While avid TV fans are currently thrilled to see their favorite shows returning to primetime, there are a few new programs that are really captivating fans of the small screen. Chief among them is HBO's sci-fi mystery Westworld, which is currently in its first season at the network. Based off of the 1973 movie of the same name, Westworld revolves around a futuristic Western theme park, which allows high bidders to kill, adventure, and have sex with anyone and anything they want. The inhabitants are known as hosts, and are androids programmed to follow their "storylines" in order to make a realistic world for the visitors.
One of the strange aspects in the first three episodes of Westworld is how host Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is only ever seen interacting with her host father; Dolores' mother is mentioned, but never seen. When speaking to This Is Insider, Westworld's co-creator Jonathan Nolan explained:
In truth, we wanted to keep the emphasis in the pilot on her father. And the mother aspect of it is something we're hoping to explore down the line. [Her absence] also speaks to the fact that their emotional lives are kind [of] disposable or interchangeable. So the fact that the mother is sort of a non-character works for us with what we're trying to say, which is these people think they have relationships but they don't actually have relationships.
This actually makes a great deal of sense. Considering all of the big concepts and weirdness that are in Westworld, focusing on just one of Dolores' parents at a time would probably help to keep her storyline contained- at least for the time being.
Dolores' father was actually one of the biggest plot lines from Westworld's first episode. Her father Peter finds a modern photograph of a woman in Time Square, presumably leftover from one of the park's patrons. Because the imagery is so out of his world, we see Peter start to short circuit, unable to process what he's seeing. This bug only continues to slowly destroy the psyche of his programming, and eventually the host is retired and replaced with another android- none of which is noticed by Dolores. In the following two episodes, we saw the new form of Dolores' father (and she sees flashes of her original father), but we have yet to be introduced to her unseen mother.
But the story of Westworld isn't really about Dolores' home life. Instead, we are captivated by Dolores remembering the various atrocities she's suffered by the Westworld's guests. And with James Marsden's Teddy now gaining more detailed programming, both hosts seem to be at a precipice of becoming fully realized and independent of their station. Westworld still has a ton of craziness to introduce us to, so only time will tell how Dolores will continue to grow, and how her "mother" will come into play.
Westworld airs Sundays on HBO.
