Westworld

 Westworld is the story of a theme park in which rich tourists can inflict their most depraved fantasies on extremely humanoid robots.  In an age when sexbots and virtual reality glasses are about to be mainstreamed, this is a prescient topic.  My old news review is based on Season 1, the only one I've seen.

What's good: rather sophisticated meditations on the nature of consciousness and the implications of artificial intelligence, gorgeous scenery at all scales, excellent music, lots of apt and penetrating Shakespearean quotations delivered by talented actors, and those talented actors, including Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, and others that I did not recognize.  This series can suck you in.

What's not good:  A bloated and barely coherent plot that relies entirely too much on ugly Deus ex Machina.  For example, Harris plays a monstrously bloody sociopath in the early episodes, but the effort to give him meaningful motivation and backstory collapses into the ludicrous.  The graphic and depraved violence quickly satiates and repels.  Far too much of this series seems to cater to the same depraved instincts that the theme park does.

What's meh:  acres of nude flesh.  I found the tons of titties barely titillating and the numerous simulated sex scenes appeared calculated to make sex look boring - almost as bad as watching Lena Dunham's sex scenes on Girls.

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