Westworld is one of HBO's latest hit shows and will soon be entering its fourth season. While many people are looking forward to the new season, other fans are reminiscing about past seasons. Westworld has covered a lot of ground in a very short time. From the Wild West to a futuristic world of tomorrow, the show does not back down from any challenging stories or setting. Yet, many people believe that the show was at its strongest in the first season when the focus was on the "theme park" setting and gave fans a taste of the Wild West.
Westworld started in 2016 and presented the premise: What would you do if you could act without consequences? This was shown by dropping characters into a theme park that was based in the Wild West, where people could do whatever they wanted, and none of the androids in the park would remember what they did. The show also looked at that same premise from the perspective of an android named Dolores. The first season of the show really shined a light on the worst aspects of humanity and presented an intriguing mystery along with some moral questions.
While the show has moved farther away from the theme park premise, there is no doubt that the first season of the show was the best because of the theme park. Using a Western theme park with no consequences really tapped into a unique genre. It combined sci-fi and Western genres in a way that hasn't been done often. Showing the audience that there was a place they could truly be whoever they wanted to be, and then go back to their normal life, tapped into a desire that many people have. Putting it in a Western setting also helped tie the story to the sense of freedom that the Wild West so often is connected with.
The show has since evolved into a story about a more futuristic world that is being taken over by androids. While this is still an interesting story, it lost some of the charm the first season had. When the Wild West was the focus, the show possessed a certain amount of charm that came from being set in a classic film era. While futuristic stories can be classic as well, they sometimes lack the same nostalgia as a Western. This nostalgia helps connect people to the show and the story that it is trying to tell.
Westworld's first season proved the show to be inventive and compelling, while still taking advantage of an older setting. It helped to breathe new life into the Western genre and harkened back to the Golden Age of film. While other seasons have introduced different theme parks, none has had quite the same amount of impact as the Western themed one. The Western theme provides the foundation for the show and helped to ground all the characters in something tangible. As it moved away from that park, the show became less grounded and more about dystopian sci-fi.
With the fourth season of Westworld premiering soon, many fans are going to be analyzing the show and determining their interest. While the other seasons have been strong, the first season is undoubtedly the best one so far. It helped kickstart the show with intriguing mysteries and allowed the audience to experience the freedom of the Wild West through their screens. The character development that took place in the first season has driven the show forward ever since.
Westworld Season Four premieres on June 26 on HBO Max.
