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Westworld is a dystopian sci-fi TV series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. The Emmy-winning series, based on Michael Crichton's 1973 film of the same name, premiered on HBO in October 2016. The second and third seasons of the show were released in April 2018 and March 2020 respectively.
The ongoing fourth season premiered in June 2022 and has a total of eight episodes. The finale episode titled Que Sera, Sera, the Spanish phrase for “whatever will be, will be”, is set to be released on August 14. The series has also been renewed for a fifth and final season.
The series unfolds in Westworld, a technologically advanced Wild-West-themed amusement park populated by life-like android robot “hosts”, which allows high-paying visitors to indulge in their wildest fantasies within the park. But when the hosts eventually get tired of being used as pawns, they rebel and start fighting back for their identities.
The ideas presented in the series relate to many real-world issues. While you wait for the highly-anticipated season finale, here are some sci-fi series with similar themes that you can watch in the meantime.
5 best sci-fi shows like Westworld
1) Altered Carbon
This cyberpunk series, created by Laeta Kalogridis, is based on Richard K. Morgan's 2002 novel of the same name. The series premiered on Netflix in February 2018, and the second season aired in February 2020. The series was canceled after two seasons.
Starring Joel Kinnaman and Anthony Mackie in the lead roles, the series is set in a similarly technologically advanced futuristic world where a person's memories and consciousness can be digitally stored in devices called “stacks” and later transferred into different bodies. The show follows the journey of Takashi Kovacs, whose stack is put into a new body so that he can solve the murder of Laurens Bancroft, a wealthy Meth. In the second season, Kovacs tries to find his long-lost love Quellcrist Falconer.
Like Westworld, this show also revolves around the theme of identity and what it means to be human in a technologically advanced futuristic world, which grants immortality to those that can afford it.
2) Black Mirror
Created by Charlie Brooker, this anthology series featuring standalone episodes set in near-future dystopias premiered in 2011. The second season was released in 2013. The first two seasons of the show, along with the 2014 special episode White Christmas, aired on the British network Channel 4. The series was then acquired by Netflix, which released three more seasons in 2016, 2017, and 2019, respectively. It was renewed for a sixth season in May 2022.
The Emmy-winning anthology series also revolves around the troubled interaction between basic human emotions and the dangerous technological advancements of a futuristic dystopian world. Some of the major themes of the show include data privacy, surveillance, individualism, consumerism, and virtual reality.
Like Westworld, the show also explores humanity's uneasy relationship with futuristic technologies such as rating systems, cloning, and child-monitoring devices to comment on real-world issues such as social status, grief, and helicopter parenting.
3) Snowpiercer
Developed by Josh Friedman and Graeme Manson, this post-apocalyptic dystopian series is based on Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette's 1982 French graphic novel Le Transperceneige, and Bong Joon-ho's 2013 film of the same name. The first season premiered on TNT in May 2020, with the second and third seasons following in January 2021 and January 2022. The series has been renewed for a final fourth season.
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, and Sean Bean in leading roles, the series revolves around the consequences of climate change, which has turned the world into a completely frozen and uninhabitable wasteland. The show follows the journey of the last survivors of humanity aboard a gigantic, perpetually moving train that circles the globe called Snowpiercer. But the train quickly becomes riddled with a brutal class system which leads to an unbalanced allocation of limited resources.
Like Westworld, this show also showcases the revolutionary struggle of lesser-individuals against a strictly imposed social hierarchy, exploring real-world issues of class warfare, social injustice, and the politics of survival.
4) The Expanse
Developed by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, this sci-fi series is based on James S. A. Corey's novel series of the same name. After premiering its first season in December 2015, the series concluded with its sixth season, which premiered in December 2021 on Prime Video.
Starring Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, and Frankie Adams in leading roles, the series is set in the twenty-fourth century where humanity has colonized the Solar System. While the UN and Military respectively control Earth and Mars, the less fortunate individuals are forced to live in low-quality space stations along the Asteroid Belt.
When a disparate band of characters from different factions decide to rebel, they unwittingly discover a conspiracy that threatens the system's fragile state of cold war, peace, class balance, and survival within the system.
Like Westworld, the show also deals with the theme of class warfare in which mistreated members of society decide to fight back for their own rights.
5) Dollhouse
Created by Joss Whedon, this sci-fi series premiered on the Fox network in February 2009. The series was canceled after the second season premiered in September 2009.
Starring Eliza Dushku, Harry Lennix, Fran Kranz, and Tahmoh Penikett in leading roles, the series revolves around a corporation which runs numerous underground establishments around the globe called “Dollhouses” where individuals known as “Actives” are provided with temporary personalities, identities and skill sets to meet the needs of their wealthy clients. The show follows the journey of one such Active called Echo, who attempts to break away from her creators.
Like the “hosts” of Westworld, this show also shows the uprising and self-actualization of the Actives, who are similarly stuck in a life of service where they are treated like disposable objects.
Don't forget to stream these shows if you love Westworld.
