‘Ottawa’ The Rewarding Luxury of Time: Why Westworld is so Damn Good
Maeve (Thandie Newton), a robotic madam, seems to have achieved human consciousness. Now she’s busting out of the eerily lifelike Westworld theme park, along with human scientist Felix (Leonardo Nam) and two gunslinger robots, Armistice (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) and Hector (Rodrigo Santoro).
They ride an elevator down to the lab. They traverse a hallway of glass-walled rooms; in them, robots learn to gamble, bathe, have sex. Suddenly, an army of security guards fires at them.
Armistice and Hector duck into a storage room, where scores of naked robots stand. They slit a guard’s throat. Armistice grabs his gun. Chortling at its power, she offs several guards.
The foursome barge into a power-generating room, then into another lab. In here, however, the robots are Samuri practicing swordplay.
“What is this place?” Maeve asks.
“It’s complicated,” Felix answers.
It sure is.
Yesterday I wrote about The Crown’s pricey production values. Westworld’s budget makes The Crown’s look spare. In this single sequence, there are multiple sets, hundreds of precisely costumed extras, elaborate stunts, and CGI. Yet this isn’t an exception — every sequence is like this.
Here’s the true marker of HBO’s financial commitment, though: The network allowed series creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan to shut down production in the middle of season one so they could craft a richer story. And they won’t air season two until 2018, because Joy and Nolan need a year to write.
Extras, costumes, sets, CGI — all are costly. But in TV, the most lavish luxury — and the most rewarding — is time.