‘Westworld’ 1.01 “The Original” Review: Violent Delights, Violent Ends

• Westworld the TV series is to Westworld the film as Jurassic World is to Jurassic Park

Bernard goes to meet with Ford to inform him of the update mistake. He is in his lab, where his machine is producing a “host.” Ford pontificates on the end of human evolution. I immediately recalled the legendary quote, “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

But, of course, we know this is the opposite of an end; it’s the beginning. The malfunction reaches Dolores father. Triggered by the photo discovery, he interrupts the morning routine with Dolores to urge her to leave “Hell” before having a robot stroke. She flees for help and finds Teddy in town.

Meanwhile, Sizemore has reworked the Hector storyline so he attacks the town, providing cover for Bernard to reprogram the malfunctioning hosts. In the aftermath of a massive shoot-ut, they’re brought in for review the off-line models, including Dolores and Teddy. At this point, the show returns to its opening, with Dolores under questioning.

Ford visits her father and recognizes him as an earlier creation who has “played” several different roles in the iterations of Westworld. The malfunction had triggered him to access old personalities thought deactivated and forge a patchwork of memories, fragments of prior “builds.” An identity. A consciousness.

Lowe notes they’re “way beyond a glitch here” and the current drive is “off-script.” When Ford activates his current personality, the host demands to meet his maker (Ford) and to get “revenge” on him. He’s subsequently deactivated and hauled off to storage. Ford is cavalier about the whole thing, especially since he literally utters the phrase, “old work coming back to haunt us.”

Meanwhile in Westworld, Dolores has a new dad and is none the wiser. All is well . . . except for the fly she swats and kills, the first living thing killed by a robot (that we know of). Yeah, Robert, I’d be a bit more worried if I were you, buddy.

That’s a wrap for our first Westworld review! Did you like the pilot enough to stick around next week? What most interested you? Make it rain in the comments and I’ll see you again for a return trip in a week!