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Westworld

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 113 Critic Reviews

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71

USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 299 Ratings

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8.0

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8.0	Your Score
8.0	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 299 Ratings

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Westworld

Now Playing: Westworld

Westworld

Series Details & Credits

HBO | SKA | Release Date: October 2, 2016

Summary: The sci-fi western series from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy was inspired by the 1973 Michael Crichton film of the same name and is set at a Wild West theme park created by Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) with human-like androids where guests are encouraged to indulge their desires.

Genre(s): Drama, Action & Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Watch Now

Stream On

Recent Episodes

4.3
S4:E8. Que Será, Será
Air Date: August 14, 2022
tbd
S4:E7. Metanoia
Air Date: August 7, 2022
tbd
S4:E6. Fidelity
Air Date: July 31, 2022

See all Seasons and Episodes

Metascore

71

Positive:

80

Mixed:

31

Negative:

2

Critic Reviews

100

San Francisco Chronicle

David Wiegand

Apr 17, 2018

Season 2 Review: There is plenty of action and violence in the first half of the season, but what will empower the show’s longevity is its metaphysical theme, the exploration of the meaning and definition of human existence. Read full review

90

Reason.com

Glenn Garvin

Oct 1, 2016

Season 1 Review: Westworld is a bonafide E-ticket of a show. Read full review

80

The Daily Beast Nandini Balial

Jun 27, 2022

Season 4 Review: The polarizing drama about cowboys, robots, and free will is finally good again. Even the handful of flaws in the first four episodes HBO made available to critics, while irritating, don’t distract from that familiar one-two punch of puzzlement and shock. Read full review

75

Boston Herald

Mark A. Perigard

Oct 3, 2016

Season 1 Review: You want to see the robots turn on their masters. Canny series creators Jonathan Nolan (co-writer of “The Dark Knight”) and Lisa Joy know it, and they cleverly string you along with some disturbing questions about human nature. Read full review

70

The New Yorker

Emily Nussbaum

Oct 17, 2016

Season 1 Review: Westworld is explicitly, and often wittily, an exploitation series about exploitation, full of naked bodies that are meant to make us think about nudity and violence that comments on violence. It’s the kind of trippy conceptual project that would be unbearable if it weren’t so elegantly made. So far, it works, mostly--not because it’s perfect but because it gets under your skin. Read full review

60

New York Magazine (Vulture)

Matt Zoller Seitz

Mar 13, 2020

Season 3 Review: It’s the most frustratingly not-quite-there show on TV: structurally bold, visually arresting, often brilliantly acted, show-off-ily erudite (to the point of having three rich folks argue the accuracy of a Plutarch quote during a society gala), and woefully predisposed to turn subtext into text. But its sense of dread is so effective that it draws even skeptical viewers into its narrative mazes. Read full review

30

Variety

Maureen Ryan

Sep 27, 2016

Season 1 Review: Westworld looks terrific; its directors have shot its Western locations to stunning effect. But its warmly saturated outdoor scenes and its surface slickness aren’t enough to mask the indecision, condescension, and hollowness at its core. Read full review

SEE ALL 113 REVIEWS

Write a Review

8.0

User Reviews

10

TroyNT

May 5, 2020

Love the latest season. Top notch production and well directed. Thought provoking, with actors/tresses having to take on several personalities. No, it may not fix your ADD craving. Might I recommend some cartoons for that.

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

10

artakxerx

Apr 22, 2020

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. One of the best existing TV shows. All three seasons in metaphorical form raise social, philosophical and religious issues at a decent level of storytelling. A mixture of science fiction, western - in the first two seasons and cyberpunk - in the third, with small deviations to the samurai, Indian and WW2 worlds, does not make the scenery boring and the picture always looks fresh and beautiful. The music from Ramin Djawadi is top notch as always.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

9

EdwardGryn

May 3, 2020

Probably the best sci-fi/anticipation series of our generation, featuring masterful acting, writing, set design and cinematography in the first two seasons. Grand.

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

6

Bubber

Jun 22, 2020

The first 2 seasons are great, however season 3 is disappointing and not worth your time.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

5

Dzimas

May 18, 2020

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Well, that was a thorough disappointment. I give it five stars because the first five episodes had me going, but the last three were awful and show just how much an impact J.J. Abrams has had on this series. There are so many things wrong with this season that it would take 50,000 and not 5000 characters to note them, but I will do my best.

Abrams pretty much let Nolan and Joy have their way in Season Two, so there wasn't a big drop off, but once this series moved outside the confines of the theme park, Abrams clearly wanted to have a larger role in shaping the story, and so we get this whole "God" thing, which was hinted at the end of Season Two. I almost wonder if he projected himself as Engerraund Serac. It sounds like the kind of pretentious name he would give himself.

This is what killed Lost, as Abrams became more obsessed with the theological aspect of the series, as played out by Jacob and Esau, than he was the science fiction and metaphysical underpinnings that had propelled the show for several seasons. A large part of it was that Lost had grabbed Evangelicals, and Abrams felt he could tap into a new audience. This seems to be the case with Westworld too, as its viewing audience began to sag in Season Two. Abrams clearly got wrapped up with this notion of fate v. free will. The theme existed in the series from the beginning but Nolan and Joy were much more subtle about it. They were more concerned with the existential dilemma that comes when you realize you are not real and that your emotions and actions are programmed. This was the case with the Man in Black at the end of the Season Two, when he was finally confronted with the fact that he was a host. One he clearly was not ready to accept.

For some reason, Nolan and Joy decided to drop that in Season Three and make William real again, as if this was only a copy of him existing in Westworld. That might have been OK if William had any real impact on the new season, but sadly he doesn't. He spends most of the time in a mental ward confronting demons of himself, only to be used in the last episode as some sort of bridge to a new season, for anyone still interested.

Instead, Abrams has coaxed Nolan and Joy into turning Westworld into a new battle of fate v. free will as played out by Dolores and Maeve, which Serac lords over like an angry Old Testament God, whose **** is becoming increasingly dark. He has been able to control the world through his algorithms and a giant data base known as Rehoboam, Biblically named of course. Unfortunately, there are still a few "outliers" like Caleb, which Dolores taps into in order fulfill her vision of a new world set free of this tyrannical hold. Dolores escaped with five pearls from Westworld. I had assumed one of them was Teddy and thought she might have planted this one in the host of Charlotte Hale, given how lovey/dovey they got at one point. But, as it turns out she only made copies of herself, except maybe Bernard, who moves along the edges of the action, never quite getting into the middle of it.

It turns out Dolores wants to use Caleb to bring the whole world down around Serac, who has silently staged a takeover of Delos from William so that he can have access to the vast data bank the company has compiled at Westworld. Apparently, Rehoboam still has some gaps. This would allow him to be rid of these pesky outliers once and for all. He has given Maeve a new body to bring Dolores to him, as she apparently holds the missing link inside her beautiful head.

Everything else is secondary and makes virtually no sense at all. Charlotte falls in love with her family, which I erroneously thought was the sympathetic Teddy inside her. Maeve tries to bring back Hector but to no avail. Ultimately, this is a catfight between Dolores and Maeve played out to the bitter end.

For all it mattered, they could have ended the series here, but Abrams is determined to squeeze all the juice out of the series for one more season, and gives us an ending pretty much the same as Season Two, only now with Charlotte calling the shots. It seems like Ed Harris will finally get his chance to reprise the Man in Black.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

3

signcontrast

Aug 17, 2022

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I wish I could give Westworld a higher rating. Season 1 was 9/10; Season 2 was 8/10; Season 3 was 6/10; and Season 4 was 3/10. What a mixed bag of potential slowly rotting away. This review, consequently, focuses on Season 4.

They need to reclaim what made Westworld good. In the beginning, it was aware of major issues in our world and had intriguing ways to help us reflect on those issues without cramming down our throats a simplified narrative full of bludgeoning symbolism. Season 4? Narrative symbolism now equates to: woman in red is fierce and villainous, with guards in apparent white bleeding bright red (to signify their humanity and to highlight the violence that results in her dream). A woman in black is the ultimate anti-hero. They kill each other and cancel each other out. Two strong black women leading the way, ultimate power symbols, unstoppably smart, strong, capable, etc. Counter that against: white abused woman with the power to change it all, trying to get over the pain this world has caused her (read: all the men that abused her), including the men that lord over her in her workplace and put up a literal glass ceiling, including the fiction of true love in her white male dreamboat. She gets advice from her black friend ally. The second antagonist - a white man. A man bent on destroying everything because he can't have it. There is some tiny reprieve for white men in the copy of a man father figure, but he can't join the new world because he doesn't belong. He's a (copy of) a white man. The future belongs to a mixed race lesbian couple as the writers would like us to celebrate. And the thing is, it's not that it would be bad to champion gender equality, sexual equality, or racial equality. It's that it's done so simplistically. The only character worth watching in this show is Bernard. He's the only one that doesn't stand for a simplified social justice identity meme. Maeve has been great up until Season 4, but now she's been simplified and discarded. I don't care what Dolores does or William or Hale. May the writers remember that first they're telling a story - a story full of rich, sometimes deeply flawed, sometimes simultaneously beautiful, people. Three dimensional people. We're not watching a prosaic essay on identity - or at least, not if we are choosing our viewing diet with some sense of care.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

0

ckgamer

Jul 4, 2022

season 4 is awful.. just cancel the entire season and fire the director and the writers.. wtf is this?

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

SEE ALL 58 REVIEWS

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Seasons & Episodes

71

Series Overview
Season 4

64
- Season 4 Overview
  Air Date: June 26, 2022
- 4.3
  S4:E8. Que Será, Será
  Air Date: August 14, 2022
- tbd
  S4:E7. Metanoia
  Air Date: August 7, 2022
- tbd
  S4:E6. Fidelity
  Air Date: July 31, 2022
- 9.5
  S4:E5. Zhuangzi
  Air Date: July 24, 2022
- tbd
  S4:E4. Generation Loss
  Air Date: July 17, 2022
- tbd
  S4:E3. Annees Folles
  Air Date: July 10, 2022
- tbd
  S4:E2. Well Enough Alone
  Air Date: July 3, 2022
- 7.0
  S4:E1. The Auguries
  Air Date: June 26, 2022
Season 3

tbd
- Season 3 Overview
  Air Date: March 15, 2020
Season 3

64
- Season 3 Overview
  Air Date: March 15, 2020
Season 2

76
- Season 2 Overview
  Air Date: April 22, 2018
Season 1

74
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: October 2, 2016