Westworld Premiere: 8 Ups And 2 Downs From 'The Original'

Downs...

2. A Lot Going On

Looking at what goes wrong with the first episode, and it's a similar problem that persists throughout many premieres - certainly, it's an issue that plagues Game of Thrones every season, and is something that comes with being the first.

The Original has to do a heck of a lot of work: it's introducing this huge, new, weird world, and all of the characters who inhabit it; outside of that, it's then got the people behind it making it happen, who have their own stories and motivations, while also interacting with the robots; it has to set up various conflicts; it has to begin establishing the rules of this universe; it also needs to tell an engaging, coherent story that will have people hooked, and want them to come back for more.

By-and-large Westworld manages this, but even with a running time of just over an hour it feels like there's a hell of a lot going on, and at-times a bit too much to keep up with. Storylines begin to repeat themselves, you're questioning reality, but meanwhile a shootout erupts, a guy gets killed, but doesn't die, it's a lot to take in. It's actually a credit that it does such a fine job on the whole, but it does suffer somewhat from trying to do so much.