It’s the end of the line for Westworld: The fourth season of the show that aired earlier this year will be its final season, as HBO has announced that the series has been canceled ahead of the expected fifth and final season.
News comes across The Hollywood Reporter (Opens in a new tab) And the Other ports (Opens in a new tab)with a statement from HBO praising the team behind the series, beginning with husband-and-wife duo Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy who created the series.
“Over the past four seasons, Lisa and Juna have taken viewers on a mind-blowing journey, raising the bar at every step,” the statement read. “We are very grateful to them, along with their extremely talented cast, producers, crew and all our partners at Kilter Films, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television. It has been a pleasure to join them on this journey.”
Nolan and Joey had previously gone on record wishing they had a chance to finish loose ends and bring the series to a definite conclusion. Season 4 ended somewhat obscurely – which was by no means unusual for Westworld.
“Making Westworld a milestone in our careers,” Nolan and Joey said in their own statement. “We are so grateful to our exceptional cast and crew for creating these indelible characters and wonderful worlds. I was honored to tell these stories about the future of consciousness – both human and beyond – in the short period of time before our AI leaders stopped us.”
Westworld story
Inspired by the 1973 movie of the same name, Westworld is initially set in a futuristic amusement park inhabited by artificial intelligence-controlled robots. Designed to look like the American Old West, the park gave its human visitors the opportunity to live role-plays and fantasies.
As you might expect, things soon start to go wrong in the park. The show’s four seasons took viewers on a journey through ideas of free will, consciousness, artificial intelligence, ethics, and technological progress. The show has expanded to other theme parks and eventually real world settings.
It has attracted its fair share of star power, too: Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, Tessa Thompson, Aaron Paul, Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden and Jimmy Simpson were among the on-screen actors. The series has earned 54 Emmy nominations and nine wins over the course of its run.
In the end, it seems that not enough audience can be maintained for HBO to continue its work. Strong viewership numbers during the first season declined season after season, with some critics complaining that the show’s various ins and outs—which involve leaps in time, memory, and reality— It was hard to keep up.
Ultimately, HBO didn’t give a reason to cannibalize Westworld, whether because of budget cuts, show numbers, or something else — but the series clearly wasn’t the powerhouse it was in the beginning.