HBO cancels Westworld before what was to be its final season
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In fairness, HBO Max was not easy to subscribe to in the early days. These days it is possible to sign up without a cable subscription.
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So you are unhappy they cancelled the series yet you were unwilling to pay to support it? Maybe, if all the people that “had to” torrent it were instead paying customers and legitimate viewers on which to base the renewal decision, we would have S5 confirmed
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Season 1 was fun watching the park gradually descend into the chaos that you know is coming. But after it's already collapsed, it doesn't hold that much interest anymore.
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Season 1 is way deeper and has much more scope than the original movie
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I’ll never forgive them for canceling John from Cincinnati. (I know that makes me weird.)
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Klive Aleksaander
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Blame Warner Brothers Discovery, it has been cancelling TV shows and films across the board (Batwoman, for example, as a tax right off) with Warner Brothers films and HBO Max shows plus pulling a huge range of legacy shows (in the hundreds) in reruns because they don't generate enough revenue.
I'm pretty sure HBO itself had no choice in the decision.
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I enjoyed season 1 but fell off hard in season 2 and never picked it up again. They just didn’t seem like they knew what to do after the first season.
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Meanwhile I'm still sad they canceled Deadwood for the absolute waste of time that was John from Cincinnati.
As for Westworld, I bailed in Season 2 in the episode that ended with the reveal of Samurai World or whatever it was called. I just found I didn't care anymore. About any of the characters, about where the plot was going or had been, none of it.
It sucks fans don't get the final season, I feel for them still, even if I found I lost interest already.
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I'm so old that I remember when shows like Babylon 5 ran 5 seasons and managed to have a beginning, middle and a conclusion (if you don't count the spinoffs).
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Carnivale is the most underrated show HBO ever had. I remember bingeing the whole series nonstop on vhs tapes my friends brother recorded. First show I ever binged before it ever was a thing.
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The argument for continuance is stronger for streaming, in my estimation. One benefit to streaming is you can offer a wider selection of content and thereby serve some combination of a wider variety of tastes and larger appetites, and it behooves a streaming platform to leverage this. Factor in my impress it on that folks are less likely to start a series they know has an ending, and I would expect there to be a compelling reason to do a finale season for a series that reached 3 or 4 seasons.
Frankly, the only reason I watched the Game of Thrones series (starting when Season 7 was out) was because I figured A Song of Ice and Fire would never get a conclusion. (Heck, I still think that's the case.)
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I'd recommend giving The Good Place more time. The second season was a bit "wait, we got renewed?!?", but I thought season 4 and the end were great.
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I am disappointed that I won't get a chance to see season 5 anytime soon, since I just bought season 4 after finishing season 3 last weekend.
While season 1 is exquisite, season 2 had issues with comprehension and continuity if one isn't really paying close attention to the concepts being conveyed. I think season 3 went in a different direction in terms of the human-centric story line but seems unusually poignant considering the influence of Big Tech on our lives by powers bent on control. A little too close for comfort maybe? Either way I enjoyed most of it, but wish they could have expanded on the host development and future more.
I have to start season 4 now to see just how much it answers my expectations and decide on whether season 5 has a reason to be made.
While season 1 is exquisite, season 2 had issues with comprehension and continuity if one isn't really paying close attention to the concepts being conveyed. I think season 3 went in a different direction in terms of the human-centric story line but seems unusually poignant considering the influence of Big Tech on our lives by powers bent on control. A little too close for comfort maybe? Either way I enjoyed most of it, but wish they could have expanded on the host development and future more.
I have to start season 4 now to see just how much it answers my expectations and decide on whether season 5 has a reason to be made.
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I can't say, but my running assumption is that they add a lot of gratuitous content early to maximize the audience, and then ease off if/when they feel confident they have an audience for the underlying content.
This isn't to say nudity and violenxe ever left Game of Thrones (and it was not a series you could ever "sanitize"), but the some scenes in the early seasons felt like they were there to fill a quota that felt like it was gone in the later seasons.
YMMV
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> Reasons given include high production costs and declining viewership.
Well then HBO, good luck getting me to trust you enough to re-subscribe.
Interesting new series? Maybe I'll re-sub if you bother to produce all of the seasons needed for the story.
Well then HBO, good luck getting me to trust you enough to re-subscribe.
Interesting new series? Maybe I'll re-sub if you bother to produce all of the seasons needed for the story.
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The third season was tedious.
Yes, tedious, though I eventually slogged my way through it.
The fourth season was less tedious, though weird.
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Rome was so well done. The story was from over.
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Aw bummer.
Well, I'm enjoying The Peripheral right now
NO! I'm so surprised to hear people like this show. For me its a snooze fest.
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The Hosts wrote Westworld for Humanity.
I loved what Nolan and Joy were doing and would have kept watching to whatever end they had formulated. I'm sorry to see it go. Take a moment to admire the incredible cast, cinematography, and moments of transcendent writing. Few shows dare to challenge their viewers to think hard about an all-to-possible future in which humanity, for all its technological achievements, simply spirals itself into the ground anyway.
Well done Jonathan and Lisa - very well done indeed.
I loved what Nolan and Joy were doing and would have kept watching to whatever end they had formulated. I'm sorry to see it go. Take a moment to admire the incredible cast, cinematography, and moments of transcendent writing. Few shows dare to challenge their viewers to think hard about an all-to-possible future in which humanity, for all its technological achievements, simply spirals itself into the ground anyway.
Well done Jonathan and Lisa - very well done indeed.
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I like it ok but it looks like they were too lazy and/or stingy to include some weirdness from the book that would have been too much work (=expense) so they compensated by adding some random weirdness that doesn't make any sense, like the giant statues in future London.Aw bummer.
Well, I'm enjoying The Peripheral right now
NO! I'm so surprised to hear people like this show. For me its a snooze fest.
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For me, the loss of Anthony Hopkins didn't help. He brought much-needed gravitas to the show, and there was no one to replace him when he left.
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This is what kills good TV. Why craft a big-budget drama with an intricate story if the masses just eat up cookie-cutter superhero content?
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This news is a surprise on many levels.
WestWorld was a wonderful, insanely complex and at times impossible to follow show. Still it was great storytelling.
First, from other posters, I was surprised that viewership had dropped off by so much. That's a cryin' shame.
Most importantly, I'm stunned to hear that there was a *fifth* season in the works. The final episode of the 4th season was the perfect closure. Nothing more could be added, and there was nothing that could be removed. It ended, as it should be, on a perfect note.
What would a 5th season look like? Yikes, others mention other shows that dragged on too long; a 5th season of WestWorld would easily earn that moniker. No, much as I'm sad to see it go, I'm happy with what we have.
WestWorld was a wonderful, insanely complex and at times impossible to follow show. Still it was great storytelling.
First, from other posters, I was surprised that viewership had dropped off by so much. That's a cryin' shame.
Most importantly, I'm stunned to hear that there was a *fifth* season in the works. The final episode of the 4th season was the perfect closure. Nothing more could be added, and there was nothing that could be removed. It ended, as it should be, on a perfect note.
What would a 5th season look like? Yikes, others mention other shows that dragged on too long; a 5th season of WestWorld would easily earn that moniker. No, much as I'm sad to see it go, I'm happy with what we have.
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Mr. Segundus
Seniorius Lurkius
It's taught me a valuable lesson in that one should never buy expensive 4K UHD Blu-Rays (or even just regular Blu-Rays) of any TV show before it's fully completed its series run/story.
I have Westworld seasons 1-3 on 4K Blu-Ray and won't have any conclusion to the whole thing now. HBO pulled a similar stunt with Silicon Valley where the first couple of series were Blu-Ray in the UK, then switched to DVD only.
What HBO have done is the equivalent of ripping the final chapter out of the book so you don't know how it ends. I remember when Westworld was first announced there was a 5 year plan.
Not sure I can trust HBO to complete any further series with a continuing storyline now, even less so than SyFy which has a reputation for swift cancellations.
I have Westworld seasons 1-3 on 4K Blu-Ray and won't have any conclusion to the whole thing now. HBO pulled a similar stunt with Silicon Valley where the first couple of series were Blu-Ray in the UK, then switched to DVD only.
What HBO have done is the equivalent of ripping the final chapter out of the book so you don't know how it ends. I remember when Westworld was first announced there was a 5 year plan.
Not sure I can trust HBO to complete any further series with a continuing storyline now, even less so than SyFy which has a reputation for swift cancellations.
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Lots of industry people predicted once the Discovery takeover of HBO was complete it would be the end of scripted shows on the service because they were too expensive to produce. Looks like this may be the first domino to fall.
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Not sad about this at all. Season 1 was some of the best television ever. Season 2 was really good in most parts and very disappointing in others. Season 3 was straight garbage. It would've been better if they had ended it with 1 season.
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I couldn't agree more. I loved that show, it scratched the creepy but enthralling itch.
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I often wonder how much sci-fi shows in particular suffer from piracy compared to other shows. I realising that I'm stereotyping a fair bit (computer nerds and sci-fi go hand in hand, right?) but there's some data to back it up.
Season 3 of Westworld was the third most torrented show according to TorrentFreak, when the popularity of the show is nowhere near that of even the other shows on that list, let alone shows like NCIS, Young Sheldon, The Good Doctor, etc.
Blaming HBO definitely doesn't work, HBOs most popular show in 2020 - The Undoing - isn't on that list.
They don't get a tax writeoff for shelving Westworld though, this is just cancelling it because of the reasons given - it costs too much and viewership was declining.
I imagine HBO was given new budgets that meant what they commit to has to have greater profitability. There's little guarantee that Westworld S5 would have delivered that. As much as I love the show and want a finale, it makes more sense to invest the money into a new show that will bring new viewers, not just deliver some satisfaction to current viewers.
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I don’t know, seems pretty par for the course for anything owned by Warner Bros Discovery since the merger?
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The first season was good if difficult (where else can you find a TV episode with Julian Jaynes as a core reference!), and then it got less good and more difficult. I love Memento, and like Jonathan Nolan's other work, but when each character has their own subjective timeline and reprogrammable motivations it gets a bit much. "It's Primer, but inside the characters' heads!"
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Aw bummer.
Well, I'm enjoying The Peripheral right now
I hope someone gets crazy enough to do Neuromancer because of that. Someone finally got the look of a Gibson novel right. Just don't turn it into a TekWar clone.
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This was my favorite show. This is incredibly disappointing. I really wanted to see what they had in store for the ending.
It's the only show in a long time I actually watched on the day each episode was released. Heck, it's basically the only reason I signed up for Binge (which is the only streaming service to carry it in Australia.) I don't enjoy supporting Streamotion/Foxtel/Murdoch but I had to know what happened and I wanted to legitimately support the show if I could. I guess I can cancel that now.
It's the only show in a long time I actually watched on the day each episode was released. Heck, it's basically the only reason I signed up for Binge (which is the only streaming service to carry it in Australia.) I don't enjoy supporting Streamotion/Foxtel/Murdoch but I had to know what happened and I wanted to legitimately support the show if I could. I guess I can cancel that now.
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Streaming viewership for a spectacle like Westworld might have something to do with HBO Max limiting resolution to 1080p when 4k TVs are prevalent. So strange they do this for everything but the latest House of Dragons.
I bought seasons 2 & 3 on 4k UHD to avoid a smeary mess on a 77” OLED. I was so excited they offered an option for viewing quality after making it through the very poor broadcast of S1.
In 2016, Comcast undertook their Bay Area downgrade of 1080 content to 720p coinciding with S1E2, I remember at the time wondering what the heck happened to my signal/PQ after a decent first episode. For reference, Ars was running their OLED and HDR explainer articles at the time, and quality was on the mind.
I bought seasons 2 & 3 on 4k UHD to avoid a smeary mess on a 77” OLED. I was so excited they offered an option for viewing quality after making it through the very poor broadcast of S1.
In 2016, Comcast undertook their Bay Area downgrade of 1080 content to 720p coinciding with S1E2, I remember at the time wondering what the heck happened to my signal/PQ after a decent first episode. For reference, Ars was running their OLED and HDR explainer articles at the time, and quality was on the mind.
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Deadwood was a show I think I admired more than I liked. In any case, blame David Milch for that rather than HBO. And of course they did eventually wrap the whole thing up, so at least you’ve got that.
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I disagree. I thought it was incredibly well done. I also enjoy shows and movies that are opaque and slowly put themselves together to some interesting reveal. I enjoyed the cerebral concepts and nonlinear timeline.
Specifically, because I'm a nerd...
When Ford released his final "game" he altered the systems to allow the guns to hurt people. The guns were always selective but their exact mechanism was never described. (Just handwavy sci-fi.) This also unlocked the host's ability to physically attack guests. They watched their attackers use the automatic weapons and learned from that, or just figured it out. (How hard is it?) It's also shown that Ford at least partially removed the host's limitations on physical strength and mental capabilities. (Maeve being the ultimate showing of these abilities being unlocked.) It's my understanding that basically all of the hosts were sentience capable because they were all based on Dolores and the original bicameral design.
Delos would not have wanted the military to come in and it's not really clear that their island was under any governmental control at all. They wanted to protect their assets (primarily the guest data) which would also have been a nightmare for them if it had gotten out what they were doing all along. In their hubris, they underestimated the hosts and thought some automatic weapons would be enough to wipe them out. That was incredibly misguided for a number of reasons, only some of which they could have known about anyway.
Yes, some things were not explained like the host's internal power source and the munitions selectivity capabilities. Those details weren't important to the story either. The fact that they worked was. If you don't like that, then that's fine, but it doesn't make it a bad story.
The second season expanded the world and showed that there were more parks. It was also a way to show that the hosts and their stories were basically reproduced with minor modifications as way of exploring what exactly makes up individuality. What makes you, you? Which, like the expansion of the world, is an expansion of the themes of the show. What is consciousness? What does it mean to be alive?
The third season again expanded the world. It also brought in questions and discussions on the value of our personal data and how over-reaching simulations could enable the powerful to shape the world. While still examining interesting ideas about individuality and consciousness. The multiple Dolores plotline examining the literal question of "if there was another you living a different life how much of you would still remain?" It even was able to show the pain of an incongruity between who you think and feel you are against who you present yourself to be to the world.
The fourth season tried to bring this back to humanity. It examined the difference between our internal realities and the external world. I also found the unstoppable force of the hosts control of humanity to be a compelling and terrifying concept. It also continued on the examination of self and consciousness with the differences between William's and Caleb's host forms. Also the loss of control of the hosts in Charlotte's cities.
I'm sad that I won't see what the had planned for the final season. Maybe they'll find someone else to let them make it.
Delos would not have wanted the military to come in and it's not really clear that their island was under any governmental control at all. They wanted to protect their assets (primarily the guest data) which would also have been a nightmare for them if it had gotten out what they were doing all along. In their hubris, they underestimated the hosts and thought some automatic weapons would be enough to wipe them out. That was incredibly misguided for a number of reasons, only some of which they could have known about anyway.
Yes, some things were not explained like the host's internal power source and the munitions selectivity capabilities. Those details weren't important to the story either. The fact that they worked was. If you don't like that, then that's fine, but it doesn't make it a bad story.
The second season expanded the world and showed that there were more parks. It was also a way to show that the hosts and their stories were basically reproduced with minor modifications as way of exploring what exactly makes up individuality. What makes you, you? Which, like the expansion of the world, is an expansion of the themes of the show. What is consciousness? What does it mean to be alive?
The third season again expanded the world. It also brought in questions and discussions on the value of our personal data and how over-reaching simulations could enable the powerful to shape the world. While still examining interesting ideas about individuality and consciousness. The multiple Dolores plotline examining the literal question of "if there was another you living a different life how much of you would still remain?" It even was able to show the pain of an incongruity between who you think and feel you are against who you present yourself to be to the world.
The fourth season tried to bring this back to humanity. It examined the difference between our internal realities and the external world. I also found the unstoppable force of the hosts control of humanity to be a compelling and terrifying concept. It also continued on the examination of self and consciousness with the differences between William's and Caleb's host forms. Also the loss of control of the hosts in Charlotte's cities.
I'm sad that I won't see what the had planned for the final season. Maybe they'll find someone else to let them make it.
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