Yes, Westworld is fantastical… but it’s oddly factual in many ways, too.
We may have mentioned this once or twice recently, but there has never been a better time to be a nerdy TV fan. Not only do viewers have more of seemingly everything to consider when selecting a new series to follow, but most series in 2018 tend to be pretty smart. The days of something like CSI: Cyber debuting and automatically dominating the ratings are slowly fading away. Instead, a show like The Expanse may be set in some fictional, far-off universe, but it still employs a science consultant so writers can be informed and choosy about how they break various laws of physics.

All this leads to our latest video series: Tech on TV explores the science and technology informing our favorite TV in ways that are both obvious and not so obvious to viewers. From the DEFCON-blessed security professionals at the heart of Mr. Robot to the ’80s obsessives poring over FBI/KGB documents for ARPANET mentions behind The Americans, we’ll be looking at the real-world information shaping all kinds of television (and we promise to do so without poo-pooing anything, Neil DeGrasse Tyson-style).

Up first? While we’re sad it took so long for a second season to come around (TBA in Spring/Summer 2018), HBO’s delightful Westworld had Ars staffers smitten enough to reinvigorate our podcast during its debut 10-episode run. The show may be just as futuristic as The Expanse or other space dramas—we’ve got seemingly Turing Test-defying androids walking around, after all—but even this enigmatic robot-theme park relies on a lot of today’s tech, research, and AI-concepts to inform its particular take on the future of robot-human (and robohuman) interactions.

Season one of Tech on TV will have five short episodes tackling some of the shows mentioned above alongside a few not-so-obvious choices (seriously, Better Call Saul may have the techiest off-camera crew around). Let us know what you think below, and don’t be shy about suggesting which series we should go behind the scenes of next go-round.