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As a longtime television aficionado, I’m usually ahead of the curve before a network – any network – announces that its pulling the plug on a television series. Fox’s Werewolf? Even at the tender age of fourteen, I saw that cancellation from a country mile away; ABC’s Homefront? C’mon, really? As much as I loved (and brothers and sisters, do I mean loved)that ode to post-WWII America, I still marvel that the show got as far as it did, episode-wise. ABC’s My So-Called Life? Doomed from the get-go, and I knew it even as I reveled in all of that well-written teenage angst. But as far as lacking the prognostication skills to not see a plug being pulled on a show which is a favorite? Almost unheard of, yet that’s precisely what happened to ye olde pop culture pundit upon learning the news from our Angel of Death known as The Hollywood Reporter that Westworld – after four sublime and off-the-wall seasons – is set to be out to pasture with all sorts of sci-fi plot threads in need of wrapping up.
HBO is cancelling its Westworld series after four seasons and no less than 54 Emmy nominations, even as the shows creators are arguing that they need at least one more season to wrap up loose ends.
“We always planned for a fifth and final season,” co-creator Jonathan Nolan said in an interview last month with The Hollywood Reporter. “We are still in conversations with the network. We very much hope to make them.” Co-creator Lisa Joy likewise chimed in, explaining that the series has always been building toward a pre-determined ending: “Jonah and I have always had an ending in mind that we hope to reach. We have not quite reached it yet.”
Apparently the ratings – the death knell of many-a fine series – for Westworld had shrunk considerably by the show’s third season, plummeting even further by the time it hit season four. Also a possibility in play (though denied as a factor by industry insiders) might be that Westworld and HBO proper are owned by the newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery, an outfit which in its current incarnation is actively looking to cut significant costs across its production board.
For its own part, HBO has released a statement regarding the cancellation of Westworld:
“Over the past four seasons, Lisa and [Jonathan] 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.”
Not to be outdone in the “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” category (with a tip of the old Irish hat to a show which was thankfully never cancelled, M*A*S*H*), Kilter Films said that
“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.”
