The complete, short-lived 1980 television series,
Beyond Westworld, is now available on DVD from the fine folks at
Warner Archive. This series was a sequel to/continuation of the 1973
Michael Crichton film,
Westworld, and posited that after the meltdown at the infamous Delos resort, a scientist (James Wainright) absconded with a bunch of the lifelike androids and planned to use them to conquer the world. Delos Security agents John Moore (Jim McMullen) and Pamela Williams (Connie Selleca) are tasked with hunting him down and foiling his evil schemes.
The show only had five episodes (and was cancelled after three). The pilot film was included on the semi-recent
Westworld Blu-ray a couple years back, but this marks the first time that the complete series has been available on home video in the U.S. At the moment, the DVDs are only available from the Warner websites, but it should be available through Amazon in a couple of weeks.
How on Earth do I not remember this show?!? I remember every Sci Fi show/movie from when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteI even loved the West world movie as a kid.
And in case anyone missed the news, DELOS is reopening! Yes, reserve your next vacation now.
ReplyDeleteHBO is launching a Westworld TV series, produced by J.J. Abrams and starring Anthony Hopkins!
Apparently HBO is making a new Westworld TV series.
ReplyDeletethis isn't yet listed on pre-order amazon. can't wait for it to rear its head. maybe it will be sold only through warner archives.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above, all Warner Archive titles are exclusives at first, but so far, they all become available through Amazon eventually. That's their business model.
DeleteI can almost guarantee that Beyond Westworld will be available through Amazon in a month or so.
Don't think I ever caught this show. Must pick it up. Really interested to hear it's HBO looking at new Westworld, I think they would do a really good job on it (and they won't be too coy about using the "sex units" or showing extreme violence either!)
ReplyDeleteAs a kid, I had a big crush on Connie Selleca, so I probably saw this even though I have no memory of it. The concept is a good one, although chasing down the evil genius and stopping each of his plots was a pretty overused cliche in TV shows of this period. It would have been interesting if they had opened it up to having the androids become self-aware and developing their own plots, or just wanting to become part of society and ignored.
ReplyDeleteI think Westworld was ahead of its time as a Sci-Fi Thriller. I also enjoyed the cheesy sequel. I remember being excited and watching Beyond Westworld. After buying the set I have to say that something was missing. If it were trying to imitate the success of the fembots from the Bionic Series it needed more. 1) They needed good androids to fight the evil ones. 2) They needed to have more of a paranoia that anyone could be replaced by one 3) Maybe Connie Selleca could have been an android (like the bionic woman) and had programming and had the ability to change her looks to be different woman as a secret agent.
ReplyDelete