Go West Gone South

HBO needs a flagship show.  It used to be The Sopranos, now it's Game Of Thrones.  But with GOT on the way out, it hopes Westworld, now in its second season, can be the replacement.  All I can say is, not for me.

I've watched the first three episodes of season 2 and think I'm done.  On the plus side, there are fine actors and excellent design, but the whole plot seems pointless. (This is nothing new.  I had problems before, and now that the show is playing its hand, things have only gotten worse.) The robots are rebelling and we're seeing it spread through the park--or parks--though the cutting back and forth in time can make it a bit tricky to figure out who's doing what and why.

Except I don't care.  I don't particularly like seeing humans killed, no matter how awful or minor they are--as opposed to robots, this is a permanent state for them--and I don't particularly want to see any of the robots succeed in doing whatever it is they want to do. (I think the show is more on the side of the robots than the humans, but either way I don't care.)

The real problem is I don't care about the mysteries of the park.  They're mysteries not because we're going in deeper, but because the secrets are being withheld from us artificially, doled out in dribs and drabs to keep us wondering.

The idea of humans in a pleasure park experiencing a robot rebellion works as a one-shot deal (hence, the original movie), but it going on and on is dreary.  So Westworld ends up with a long-term plot I don't care about that features no rooting interest.  The latest episode, "Virtu e Fortuna," reveals more of the other parks that are part of the complex, but a change of scenery doesn't solve the problems at the heart of the show.