HBO Cancels WESTWORLD After Four Seasons

After four seasons, HBO has decided to cancel the sci-fi drama Westworld. This series was one of HBO’s biggest tentpole series, so this seems to come as a surprise to a lot of people. I actually was wondering how much longer the series would go because I noticed that there hasn’t been much hype online for it the past couple of seasons.

Now, the report has confirmed that the ratings for the show “fell off sharply for its third season, and then dropped even further for season four.” On top of that, the critic reviews have been dropping as well. While I enjoyed the first two seasons of the series, my interest in it started fading while watching Season 3. It just started to get messy, and I’m not surprised that the series was canceled.

Co-creator of the series Jonathan Nolan hoped HBO would give the series a fifth season to wrap up the show’s ambitious story last month saying: “We always planned for a fifth and final season. We are still in conversations with the network. We very much hope to make them.” Co-creator Lisa Joy went on to say the story 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.”

Well, now they’ll never get to that ending! I think the show would have worked best as a limited series like Watchmen. One or two seasons to tell the story. It really didn’t need to be stretched out to five seasons. I haven’t watched Season 4 yet, but I’ve heard that it’s ambiguous and could serve as an ending.

HBO said in a 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.”

Here’s a statement from Kilter Films: “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.” 

Who knows, maybe a few years from now, it will get a movie that will wrap up the story.