TV #34 of 2018:
Westworld, season 2
The first season of this show was at least moderately more enjoyable than frustrating, especially since the rich premise of a cyborg theme park gone haywire still had a sheen of novelty to it. It could at times be something of a mystery-for-the-sake-of-mystery J. J. Abrams puzzlebox, but the other strengths of the series mostly made up for that.
This second season represented a chance for the creative team to lean into those strengths and steer away from the confusing timelines and muddled character motivations, but unfortunately they’ve instead doubled down on the decision to present this story more as an intellectual exercise than a narrative worth investing in. Apparently Westworld is just always going to be a show where you can never be positive what order things happen in, and I’m not convinced I need to watch any further seasons of that.
★★☆☆☆
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