Westworld, based on the 1973 film of the same name by Michael Crichton, was originally set to debut in 2015 but finally landed late 2016, averaging 12 million viewers across all platforms and becoming HBO’s most-watched first series ever.

The park’s hosts are extremely lifelike robots and have set storylines to follow, though can react to situations within those stories as the guests interact with them. Guests can injure or kill hosts (and they’ll appear to react, bleed and die as humans would), but hosts are programmed not to hurt guests. When people are given free reign to act as they wish to something appearing to be human but with no consequences, the show reveals a depressing tendency toward violence and destruction.

As deadline.com reports, Newton addressed the fact that the violence is often seen toward women in the show – pointing out it’s presenting a problem and asking whether there’s a solution.

“There was a lot of comment on, ‘Is this going to be gratuitous?’ Violence against women… It’s valid. And even though we were all terrified, because we just desperately wanted to stick with it – stick with this – we also knew that that was the point. The point we’re trying to make is, look at where we are, and is there a road out from here?

“I was just filled with excitement of where this show could go – of where this show could not really take us not as actors, but the audience, and people; and I know this is hyperbolic, but the world.

“Here we are right now at a crossroads, and I think Westworld, for me anyway, is part of the solution, not the problem.

“With so many of the roles I’ve played […] very often I feel like I have to put my activism behind. I have to just be the actor, do what I have to do, but [on Westworld], I was an activist every single day I went to work. I felt part of the solution every single day.”

Images: Rex

Westworld creators answer one of the big questions about Maeve’s free will