HBO canned Raised by Wolves with the huge cliff hanger ending, so I'm not fully confident they will renew @Xerobull
Yeah, I get what they were trying to do, but the execution was bad. They are running out of plot ideas, heading towards the Terminator or Matrix scenarios
HBO Cancels ‘Westworld’ in Shock Decision HBO has switched off Westworld. The network has decided to cancel the sci-fi drama after its recent fourth season. It’s an unexpected fate for a series that was once considered one of HBO’s biggest tentpoles — an acclaimed mystery box drama that racked up 54 Emmy award nominations (including a supporting actress win for Thandiwe Newton). Last month, co-creator Jonathan Nolan said in an interview that he hoped HBO would give the series a fifth season to wrap up the show’s ambitious story, which has chronicled a robot uprising that changed the fate of humanity. “We always planned for a fifth and final season,” Nolan said. “We are still in conversations with the network. We very much hope to make them.” Co-creator Lisa Joy likewise said the series has always been working towards a specific ending: “Jonah and I have always had an ending in mind that we hope to reach. We have not quite reached it yet.” Yet linear ratings for the pricey series fell off sharply for its third season, and then dropped even further for season four. Westworld‘s critic average on Rotten Tomatoes likewise declined from the mid-80s for its first two seasons to the mid-70s for the latter two. Fans increasingly griped that the show became confusing and tangled in its mythology and lacked characters to root for. Looming over all of this is the fact Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has pledged aggressive cost cutting mandate, though network insiders maintain that saving money was not a factor in the show’s cancelation. Still, HBO — and, increasingly, other cable networks and streamers — typically like to give major series creators time to craft an ending for their serialized shows as it keeps its subscribers from getting upset (such as the years-long fandom outrage after Deadwood was axed). Plus, a show that can tout a beginning, middle and end arguably increases its perceived value as a streaming and home video product compared to a title that feels unfinished. The fourth season of Westworld wasn’t entirely a cliffhanger, however. It’s final moments could be said to be rather ambiguous (as discussed in our post-season interview with Joy, where THR associate editor Abbey White pointed out, “It felt like the show could have ended there”). Here’s HBO’s statement: “Over the past four seasons, Lisa and Jonah have taken viewers on a mind-bending odyssey, raising the bar at every step. We are tremendously grateful to them, along with their immensely talented cast, producers and crew, and all of our partners at Kilter Films, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television. It’s been a thrill to join them on this journey.” And here’s Kilter Films’ statement: “Making Westworld has been one of the highlights of our careers. We are deeply grateful to our extraordinary cast and crew for creating these indelible characters and brilliant worlds. We’ve been privileged to tell these stories about the future of consciousness – both human and beyond – in the brief window of time before our AI overlords forbid us from doing so.” Still, as with the show’s immortal androids, it would be foolish to assume there will never be more Westworld ever. If Deadwood can get a movie 12 years after the series ended, it’s always possible the title could be, well, rebooted. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/hbo-cancels-westworld-1235255955
Season 2 and 3 were subpar and Sci Fi is expensive. They reversed course in season 4 and produced a good one but people already checked out. I'm all about The Vow right now.
Well, that sucks. I enjoyed season 4 way more than season 3 and was kind of excited to get back into the original Westworld for most (or maybe all) of season 5...but I get that it is probably an expensive series to produce and if the ratings keep dropping off, it is hard to justify. I wonder if the show creators would ever reveal what their plans for the final season were?
When the show left Westworld, I'm pretty sure it lost most people's interest. I got bored during season 3, never finished
Same here. Still, if I actually paid for HBO I would cancel it after this news. Maybe westworld will find a home at Apple+. They seem to be the new go-to for quality shows.
I felt like season 4 was the end. Not even sure what season 5 would be about. The show never really had good ratings, and the long time between seasons didn't help. They thought they were game of thrones were their ratings were minuscule.
I can follow some pretty convoluted shows but episodes 2 and 3 of the last season were just too much for me and I said I just can’t anymore… it was impossible to follow who was a robot anymore and the deaths meant nothing because everyone was resurrected like 15 times. Every time the show killed someone… even an android, it played the audience into this notion that they should be emotionally upset by it. Which speaks to the biggest weakness of all Nolan projects. They are typically brilliant at everything else except for emotional responses from the audience. Interstellar is the pinnacle of Nolan genius but in the climax he doesn’t really understand what people will care or what they’ll need emotionally and then just throws in the Anne Hathaway love speech and McConnahey crying scenes. The Nolan’s need to learn from Kubrick who knew who he was and didn’t try to force emotions on his work. He stayed true to just being who he was a transferring emotional payoff in his own darker more subtle way. Westworld should have been more Kubrick. Less Interstellar. Stop thinking we need to stop and have a robot get killed so the audience can cry because they had an emotional attachment to them. Stay with an arc. Stay with a higher storyline. Use more subtlety. Westworld could have been a masterpiece. But the Nolan’s have some major flaws in not knowing how to deal with their audience.
I was watching this because I was invested in it already, and although I enjoyed S4, I can't say that I would "miss" it so much not having a season 5. It was meh overall, I'll live without it
