For me the common denominator is story, mainly fictional story, but often true life or inspired by real events story. Story is a catch-all phase that includes plot, characterization, setting, theme, and other elements of storytelling. Story comes to us in many forms, from epic poetry to campfire ghost tales, from novels to music...
Back in October, when I started writing episode reviews of HBO’s Westworld, I warned readers that it was an experiment. Even then it was an experiment I intended to succeed rather than failed. Perhaps calling it a failure is saying too much, because I had fun writing the reviews and I learned a lot....
Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends, I told you the last Westworld post. In “Trace Decay,” the eighth episode, we have reached the end of the middle. We had reached that point where all storylines veer towards the towards the final confrontations, where all protagonists are destined to face their antagonists in the climatic...
Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. There’s nothing profound in this statement. And I confess a lack of originality in it. Every book on fiction writing tells us this, and many books of literary critique state the same. Novels are often divided into three parts to represent the beginning, middle, and end. J. R....
Episode 6 of HBO’s Westworld, “The Adversary,” feels like a line between two dots that need to be connected in order to complete the picture. Following the big revelations and dramatic turning points of “Contrapasso,” episode 5, this episode slowed the pace down. In “Contrapasso,” we left William and Dolores in a cliffhanger, and...
If episode 4 was about subtle conflict and inner revelations, episode 5, “Contrapasso,” turned to violent conflict and major revelations. This was an episode of big changes for several characters—Dolores, Maeve, William, and others. Elsie, in behavior, made a discovery that frightened her. And Dr. Robert Ford met with the Man in Black for...
For the first time since reviewing HBO’s Westworld, I found myself uncertain what to write about an episode, episode 4, “Dissonance Theory.” For the first time, I felt I needed to rewatch the show before writing my review. I liked the episode. More than that, I recognized its significance in the general plot. Though...
To borrow a cliché: The plot thickens. That was my first reaction after seeing episode 3 of HBO’s Westworld. During the first two episodes—“The Original” and “Chestnut”—the series introduced the main characters and began the plot of a glitch that caused the android hosts of Westworld to malfunction. Now that we know the characters...
Westworld is a theme park. It’s a tourist attraction. It’s competing for the same dollars as Las Vegas, Miami, New Orleans, and other popular destinations across the globe. Like Disneyland, tourists flock there to submerged themselves into fantasy, and like Las Vegas, they come to engage in activities that they either wouldn’t or can’t...
I don’t remember much about the 1973 Michael Crichton movie Westworld. Though I remember seeing it and liking it, I also know that it was never a movie I felt a need to see a second time. But when I saw that HBO was rebooting the idea as a series, I found myself excited....
