Finally watched the pilot to Westworld. Thoughts with minor spoilers...

I largely enjoyed it as the first chapter in an ongoing story, so the slower pacing was tolerable. It did get particularly slow in the middle, but what can you do.

Easily the worst part of the episode was the music - the title sequence felt like a Game of Thrones rip-off (not surprising), the general score was whatever, and then the crowning achievement of crap: the cover of "Paint It Black." It was a bad cover and didn't fit the scene (felt forced). It's like they were going for Battlestar Galactica's "All Along the Watchtower" cover and failed miserably.

Also, there were some stupid (world-building) moments, which presumably will be built on but I'll call out now:
1. The engineer (is that her job?) lady kissing the whore IN THE WIDE OPEN. Unless your job is to QA the bots like that, you're going to be having a talk wtih your supervisor. Skipping the kiss and teasing her intrigue would have been a better way to go.
2. The dialogue writer is shitty with dialogue. This is a multi-million if not billion-dollar experience and they get a hack writer as the lead?
3. Similarly, why introduce a coup/climb the corporate ladder/nefarious ulterior motives for Westworld in the first episode? That scene could have been cut to shave time and placed in a later episode. Let Jeffrey Wright and Anthony Hopkins fuck up a bit more.
4. Back to the business of Westworld - this is a huge, highly resourced entertainment/electronics company and they do no real QA before releasing updates to their consumers? What in the fuck?!

What self-respecting company wouldn't have a beta environment with beta testers to test out the potentially dangerous and life-threatening robots. Maybe if they want to save expenses, but if there are fatal flaws and the company gets shut down, they have no business. I thought Jonathan Nolan had gaming experience...

A couple quick things I liked:
1. The "programmed" state of some of the narratives, with branching options. It was interesting to watch how the robots behaved when new elements would be introduced (e.g. robots being distracted or humans interfering). This helped to show how game-like the world is.
2. The fly narrative. A simple tactic, nicely executed.
3. Ed Harris as the Man in Black. Dig it.

I am definitely curious about the show and look forward to watching the next few episodes. This has me intrigued in a way that Preacher did not.

The pilot gets a solid RECOMMENDATION as a very good episode, just shy of greatness (though it may be arguably great).