Saturday Night's Alright For Commenting: 12/10/2016

As I started to develop this article, and in keeping with the style and formatting of previous iterations of the S.N.O.T, it felt odd to type 12/10/2016 as the date. This format is the most commonly used style for people in the U.S., who will instantly recognize it as December 10th. Outside the U.S., it might be initially mistaken to mean October 12th. That’s because a lot of other countries use the format: day/month/year.

As someone who has worked on global teams for many years, I have often refrained from using either of these formats to limit any confusion for recipients. That leaves me with spelling out the month in most of my messages, and while it takes a couple of seconds more than just using a numeric date format, it can help reduce great confusion and wasted time for others. More importantly, it saves me from a barrage of emails, to add to the 100+ I already receive each day, asking for clarification on what date I actually was describing.

I share this thought with you, because here at Battle Red Blog we have a strong contingent of international fans of the Houston Texans. I’m sure they have adapted to how we do things in the West, but I at least wanted to point out that things are done differently in other countries, and how confusion may reign supreme with something as simple as a date format.

Speaking of the West, if you are looking for a show to binge watch this weekend, you might consider HBO’s latest series “Westworld.” It’s a ten-episode venture (season one concluded last week) that redeveloped a story originally written by Michael Crichton. The film version under the same name was released in 1973 and starred Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, and James Brolin. Without getting into any spoiler territory for the new series, let’s just say that Crichton seems to have an affinity for stories involving things going wrong in theme parks. You may recall his tremendous success with the “Jurassic Park” series.

The original film of “Westworld” was an interesting thriller based upon the concept that, for a hefty daily resort fee, guests could live out fairly unlimited fantasies in different venues throughout an adult amusement park called Delos. Within the greater complex of parks, it included “Roman World” set as the ancient Roman city of Pompeii that included excessive food, wine and wild orgies; “Medieval World,” which represented medieval Europe and a Camelot vibe to explore fantasies as a sword-toting Knight; and finally “Westworld,” which provided the backdrop to live out fantasies of being a gunslinger set in the Old Wild West complete with saloons and all the revelry that one would expect.

The park hosts in the original film were highly advanced androids who were more than willing to be on the losing end of a duel against the human guests to ensure their immersive satisfaction. At some point things began to unravel in the software design as malfunctions spread across all three theme parks, and the android hosts decided they were tired of losing to inferior humans. I won’t say much more if you haven’t seen it, but it was a pretty interesting concept and a well done film.

HBO’s take on this theme is much more compelling. Season one developed a complex backstory of interesting characters, and it included many twists and turns along the way to keep the audience VERY off balance. Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris and Jeffrey Wright did master’s work with their roles, followed closely with outstanding performances by newcomers Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, James Marsden, Luke Hemsworth (of the famous Hemsworth clan) and Jimmi Simpson.

The biggest criticism I’ll express is that the nudity was excessive to the point of being extremely uncomfortable in several episodes. Just because you can do that on cable television doesn’t mean that you should. Especially when it really didn’t add anything to such a well written and performed story. I hope they tone that down going forward. That being said, if you can fast-forward past those obscene moments, you’ll be rewarded with a very engaging show that might have you further question the world that YOU live in.

With that, I’ll ask you: “Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?”

It’s Saturday night, and it’s alright for commenting. The usual site rules apply. Enjoy your evening.