Westworld is one of the most interesting TV series going on right now. While it may not be a slam dunk among critics the same way HBO’s other TV series, Game of Thrones is, it is still a massive cultural touchstone among the masses. Similar to Black Mirror, Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s — yes, he’s Christopher Nolan’s brother — Westworld is a thought-provoking show that causes its massive fanbase to rush to Reddit and discuss and debate theories the moment each episode ends.
Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have mentioned in the past that Westworld will use a format, unlike any other TV series before it. In a chat with HBO Asia, Nolan discusses in detail, the unique way he and his group of writers have gone about telling the Westworld story.
“We tackled it from the approach of telling a large story in chapters, and then each of those chapters would really have their own identity. They might even have their own genre. It’s the question of what story methodology works – as Ford would say, what’s the right story for the moment these characters are in? If the first season is a slow-burn psychological investigation into the idea of what artificial identity would look like, the second season is a sort of bloody revolution. Creatures who’ve been denied free will to this point, who get it, and then have to answer the question of, well now that you are self-determining, now that you’re in charge, what will you do? So, it has a different feeling and it has a different sensibility.”
While intriguing, Nolan’s experimental methods aren’t a surefire success. In fact, the second season has thus far proven to be more polarizing than the first, with many critics growing tired of the show’s obsession with multiple timelines. However, it is still very early in the season. If season 2 manages to stick its landing as well as season 1, then critics may just end up eating their words.
Watch Season 2 of Westworld same time as the U.S. every Monday, at 9 am on HBO (Astro Ch 411 / 431 HD) or the encore at 10 pm.
