Westworld, Season 2

The affection I had early on for the HBO sci-fi series Westworld had pretty much diminished to nothing by the end of the show's first season; the admiration this reviewer might have held for it as a sleek, high-end drama with aspirations towards depth and meaning had also essentially vaporised by the time I'd watched a section of Westworld's latest season, now airing on Foxtel channel Showcase.

And this is frustrating, because there is a provocative and intriguing idea - actually, a couple of notions - at the core of Westworld. But I myself find them either stated with such a combination of obviousness and portent that I can't help but feel a little insulted or buried beneath so many layers of mystery-box storytelling and cryptic nonsense that it's hardly worth the effort of unearthing them.

The concept that the rise of artificial intelligence may eventually be accompanied by a rise in artificial consciousness is a dramatically and thematically fertile one, but having seen how movingly, piercingly and poetically it's been explored in recent films such as Ex Machina and Blade Runner 2049 I had hoped that a longer-form exploration may be able to achieve the same, only in greater detail.

Season Two of Westworld, which kicks off with the aftermath of the bloody revolt by the titular resort's cyborg 'hosts' against the humans who created and used them for their own selfish ends, doesn't appear that interested in going deeper as it goes forward - it's broadened the scope and the scale (Shogun World, a theme park set in feudal-era Japan, was hinted at in Season One and plays a bigger part this season), but the plotting and the underpinning still feel kind of sluggish.

There are pleasures to be had, of course, primarily from the performers who are working like crazy to imbue their characters with soul or purpose or personality (or all of the above), with Jeffrey Wright providing a quietly heartbreaking depiction of someone lost in a twisted forest of memories both genuine and artificial, and Evan Rachel Wood delivering a compelling portrayal of hard-won empowerment potentially going haywire. It's this kind of work that hints at Westworld's possibilities; I can only hope the show gains a greater awareness of these possibilities and how to achieve them.