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There’s only one episode left of the current series of Game of Thrones – and it looks like HBO knows how upset you are.
While you prepare to go into mourning for nine Thrones-free months, the premier cable service are finishing up your next TV obsession – a dark, slick take on Westworld.
Yes, Michael Crichton’s classic Yul Brynner-starring sci-fi tale is being adapted for TV, and by the looks of the latest trailer it’s going to be excellent.
The futuristic story tells of a Wild West theme park populated by sophisticated androids, where paying customers can go and live out their Ye Olde Fantasies away from the rest of society. Which is all well and good, until the robots become self-aware and start murdering everyone. Think the Itchy and Scratchy Land episode of The Simpsons.
With JJ Abrams and Jonathan Nolan (brother of Christopher) at the helm, this should be a top new TV treat – here’s what the latest trailer tells us.
1) The cast is hugely impressive
If you start counting them out, you nearly run out of fingers – Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, James Marsden, Ed Harris, Ben Barnes, Jeffrey Wright… the list goes on.
HBO certainly have the resources to pull an impressive cast together, and Westworld looks like it could be another triumph.
2) The Western scenes look absolutely stunning
At its heart, Westworld is a sci-fi story – but inherent in the premise is a realistic simulation of the Wild West.
From huge orange canyons to Deadwood-esque settlement towns, and even a steam train – the Western elements here look spot-on, and are likely to differentiate the show from any other sci-fi saga.
HBO3) It’ll be kind of like Ex Machina, with more action
Decades after the original Westworld film and the likes of Blade Runner, the question of sentient machines was pushed back to the fore in Ex Machina.
While Alex Garland’s cerebral sci-fi kept most of its most thrilling sequences in exchanges of words, HBO’s take on Westworld looks like it’ll be more action-packed, while still posing those big ‘what is consciousness?’ moral dilemmas.
HBO4) It finally has a release in sight
Not that you’d know it from this slick and confident teaser, but production on Westworld has been notably troubled.
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In January the production was shut down for a few months in order to get it right, having already been pushed back from an initial 2015 premiere.
Everything seems to be back on track now, with the trailer confirming that the series will arrive in October. Hopefully that extra time will have made it even more impressive.