Westworld Season 2 Review: 10 Spoiler-Free Reactions To The First Five Episodes

5. Shogun World Is Good Fun

Westworld Shogun World
HBO

When the letters 'SW' first appeared in Season 1, along with a couple of Samurai-style warriors, everyone naturally assumed we'd be seeing SamuraiWorld. Not quite, as instead - as has been heavily hyped by the marketing - it's actually named ShogunWorld, and is influenced by various elements of Japanese history, culture, and fantasy.

We don't spend too much time there in the opening episodes, but what we do gives us a good flavour of the place and its inhabitants. It's shot differently to make it almost instantly clear that we're in a different world, and then has a lot of fun in further fleshing that out.

It's here the show displays more creativity in its production and especially costume design, it allows the action sequences to be freshened up with thrilling swordfights rather than guns blaring, and Djawadi's music is fantastically fitting. There are as many as six parks we could visit over the course of the show, and they each need to feel fresh and distinct yet still plausibly connected to each other. That's no easy feat, but ShogunWorld makes a good start of pulling it off.

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Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.