'Westworld' could be the cure for your 'Game of Thrones' nostalgia

LONDON -- While none of us is ready to admit that a world without Game of Thrones is our future, HBO is already setting up a successor to the Iron Throne.

The series -- called Westworld -- is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name, and it's basically the opposite of the beloved Lannister-Stark drama.

Instead of sorcery and castles, there are artificially intelligent robot hosts that work in a futuristic theme park.

That theme park, curiously, is run by Dr. Robert Ford, who is portrayed by the great Anthony Hopkins. Even more curiously, Westworld is Hopkins' first ever recurring TV role. And the expectations are high.

The dark odyssey of Westworld, created by Jonathan Nolan (Interstellar, The Dark Night) and Lisa Joy (Pushing Daisies, Burn Notice), explores a world in which our relationship to technology is turned on its head. In it, humans are the sinful, screwed up characters, while the artificially intelligent robots are grappling with the essence of ethics and morality.

Humans visit the hedonistic theme park run by Dr. Ford with the sole purpose of utter indulgence, no matter how noble or deprived. And -- almost unthinkably -- all without a shred of consequence.

Westworld premieres on Tuesday 4 October in the UK at 9 p.m. on Sky Atlantic and Now TV, and on Sunday 2 October at 9 p.m. ET.

To mark the show's air date, Sky Atlantic has revealed a futuristic 3D-printed model. The printer uses lasers on liquid resin to make molecules link together in a solid form, making up the shapes of the object being printed.