Our focus on the present and future of Westworld after the conclusion of the fourth season and awaiting the renewal for a fifth, which should also be the last one as per the initial plan of the creators Lisa Joy and Christopher Nolan.
The so-called “dear and old seriality” is leaving more and more space to the logic of the physiologically and economically different streaming platforms. After the historic closure of This Is Us on generalist TV a few weeks ago, the fourth season of Westworld ended on cable (in Italy the dubbed season finale arrives on Sky Atlantic on August 22, the same day the dragons of Westeros debut in subtitled version). The opportunity seems propitious to us to think about the impact that the series and in particular this season have had and the future that awaits them, thanks to Westworld and the power to be the authors of your own story.
The manufacturing force of HBO
“It’s not tv, it’s HBO” read an old slogan, to emphasize the difference in production of the cable channel in its heyday. A period that has never actually ended and that, on the contrary, has made it quietly compete with the increasingly emerging and consolidated streaming platforms even in recent years. One of the characteristics that have distinguished Home Box Office is the economic level of investment in its serial productions, not only in terms of CGI and special effects but above all in on-site shooting, with locations built ad hoc and found around the globe, without which the effect on the screen for viewers would not be the same. On the day that Westworld 4 ends and House of the Dragon begins it is representative of how these two shows represent in a sense the old and the new course of the cable channel. The other peculiar feature is the risky and courageous bet on long-term screenplays and on a story with an ambitious and multi-season narrative imprint and construction. Westworld belongs precisely in this perspective and, despite the increasing use of CGI to represent the hyper-futuristic world from the third season onwards, it does not fail to have the charm of the past, with the remains of the original Park, the new one dedicated to 20s and what we could see in a hypothetical fifth season. The sci-fi drama also represents the aforementioned long-term narrative construction.
Westworld 4, the final review: the last chance to be free
The power of storytelling
Frequent in Westworld are the narratives of the characters, usually of the hosts, the androids built to “entertain” humans, as in Michael Crichton’s The World of Robots from which the series draws inspiration. Androids who at some point begin to question their reality and want to become controllers and authors of their own narrative line (we bet that many TV series characters would like this?). A bit like Cristina / Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) in the fourth season. A bit like all the showrunners would like to do and – in an almost meta-television way – as perhaps it will happen if Westworld is renewed for a fifth and final season, as per the initial wishes of the two creators. As indeed they have been able to do so far, even with a less understood and less appreciated season like the third, but going their own way knowing well where they wanted to go, and being renewed for a fourth cycle of episodes. Certainly this is not the first serial with fluctuating years but that in the general picture each acquire its own intrinsic value.
From Westworld to Jurassic Park: Michael Crichton, theme parks and the pursuit of fun and pleasure
What to expect from the fifth season of Westworld
A fifth season of Westworld, it should be pointed out, has not yet been ordered by HBO, but we trust once again in the channel’s foresight and in wanting to close a story that was opened six years ago, and conceived from the beginning by the creators Lisa Joy. and Jonathan Nolan as a five-season journey. The final reset of the fourth season, or a possible new Park for Dolores’ last and most dangerous “game”, leaves room for some questions. So what to expect from the fifth season? A return to the origins even more than the fourth one. A possible return of the co-creator of the Ford park – played by Anthony Hopkins, who had only signed for a season and probably this was what convinced him to participate in the project – also because of the sentence said to Bernard in their last dialogue “Maybe we’ll meet again someday“.
A return, apparently confirmed by Lisa Joy in a recent interview, from flashforward which had left more than a few viewers speechless in the post credits scene of the second season (Lost docet). In that sequence, William (Ed Harris) found himself a prisoner of the Park in the future, in a sort of time loop together with the “presence” of his daughter (Katja Herbers). When that scene was temporally set we do not know, but evidently it could be part of the hyper-future present in the third and fourth cycle of episodes. Potentially all the protagonists could return, as we learned how in the series no one really dies, as they can always become a host or the soul of a human inserted into a host. That said, the main storyline launched in the Season 4 finale seems to involve the two factions led by Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Caleb’s daughter Frankie (Aurora Perrineau), while all the other characters are deceased. We can only have the answers to this and other questions if Joy and Nolan are given the opportunity to finish their storytelling and their own story. Are you reading HBO?
Westworld, season 5 will be the last for the HBO series (if it does)