Big week with return of ‘Westworld’ and ‘Handmaid’s Tale’
Two series that had significant audience impact in the debut seasons last year return this week.
“Westworld,” HBO’s offshoot of a popular 1973 movie about a tourist site that gives visitors an “authentic” historical experience by populating a town from Western movies with sophisticatedly engineered animatronic robots, began a new skein of programs, the first of which introduces a second theme park, Shogun World, which provides an experience from the time of Japanese samurai.
It is expected other fantasy theme parks — Miss Bennet and Darcy, anyone? — will emerge in coming seasons. Assuming this spate of “Westworld” is as successful as the last. Another is scheduled to be unveiled later this season. Ancient Rome and Medieval times are possible settings.
Wednesday marks the coming of Season 2 of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a classic from its publication as a novel that found little audience as a 1990 movie but gained new adherents from its initial television appearance on Hulu.
“The Handmaid’s Tale’s” first season expanded Margaret Atwood’s book while sticking close to it as a guideline. This year, more invention is necessary, and Season 2 will takes audiences to The Colonies, radioactive penal areas to which some popular characters are assigned, to Little America, a.k.a. Canada, where people live freely, and to the origins of Gilead, the story’s main setting.
Both “Westworld” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” have a different pattern from most cable series. Rather than releasing all programs in this season at once, new episodes will be presented weekly at regular time slots, “Westworld” Sundays at 9 p.m., “The Handmaid’s Tale” Wednesdays at 9. This preclude binge-watching an entire season in a marathon or weekend stretch. It is more in keeping with traditional networks which give shows specific times and hope viewers will make a kind of appointment to watch them when initially aired. For HBO, this is a usual modus operandi. For Hulu, a binge capital, it’s a departure I think shows the potency of “The Handmaid’s Tale” as an audience attraction. Season 1 of both programs can be found on various outlets, Amazon Prime being among them.
Both series had gripping first-season endings.
Dolores, who greets each morning sunnily and extols the beauty and order of the world, kills the primary genius behind “Westworld” and its soon-to-be-revealed companion parks. She now becomes the leader of a revolution. Evan Rachel Wood returns as Dolores.
Last season, Dolores may have been the focal character, but the more interesting was Maeve, played marvelously by Thandie Newton. Maeve becomes the dominant figure in Season 2, as she searches for her daughter, a daughter “Westworld” trailers show us in a kimono.
Jeffrey Wright continues his dual role as Bernard, the engineer who endowed “Westworld’s” robots with self-conscience and ability to reflect, and who is shown to be host rather than human, and as Arnold, a conceiving partner in “Westworld’s” creation, one who dies mysteriously 37 years before the action we see in Season 1, and after whom “Westworld’s” main creator, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) models Bernard.
Naturally, Ed Harris’ The Man in Black returns, buoyed by the new reality afoot in “Westworld”
This returning nuclear cast, along with James Marsden as Teddy, is joined by the “Shogun World” ensemble led by Rinko Kikuchi and Hiroyuki Sanada.
When “The Handmaid’s Tale” ended, a pregnant Offred fled The Commander’s home in an effort to keep her baby. She is on the road in Season 2. Other characters will be seen in The Colonies or in Canada. Serena Joy has a breakdown, let’s say a further breakdown, especially in relation to Offred’s child. The most excellent actress Cherry Jones joins the cast as Offred’s mother. (Elisabeth Moss plays Offred.)
“Westworld” seems more assured in its second goround. Initially I gave the first season a negative review, getting tired of a formula that had isolated crises and scientific dilemmas too neatly upset the theme park’s status quo.
Luckily, I gave the series a second chance and ended up binging greedily as the story began to find its stride, the science became more fascinating than arcane, and characters, especially Newton’s Maeve and Wright’s Bernard developed and became intriguingly complex.
Season 2 seems clearer on maximizing the program’s potential, even as it adds luster by taking viewers to other parks, and keeping the story of the human mind, whether scientific or self-actualizing, interesting.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” delves more into revolution. It tells how Gilead evolved, gives greater glimpses into dystopian, authoritarian society, works more on the human instinct to be individual and free, and keeps viewers concerned about Offred, Ofglen, Ofwarren, and others in their various locations.
Birthday Wish
Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare, the greatest writer, and psychologist, of them all.
Neal Zoren’s Television Column appears every Monday.