'Westworld' again juggles its pieces but can't escape its own dense maze

"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.