Westworld Episode 1 blog: Sinful Delights

This first episode consists mainly of worldbuilding, setting up the atmosphere, environment, characters, etc. before launching us into the conflicts that come from such an attraction as Westworld. The first critical thing we learn about the Hosts (the advanced AI androids that inhabit the park) is that the builders of the park find it necessary to question them about their awareness of the world and their place in it. Security officers talk about the potential danger of hosts, which is most likely why administrative personnel try to track any changes in the hosts’ self awareness; when something becomes self-aware, self preservation becomes of the highest priority. So it makes sense to be afraid of the hosts being self-aware when they are put through hell by their creators (we are given insight into this conundrum by the conclusion of this pilot).

This is quite contrary to the way the hosts do behave, which is as utterly submissive creatures that almost seem to accept that they are subservient (it would seem more like that if they appeared to have any clue of what is going on). An administrative employee (Bernard) mentions that this submission and general pacificity  is part of their core programming. One early scene shows a guest (commonly called “newcomers”) slaughtering the father and love interest of the host we will follow closely, during which the guest was shot but totally unaffected. So not only are the hosts programmed to be more passive towards newcomers, but they are also unable to hurt them with the conventional weaponry they have.

Further, the AIs in question (Delores, whose father and love interest [Teddy] were slaughtered) all wake up repaired and don’t remember any of what happened the day before. In fact, we are meant to know from this first episode that the park is “reset” every day, after which most of the hosts rewind to the same point in their storylines at the start of the day. It seems that this world is on a set path, recycled every day, unless acted upon by a guest. Delores and Teddy don’t even interact on our second cycle in the park, as they are both beset by guests seeking entertainment. The hosts must say yes to any request of any guest, regardless of the intensity of their storylines.