.
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