With the end of Westworld’s Season 1 fast approaching, it’s never too early to reflect on the structure of the show. Westworld had some interesting narrative and structural challenges. It had to introduce both the in-park world of the hosts along with looping narratives and rules of that world as well as the world of the Westworld employees. The show also quickly established multiple timelines, some of which have yet to be unravelled. I think it handled both of these challenges with expert precision. But for me the greatest challenge of all is in creating emotionally engaging stories using characters that are immortal and respawn upon death.
By midway through the first episode, we understood that when the hosts die, their memories are erased and they start their loops all over again. We also learned that hosts can’t hurt the guests (yes, this will be upturned at some point, but hasn’t been as of yet). With these limitations, it becomes supremely difficult to create narratives with any sense of danger for the characters. We were then given countless gunfights that by the rules of the show, had zero stakes. If a host I care about dies, I know they will be reset. If a visitor I care about gets shot, they can’t be hurt. These sequences were still filmed as if they were regular action sequences, the music would swell and we were meant to feel the tension of it - but how could we? These meaningless gunfights were often used as action adrenaline shots in the early and mid-season. The relatively slow build of the show was meant to be punctuated by these action packed gunfights. Unfortunately for me, these had the opposite effect. I knew that they could have zero consequences so I found myself completely tuning out during these segments.
As a result, I found the stretch of episode two to episode five or six increasingly difficult to get through. Many of my friends and colleagues did abandon the show during this time. The Westworld writers tried to compensate for the lack of emotional stakes by laying down increasingly complex intellectual mysteries. We were meant to wonder about where the park is located, how long are the loops, what timeline are we in and what is the maze in order to stay distracted from the fact that nothing in the show had any true urgency or risk. For me, intellectual curiosities can never replace emotional engagement.
Lost is a great counterpoint. Let’s ignore that declining quality of later seasons and focus on the excellent first season of the show. Here we have another show that was built on an ever expanding web of mysteries. But unlike much of Westworld’s first season, danger was always present and always close at hand in Lost . We saw real death from the first episode and most of the following episodes involved real practical life or death survival problems that had to be solved. Week to week, we could be engaged in the practical challenges of survival while in between the episodes we could mull over the larger mysteries. Westworld lacked these real week to week stakes. This created a rather cold, unemotional viewing experience for much of the season.
By the back end of the Season, however, we started to hit storylines that really matter. Elsie’s investigation and Theresa’s plotting has real stakes since they were up against human adversaries. (Shush if you’re already up to speed, I’m mostly spoiler free). Maeve’s arc has real stakes because if she is caught, she will be permanently destroyed, not reset. Lee’s arc even recently has real stakes because he’s working with our resident super scary, Shakespeare quoting, former Dolores’ father wannabe murder bot. Once these storylines kicked into gear, I felt new life enter the show. Finally, I was excited to watch each new episode on Sunday night instead of thinking of it as a chore.
We still have some major characters whose arcs have yet to acquire a real sense of risk. William and Dolores are still dealing with Confederados who are incapable of doing them harm. Teddy and The Man in Black have been captured by Wyatt, yawn. I hope that Ford has planted some real danger in Wyatt or this will be another snooze storyline where there is no real danger for anyone.
To me, this all points to the greater point that real danger and physical emotional stakes can never be replaced with intellectual mysteries. As the show moves forward I can only assume that more plotlines will have true danger for the characters. As much as I’m now enjoying the show, I think these problems will always hold the first season back from greatness.
