'Westworld' again juggles its pieces but can't escape its own dense maze
CNN
"Westworld" returns, featuring several familiar faces in unfamiliar roles, while extending aspects of a third season that creatively sailed off the rails. While there is surely intelligent life out there eager to see where this goes, at this point it's not so much a question of not being able to follow the series through its convoluted maze as simply not feeling as if it's worth the energy to try.
Looking more conspicuously futuristic in its design (a byproduct of having escaped the original amusement-park-for-adults setting), the HBO drama still boasts an assortment of really good actors, augmented by James Marsden returning and Oscar winner Ariana DeBose and Daniel Wu among the new additions.
Once again, though, they're largely operating on parallel tracks, yielding random acts of violence without many clear indications as to where this train is heading. And while the long lapses between seasons surely haven't helped, it's not readily apparent that a more accelerated schedule would fix the bugs in the system.
Donald Trump’s campaign is taking a vastly different approach to 2024 compared to 2020, with plans for fewer staff and expenses, including what they view as superfluous brick and mortar offices. Instead, the campaign pledges to run a more efficient operation that will rely heavily on data modeling, microtargeting and relying on wealthy conservative groups for data, infrastructure and significant bank accounts to help find Trump a pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory in November.
“I never thought I would see a Russian submarine so up close,” said a Cuban man next to me as we waited in line in view of the four vessels. We were standing outside the port terminal in Havana which, just years earlier, had been full of US cruise ships, until then-President Donald Trump banned their visits to the island in 2019.