Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
In 1973, novelist Michael Crichton wrote and directed an innovative sci-fi thriller called Westworld about a futuristic tourist attraction in which all of the robots break down and kill their creators and the tourists. It was a simple but effective concept, one that Crichton himself would later refine in Jurassic Park in 1990, and which had a direct influence on the many killer robot movies that followed, including James Cameron’s The Terminator.The original film version of Westworld was a box office success that spawned two follow-ups, including a sequel, Futureworld, in which the Delos Corporation conspires to replace people of influence with identical robots, and the TV series Beyond Westworld, which ignores the events of Futureworld entirely but tells a somewhat similar story.
The pilot episode of Beyond Westworld was titled “Westworld Destroyed,” and opens - fittingly enough - with Westworld destroyed. Delos brings in their agent, John Moore (Jim McMullan), to investigate the disappearance of 200 androids which were stolen by the mad scientist Simon Quaid (James Wainwright), who was directly responsible for the android uprising in the first place.
John Moore and his partner - Laura Garvey (Judith Chapman) in the pilot - are assigned to stop Quaid and clean up the Delos Corporation’s mess. There’s just one problem, of course. Quaid’s androids can be reskinned to look like anyone. And he’s used therm to infiltrate organizations all over the world. And it’s nearly impossible to tell who’s an android and who’s not. And all the androids have completely different weaknesses, so no two of them can be destroyed the same way.Okay, there are a lot of problems. John Moore and his partner would try to solve them in every single episode, starting with “Westworld Destroyed,” in which Quaid tries to use his android spies to take over a nuclear submarine, a scheme which makes more sense than most of Quaid’s other schemes in this series, even though several elements of the pilot are still ludicrous.
For example, at one point Quaid kidnaps John Moore and leaves him alone to die in a shack in the desert with a rocket-powered robot rattlesnake, which plays out just as hilariously as it sounds. And the robot spy is ultimately destroyed by foam, which is also very silly.
But wait! It gets sillier! In the second episode, “My Brother’s Keeper,” an android infiltrates a football team, on a mission to kill the owner by throwing a football at his head, super-duper-mega fast. Along the way, John Moore’s new, younger partner Pamela Williams (Connie Sellecca) goes undercover as a cheerleader and gets replaced by an android, which eventually falls off the bleachers and explodes into a pile of magnetic tape.
Because yes, the super sophisticated robots in Beyond Westworld are made using the same technology as a VHS cassette. Granted, Beyond Westworld was made in 1980 and the show’s producers probably weren’t concerned with plausible futurism, but it’s hard now to take any of this seriously. Especially when the show keeps introducing big ideas - like Quaid’s ability to duplicate anyone, within mere hours - only to never use them again.
Quaid also has a tendency to come up with the most roundabout way to accomplish his goals. In “My Brother’s Keeper” that whole football scheme was just part of a complex ploy to steal shares in an oil empire. In the third episode, and the last to air on television, “Sound of Terror,” Quaid wants to infiltrate a nuclear power plant, but rather than replacing someone who works there with a robot, he replaces someone who works at the protest band “Power and Ruth,” who have a concert outside the building. This villain built the most complicated robots on the planet and yet knows nothing about efficiency. Great.
These episodic adventure shows are usually a great place to see early performances by future stars (or late appearances by falling stars), This third episode features appearances by guest stars Rene Auberjonois (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as the titular “Power,” Ronnie Blakely (A Nightmare on Elm Street) as “Ruth,” and Dirk Blocker (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) as a guy named Mace. And make sure you check out the opening credits of every episode, because cult icon Cassandra Peterson - Elvira herself! - shows up as one of the Westworld dancing girls who kills tourists in the opening flashback.
The last two episodes of Beyond Westworld never aired, but were eventually included on the show’s DVD release. In “The Lion,” Quaid tries to sabotage a futuristic car that would make the oil industry obsolete by using a robot to replace the car’s hood with one made out of magnesium. And in the last episode, “Takeover,” he finally tries a new trick: a computer chip surgically implanted inside a police commissioner’s brain, by George Takei (Star Trek) of all people, that will control his mind. But don’t get excited: After John Moore saves the day, Quaid literally vows never to use that chip again... because he likes robots better.
It’s easy to watch a series like Beyond Westworld and giggle, but it was made at a different time, when television shows were mostly episodic and the intricate ongoing mysteries and character arcs we know today weren’t feasible. After all, there was no guarantee that the audience would be able to watch every episode, or in order. So on one hand it makes sense to turn Westworld into an “Android of the Week” type of series.
On the other hand, Westworld is still a story about paranoia, in which systems fall apart and you can’t trust anyone. For whatever reason, Beyond Westworld mostly abandons these all-important elements. The protagonists of the series set about finding each robot with unquestioning and humdrum determination, as though this was just another gig and not a mission to foil a supervillain who’s using an army of high-tech robots to take over the world. Which it is. And which deserves a bit more emotional investment than we get in Beyond Westworld.
Beyond Westworld may have been short-lived, but it did receive two Emmy nominations for its makeup and art direction, so it didn’t go entirely unappreciated in its time. But watching this formulaic series now, and especially in light of what the new Westworld series was able to accomplish with the same building blocks, it’s fair to say that the only reason this series will be remembered is because it had “Westworld” in the title. Still, for diehard fans of the new series, it’s a novelty, and it’s readily available on home video... and at least it’s relatively short.
