The hit sci-fi drama started out as a dark Wild West odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the birth of a new form of life on Earth. But with Season 3 moving beyond the park, the playground just got a whole lot bigger.

“It’s very different this season. The goal from the beginning was: Find the future. If you go out in the world, the future is there,” says series co-creator Jonathan Nolan.

The crew found their vision of the future in Singapore, where this season was largely shot. “The streets look beautiful, gleaming,” says co-creator Lisa Joy. “It really looks idyllic in a way, and ordered. But as Dolores comes to understand the world, she realises that there is a darkness underlying that order.”

“Dolores discovers that in the real world there has been some serious data collecting going on, just like the place that she came from,” says Wood. “She learns about this large company, Incite, which has all the promises of this utopia and a way to really carve out your life for you.” 

But Dolores, of all people, knows not to trust humanity’s idea of utopia…

New faces to look out for include Golden Globe nominee Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman) as Caleb, Emmy winner Lena Waithe (Ready Player One) as Ash, Vincent Cassel (Ocean’s Twelve, Black Swan) as Serac, Tommy Flanagan (Sons of Anarchy) as Martin Connells and NFL star Marshawn Lynch as a badass named – wait for it – Giggles. Also see if you can spot Avengers’ Mantis, Pom Klementieff, and Grammy-winning American rapper Kid Cudi.

“Lisa and Jona pitched me this idea for Caleb and my mind was blown,” says Paul. “Westworld is so ambitious and they’re not afraid to take giant swings, and this season completely takes Westworld to an entire different level.”

“The first two seasons do not paint a very warm picture of human behaviour, so for the third season we wanted a slightly more sympathetic take on it,” explains Nolan, adding, “With Caleb, we’re introduced to a different understanding of humanity.”

“We wanted this season to be hopeful,” says Joy, “and the thing that I’ve always admired about Aaron Paul’s acting is he so easily channels the everyman.”

Well, the everyman moonlighting as a criminal, perhaps. “You would imagine that a total surveillance state means no more crime,” says Nolan. “That’s not how things work out. Crime is part of our economy. It’s not going anywhere.” 

In the series, Nolan explains, an app called Rico is designed to facilitate underworld deals. “You and I can have an exchange of services that the government cannot possibly track or trace, that is infallible, meaning I can’t cheat you, you can’t cheat me. You download the app, and specify the level of criminality you are willing to participate in. Caleb is not willing to participate in what we call ‘personals’ – kidnapping, murder – the heavy sh*t. Petty larceny, grand theft auto, all those things, sure.”

“I think Caleb has nothing left to lose,” says Joy. “And maybe he doesn’t value his life that much, honestly. But the one thing that doesn’t really stop, is his capacity to feel for others. … So when he finds Dolores, his programming insists that he save her.”

[Spoiler alert]: That’s the really big news for Season 3: Caleb and Dolores. “While Dolores is very hard to kill, she is capable of dying, and of needing help, and being vulnerable,” says Wood. “She literally falls into Caleb’s arms, much like the way she fell into William’s arms. So I think right away we know that something’s about to begin.” 

The question is, will either Dolores or Caleb really get to choose what lies ahead?

“In Season 3 … the show suggests for the first time that the robots aren’t the only ones whose lives conform to existing scripts,” says The Atlantic. “Determinism aside, this is a zanier, sillier Westworld, and much more entertaining for it … but through it all, the show’s anxiety about free will—and its extension of that conundrum to its human characters—is apparent.” Westworld, they add, takes “the data mining and user profiling of contemporary life to its logical, dystopian extreme.”

“What if thirty more years elapse, exactly the trajectory we’re on right now?” asks Nolan. “What does that world look like?”

For the show’s creators, the answer is Westworld.

Westworld has won seven Emmys to date, including Best Supporting Actress (Thandie Newton) in 2018, with a further 33 nominations. The series has been nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Drama Series. It’s #71, IMDB’s Top Rated TV Shows, with an 8.7/10 rating, and holds an 84% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 85% audience score for Season 3 so far.

Westworld S1-3 is available to watch on Showmax here. With all the buzz currently being around staying indoors, investing your time in watching this is one of the best decisions you’ll ever make in your viewing life, trust us.

Coming to Showmax and M-Net every Monday, starting 16 March 2020, we (courtesy of the Showmax cool kids) were kindly given the opportunity to checkout the first 4 episodes of the much anticipated third season. As always – we came, we watched and we are ready to share our thoughts on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDJbFA32_QY

Despite us temporarily losing touch with it in S2 (which we made up for), we have always taken a liking to a show that was created and (still is being) overseen by three of the best and most accomplished writers, producers and directors of our time, namely Jonathan Nolan (Person of Interest), Lisa Joy (Burn Notice) and J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias).

The plot for the upcoming season has been kept under wraps and we were also made to promise to not reveal too much so fear not, there won’t be any spoilers here. And for those who aren’t too familiar with it (and if so, why exactly?), this hit HBO series is generally a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the birth of a new form of life on Earth, exploring a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged. Yes this may sound confusing but that’s part of the charm and intrigue that Westworld offers, the new season is no different and continues in the very same way while managing to keep you hooked throughout.

It won’t come as a surprise that visually it’s a spectacular watch with the images being crisp and will have you crying out to watch on an HDTV. The story line, unlike previous seasons, is also easy to follow this time around but (still) with a certain level of complexity attached to it.

Westworld is one of the most intelligent shows around and isn’t easy to follow especially if you miss one episode or a certain scene for that matter, it forces you to pay attention to every single thing, action and dialogue that goes on. Part of the reason why we gave up on it in the second season is the fact that we felt it was slow in building up, we’re pleased to confirm that there is no such thing with this installment. It’s like the creators learned from the previous seasons and have put everything right with this one.

Very much shot in a futuristic world, the third season relies heavily on technology and’s amazing to see how it’s cleverly implemented to bring the whole story together. Us being gadget junkies here at TWFLD, we couldn’t help but be attracted and blown away by the array of gadgets on offer and how they’re slotted into the overall story line.

Clever, intelligent, visually appealing complete with nice pacing, the third season of Westworld is easily the best season yet. The only bad thing about this whole thing is that we now have to wait to checkout the rest of the episodes. It’s more than worth your time, be sure to check it out when it lands on both Showmax and M-Net every Monday, starting 16 March 2020.

Huge thanks to the team at Showmax for the pre-screener.