HBO cancels sci-fi drama Westworld after fourth season

It’s official: HBO has decided to pull the plug on Westworld, canceling the show after four seasons.

The surprising news comes courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter; insiders claim that despite a slew of shake-ups at HBO parent company Warner Media Discovery, the decision to cancel Westworld was not affected by new CEO David Zaslav’s quest to cut costs.

Westworld has been one of HBO’s biggest shows of the past decade, a dense science fiction odyssey that has collected an impressive 54 Emmy nominations, including a win for Best Supporting Actress for Thandiwe Newton, who plays the host Maeve. Despite the show’s early success, its ratings declined steeply during its third and fourth seasons, with season 4 in particular cratering. So while this is shocking news on premise because it equates to HBO kicking one of its former golden children to the curb, in terms of the ratings and audience response, it’s not too big a twist, especially given that it’s an expensive show and HBO was getting very little return on its investment.

Westworld is canceled. Did HBO just lose a great show, or cut its losses?

While Westworld’s first season still stands as an outstanding example of prestige sci-fi television, the show had more than its fair share of bumps in the road over the years. Did HBO just axe a beloved series, or did it cut its losses on a show that was consistently losing viewers?

We may not know the answer to that until we get a better feel for the audience reaction. Will there be outrage, or quiet shrugs of acceptance?

Whether you fell off the Westworld train sometime after it left the station in Temperance or you enjoyed every second, it is unfortunate that the show won’t be able to tell its planned ending. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have been transparent for years about having a planned end point for Westworld; they planned to bring the story home if the show was renewed for a fifth and final season. Now we’ll never see the ending the had in mind (unless Westworld is revived elsewhere).

“Over the past four seasons, Lisa and Jonah have taken viewers on a mind-bending odyssey, raising the bar at every step,” said HBO in a statement. “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 the statement from Kilter Films, Joy and Nolan’s production company: “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.”

Westworld may be at an end, but for whatever small consolation it may provide fans, the ending of season 4 had a strange sort of finality that makes the show still feel like it achieved an ending of a sort…even if it’s not the one that was intended.

All four seasons of Westworld are available on HBO Max.

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