Many fans are unhappy to seeWestworldcut off from having one last season to properly conclude its story, and that has led to a rise in signatures on a petition created for HBO to renew the series for season 5. The petition, which you can find atChange.org, was originally created when there were reports ofWestworld’s creators still having discussions with HBO about whether or not there would be another season. Now thatWestworldgetting canceled has been officially announced, the petition is gaining some new traction with signatures getting added continuously as of this writing.
“The series was intended to have five seasons, let it close its loop,” the petition’s creator says, referring to recent comments made by the show’s creators that they had an endgame in mind for one last season.
There has also been a movement on social media forWestworldto be saved. Many fans have been using the hashtag #SaveWestworld, and as with the petitions, there are more social media posts coming in, one after the other, as people continue to express their disappointment over the cancelation. Whether this ultimately ends up saving the series remains to be seen, but it’s a tactic that has proven to be successful when the fans are resilient enough to make it happen.Manifest, which just recently premiered itsfourth and final season on Netflix, was saved due to the fans after it was initially passed over by the streamer following its NBC cancelation.
The big problem withWestworldis that the series is particularly expensive to produce. It isone of the priciest shows ever made, and while its big budget was justified at the beginning with season 1 drawing high viewership, HBO execs found it harder to justify after season 4’s much-lower ratings. Fans will now have to convince HBO that enough of them will turn out for the final season to warrant spending the money on another batch of costly episodes.
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Some might say that it’s no surprise to see HBO bootWestworld, given the high price tag compared to the shrinking viewership. Even so, after investing so much into the first four seasons, many were expecting the series to get its final fifth season as a way to properly end the story. The show’s creators, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, wereoptimistic about the show’s renewalodds before it was announced that it would be getting axed.
“We always planned for a fifth and final season," Nolan told Deadline last month. “We are still in conversations with the network. We very much hope to make them.”
Joy also noted in an interview with TheWrap, “We had always planned on ending the series next season… Just to close up a lot of the stuff that we’ve seen before like the flashforward with The Man in Black and everything, so we have a plan for season 5 but you know, life can make other plans for you. So we’ll just hope for the best.”
