HBO cancels Westworld before what was to be its final season
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Zim the Vixen
Ars Centurion
For crying out loud, don't plan for and announce a next season if you don't have one confirmed.
AAAAAA.
AAAAAA.
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Do we trust anything WB/Warner/HBO is doing right now? Everything is in flux. I just hope to get my sequels to "The Batman" now.
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HBO is unfortunately known for cancelling series before their creators' intended conclusion, however I am glad 'Westworld' got further than most.
One series that I really wish had gotten more seasons was the show 'Carnivàle' --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniv%C3%A0le
In my opinion, it was a very original and creative series that featured excellent performances all around, both from the known cast members (Clancy Brown, Clea DuVall, Adrienne Barbeau) and from the unknown cast members.
Season two ended on a cliff hanger, and I really wanted to know where the story was going to take us..
One series that I really wish had gotten more seasons was the show 'Carnivàle' --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniv%C3%A0le
In my opinion, it was a very original and creative series that featured excellent performances all around, both from the known cast members (Clancy Brown, Clea DuVall, Adrienne Barbeau) and from the unknown cast members.
Season two ended on a cliff hanger, and I really wanted to know where the story was going to take us..
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Dumb decision, but not surprising considering it is par for the course these days - I mean why bother watching a series without a commitment from the streaming company? Declining viewership is probably due to the fact it's been made harder to actually view. I had to torrent S3 and will have to do the same with S4. Why not syndicate it out to a broader audience of streaming platforms? This fragmentation is bad for consumers, so I'll just return to downloading.
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The first season was excellent. I'm only about half-way through the second season and it's like the Matrix sequels or the second+ season of The Good Place. It's like they didn't really expect to get a second season and had no real plan for it, so they were just winging it.
I haven't seen the movie they based all this on, but my guess would be that the first season used up most of the source material and when they had to go off on their own it didn't go so well. Only one season and they were already out of ideas and had to come up with a Samurai World and hint at other potential similar parks.
I haven't seen the movie they based all this on, but my guess would be that the first season used up most of the source material and when they had to go off on their own it didn't go so well. Only one season and they were already out of ideas and had to come up with a Samurai World and hint at other potential similar parks.
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Westworld was the first and only TV show I have watched that was too plot-complicated to remember WTF happened between seasons. I enjoy surreal and avante-garde stuff and enjoyed each episode alone even without understanding the overall plot, but holy shit, they really needed to print a read along reference manual for the audience to keep up for this show.
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Not that dumb, viewership fell off a cliff after the 2nd season and didn't recover.
Good riddance.
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Season four's ending serves reasonably well as a send-off for the show. Not having another go-around might be better than the alternative; Westworld's long-form storytelling has been disjointed at best and pretentious nonsense at worst. It's mainly survived because of a killer score and a knack for producing glorious moments where the things onscreen click absolutely perfectly and you're left sitting there thinking, "wow". A majority of those moments were in season one, but there have been a standout handful in the years since that have made for truly great television.
I'll remember it fondly. I wonder if I'll think the same way about it in a few years. We'll need to come back and check again. For fidelity.
I'll remember it fondly. I wonder if I'll think the same way about it in a few years. We'll need to come back and check again. For fidelity.
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The first season was absolutely perfect. Each season afterwards just hasn't had the same magic. I love how each characters name has meaning for their attributes.
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Apparently it was only getting 500K viewers for the 4th season. Fewer than reruns of The Big Bang Theory, Let that sink in.
For a show which started out so promisingly, I mean, almost tailor made for me, it was so disappointing how unnecessarily confusing and unfocussed it became even by season 2, I stuck with it for season 3, but abandoned it completely by S4.
Not surprising S5 is cancelled, but it just feels unfair that the showrunners' focus is now on other things, like developers abandoning a game, because there are so many opportunities in the streamiverse. What a waste of great actors and production values.
For a show which started out so promisingly, I mean, almost tailor made for me, it was so disappointing how unnecessarily confusing and unfocussed it became even by season 2, I stuck with it for season 3, but abandoned it completely by S4.
Not surprising S5 is cancelled, but it just feels unfair that the showrunners' focus is now on other things, like developers abandoning a game, because there are so many opportunities in the streamiverse. What a waste of great actors and production values.
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I'm fine with the way the series ended. Given the what was set up to come next, it seemed like a long climb to get civilization to anything approaching a sustainable status quo, and it would made for a muddy, cramped and rushed season of television.
That said, I've cancelled HBO Max. I may be forced to dive in time-to-time because my wife will want to watch 8 episode seasons about dragons and incest. Other than, HBO, Warner and especially Discovery have not demonstrated much in the way of commitment that warrants the investment of my time or money.
That said, I've cancelled HBO Max. I may be forced to dive in time-to-time because my wife will want to watch 8 episode seasons about dragons and incest. Other than, HBO, Warner and especially Discovery have not demonstrated much in the way of commitment that warrants the investment of my time or money.
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I was coming here to make a similar comment about Carnivale. There was zero closure on that series and I was thoroughly disappointed.
At least West World has at least a closure-giving ending. It certainly won't get a Firefly-like uprising to complete it.
Now, if we could get an ending to Heroes...
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You just had to remind me of Carnivale.
Loved that show. Closest similar kind of story is probably something written by Tim Powers.
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Too bad they didn't cancel it after season 2. That would have been a decent end for the show.
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Huh, I thought last season's finale WAS the show's finale. Not sure where another season would have gone?
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I didn’t really get into Westworld, but HBO Max is my favorite streaming service, so I’m not crazy about Discovery starting to take notes from the Netflix playbook.
It’s especially weird coming from HBO, the network that famously kept Arli$$ around forever, because they didn’t want to alienate the tiny fan base of viewers who actually watched it.
It’s especially weird coming from HBO, the network that famously kept Arli$$ around forever, because they didn’t want to alienate the tiny fan base of viewers who actually watched it.
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The overlap with the movie is pretty much “robot western theme park” — season one was pretty much spun from whole cloth aside from that.
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I really wish it would become the norm for series & movies to commit to the run up front.
Have a beginning middle & end sketched out & funded. If the show becomes a cash cow you can drag it out a bit.
A completed story can find an audience for decades. A good show might even find a larger audience than it’s premier.
It still blows my mind that part 2 of the recent Dune was only committed to after the release of part 1.
Raised by Wolves was a weird little show that never found an audience despite being great, now that it’s forever unfinished it never will.
Have a beginning middle & end sketched out & funded. If the show becomes a cash cow you can drag it out a bit.
A completed story can find an audience for decades. A good show might even find a larger audience than it’s premier.
It still blows my mind that part 2 of the recent Dune was only committed to after the release of part 1.
Raised by Wolves was a weird little show that never found an audience despite being great, now that it’s forever unfinished it never will.
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Good idea. Season 3 and 4 were declining heavily in quality and story from season 1 and 2...
Season 3 should have been the end of it...
Season 3 should have been the end of it...
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Hell, WB under the new management cancelled Nasim Pedrad's "Chad" the DAY OF the second season premiere.
https://tvline.com/2022/07/11/chad-seas ... bs-comedy/
This has nothing to do with the quality of the show; it's David Zaslav and Discovery desperately penny-pinching everywhere they can because they overspent in their merger and are trying not to be billions of dollars underwater. This is the company that's so broke they could only afford to release two movies this fall/winter and the entire rest of their slate got pushed back because of it.
https://consequence.net/2022/08/warner- ... -no-money/
*looks at rest of front page*
That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
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Funny, they used to keep some shows going after the creator(s) wanted to end them. Alan Ball decided to end Six Feet Under while it was still good. He wanted to do the same with True Blood, but instead they brought in a new show runner. It wasn't nearly as good as the earlier seasons. BSG should have ended earlier as well. Seems the opposite of most Trek series, they start off weak, then find their footing. I enjoyed the first two seasons of Westward, but had to force myself to complete season three, and regretted it. Dexter, STisco, all seem to have fizzled after promising starts.
isco, all seem to have fizzled after promising starts.
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We call this “getting HBO’d”. My wife really wanted to watch game of thrones but I convinced her to wait it out in case HBO canned it.
maybe cancelling the final season is better than doing a crappy final season… but I’m Still upset about Rome over here.
maybe cancelling the final season is better than doing a crappy final season… but I’m Still upset about Rome over here.
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Cap'nAwesome
Ars Centurion
This is why I have trust issues and rarely check out new shows. RIP Westworld - I enjoyed you while you lasted.
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Why would that ever make sense?
These shows cost millions of dollars an episode and if they aren't seeing a return on investment who's going to burn money making more?
Hardly any shows are 'completed' most just end, sometimes they get enough notice to throw a series final at the audience but that's rare as hell.
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Agreed, they were out of ideas. Worse, they'd written themselves into a corner. After the events of the movie, the only reasonable and realistic response to this uprising would be to rain holy hell down on them. That is, the only response that would make any real sense is a massive military crackdown to wipe them all out.
But wouldn't work for a season 2 or beyond. So instead, we got a Delos QA assault team riding around in ATVs (no gunships or other military vehicles?) that possesses absolutely no tactical or strategic sense, armed with automatic weapons and yet still suffer a lot of losses. My 6th grader and his Fortnite friends could mount a better attack than that.
Anyhow, it had a lot of good ideas, was pretty and had some excellent performances. But there was no way to get past the shortsighted and sometimes truly bad writing....
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I think season 4 is actually the second best season, and it concluded reasonably well.
Still not ideal, but better than if it ended after season 3.
I think it goes 1, 4, 2, 3.
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Sometimes you hope for one more season and get the pile of crap that was S4 of The Man in the High Castle because all the writers snagged new jobs and just end up phoning it in.
If Westworld's quality was sinking, may be it's better this way.
If Westworld's quality was sinking, may be it's better this way.
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What the hell, I haven’t even had time to start the newest season due to well… life. Wtf.
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Yeah. The first season is one of the very best shows I've ever seen. Almost all of it is carefully crafted, and loaded with depth. It has plenty of twists, but it is consistent and coherent, and part of interesting character development.
But then season two felt like just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. It was... tolerable; but the 'twists' didn't really feel coherent this time. It's just a bunch of random garbage happening with only the barest skeleton framework to motivate it. What's worse is that it seemed to ret-con one of the main themes of the first season. The question of "AI consciousness" which was core in the first one is just exploded in the second season. There is no more subtly there. It drains a lot of value out of the conclusion of season one.
For that reason, I didn't have any faith in the series and I don't intend to watch past season 2. But season 1 was really great.
I guess one of the problems with renewing things when they are popular, and cancelling them when they are not, is that tight shows that already have a complete arc could get renewed until they become junk; and shows that have a slow steady burn could miss out.
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I just hope this doesn't bleed over into Succession. In S5 they're going to slash the helicopter budget and we're going to see Logan Roy have to take the subway.
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I didn't love this last season... but when they hinted that the serious would end in what sounded like the OG westworld... I got excited. Boo HBO BOOOO.
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