Can Westworld Do for Science Fiction What Game of Thrones Did for Fantasy?

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FIVE YEARS AGO, Game of Thrones turned our expectations upside down. Here was a fantasy show that focused not on the portentous prophecies and heavy spellbooks, but on the politics and personalities of its medieval realm—and in the process, cultivated millions of fans. Now, HBO is hoping to do the same thing for futuristic science fiction with Westworld, a lavish adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1973 movie. Like Game of Thrones, Westworld has a mature, sophisticated approach to beloved genre ideas—but can a theme park full of malfunctioning robots capture the popular imagination the same way that Westeros did in 2011?

As with the original movie, Westworld takes place in a special vacation resort where you can visit the Wild West and interact with shockingly lifelike robots. There are gunfights, saloons, sex workers and outlaws. The park’s designers, led by Dr. Robert Flood (Anthony Hopkins) and Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) have endeavored to create machines that think, and feel, just the same way regular humans do, albeit with scripted responses. At the end of every day, these robots have their memories erased so they can start afresh, cleansed of whatever horrors they may have experienced.

And those horrors are stark and unforgettable. Westworld is home to acts of sadism and weirdness that would make the Westerosi blush; as soon as we can tell ourselves that these gunslingers and madams don’t really experience pain or trauma, then anything goes. The park’s visitors are free to indulge their darkest impulses, and you quickly begin to suspect that the real attraction of Westworld isn’t the fantasy of visiting the Old West—but the freedom to be a monster. Where Game of Thrones has delved into questions about the legitimacy of political power, Westworld seems intent on examining the more nihilistic question of how we treat those we have absolute power over.

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For all its darkness, though, Westworld contains moments of stunning beauty and light. The wide open spaces of its Western setting present beautiful counterbalance to the artificiality of the people living there (and the claustrophobic laboratory where the robots are tinkered with.) The juxtaposition of those vast landscapes and the robots trapped in a cycle of abuse leads to a great metaphor about freedom: You can only have unlimited freedom if someone else has none at all.

At its best, the show has a poetic splendor; its world is one of endless possibility, even optimism. The A-list cast (including Hopkins, Wright, Thandie Newton, James Marsden and Ed Harris) gives unforgettable performances, and you understand exactly why good, well-intentioned people decided to devote their lives to creating these elaborate toys and complex storylines for them to live out. That’s integral, because we can’t really appreciate how the theme park goes wrong until we understand how it’s supposed to work. This gives rise to a fascinating exploration of how these robots are programmed, what gives them personalities and identities, and just how their lives are constructed. A lot of the best science fiction asks how our memories shape us, and just what it means to be a person—and Westworld manages to take these questions in some new and startling directions.

The co-creator of Westworld, Jonathan Nolan, also helped to create Person of Interest, another show that explored the nature of artificial consciousness in fascinating ways. With Person of Interest, Nolan gave us a crime-solving procedural show that slowly revealed itself as an epic about A.I.s that watch everything you do. This time around, it’s the A.I.s who are under constant surveillance by humans, and Westworld wears its science fiction colors proudly — although the show seems like it could perform the reverse of Person of Interest’s trick, slowly revealing itself as a show about crime, punishment and society.

Having seen a handful of early episodes, I’m already obsessed; Westworld has joined a very small list of TV shows that have the ethical and emotional complexity of a great book. This is a show that science fiction fans will be quoting, referencing and dissecting endlessly. But will it achieve the same kind of iconic status as Game of Thrones? Where the fantasy saga’s debut managed to feel like a sharp political drama that just happened to have dragons, Westworld just feels like damn good science fiction—albeit science fiction that goes deeper, and further, than most. It’s asking timely questions about our relationship with technology and how we treat the powerless. On the other hand, this show is a deep dive into murky waters, with nary a Tyrion Lannister in sight. Westworld will reward those who give it their sustained attention—and I hope a lot of people do.