That the most compelling shows on television these days seem to centralize around the theme that people are horrible.
Westworld was easily one of the more refreshing and enjoyable shows I’ve seen in quite a while, and although this season has been a little too slow building and plot-heavy, The Walking Dead remains one of my must-watch shows. Both definitely fit the description that it doesn’t really matter what else is going on in their respective worlds, it’s the people that are the worst parts of them.
Robots? Zombies? Pfffh. Neither are as much threats to humanity as humanity is to itself. I wonder what this says about the world in itself? We can’t really blame it on the voices of today being all nihilistic and cynical, especially considering TWD has been around for over a decade, and the original Michael Crichton story was written in the 1970s. But such stories are being turned into television dramas and being broadcast now, yet such droll idealism about the quality of humanity translates so seamlessly and effortlessly to today’s standards.
I mean, it’s no secret that people are terrible. We live in a world where greed and/or narcissism dominate the landscape, and people seem to go to unbelievable lengths to gain either or both. Everyone hates everyone else, there’s little trust and faith in our fellow man and we haven’t exactly gone to adequate lengths to try and restore any of it.
Frankly, the only things that seem to separate modern society with the worlds of Westworld or TWD are simply the existence of a robot park where responsibilities can be shirked or a zombie apocalypse where the rules of society can go out the window and be re-written on the fly to satiate our lifestyles.
But if television is kind of a glimpse of what the world reflects, I guess people being terrible isn’t so terrible, and that there should really be concern if there’s an influx of programming that deals with the many ways in which humanity can be wiped out.
