This is how HBO's science-fiction teleseries, Westworld begins in the first episode. The series has run four successful seasons so far (till the time of writing this chapter), and has managed to captivate the fancies of many of its viewers. I will focus majorly on the first season here in this chapter and use the second season only as a contextual basis of my arguments, where necessary. This is so because I find the first season more fascinating and relevant to this study, given that it delves into the concepts of temporality, memory, gendered rendition of the performative semantics of temporal consciousness more than the second season, aspects that this book seeks to explore in depth.

Westworld is a television series that is premised upon humans acting as gods and their creations, humanoid robots, acting as the hosts (as they are popularly referred to by the humans) upon which the humans run, process and execute their fancies. The robots that look exactly like humans can look, be seen, felt and can feel. The hosts act as the reservoir of actions and consequences that are transmitted to them by their human creators. That is to say, the humans assume a position of control and judgement while the hosts are designed and assumed to be subservient.

What came first ‒ the dream or the thought?

The Wild West-themed adventure park, Westworld presents a carnivalesque sort of a world that also peddles death, rape, plunder and mutilation to its human visitors. In other words, for the humans, it is a world without consequences.