While “Game of Thrones” is certainly the flagship TV series of HBO at the moment, the network continues to find shows that would take on the mantle once the popular hit show ends next year.
It looks like HBO has already found a gem in the American science-fiction western thriller “Westworld” when it premiered its Season 1 last year.
“Westworld” became HBO’s biggest new series last year and based on a new data from Time Warner, the network’s parent company, the TV series actually helped push a big increase in subscriptions to HBO’s stand-alone streaming service, HBO Now.
More importantly, “Westworld” actually contributed to pushing the total revenues of HBO last year by about 6% on course to a total of $1.5 billion.
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes confirmed during an investors’ call early this month that HBO Now had exceeded two million domestic subscribers, reports Polygon.
By the end of 2015, just eight months after HBO Now launched in the United States, the streaming application had 800,000 subscribers, according to Bewkes.
Part of the reason the network is seeing a consistent increase in subscriptions is because of original and exclusive series like “Westworld” and “Game of Thrones,” points out Bewkes.
The most-watched debut season in HBO
It’s not too surprising that “Westworld,” one of the most talked about shows that premiered last year, led to growth in subscriptions.
The series became the most-watched debut season in HBO history, surpassing “Game of Thrones” and “The Sopranos.”
Much of that success is credited to “Westworld” being available on HBO Now, allowing viewers with stand-alone subscriptions but who may not have cable packages to watch the episode as it airs.
When HBO Now launched in April 2015, “Game of Thrones” was in its fifth season. It had already become the gigantic series that it’s known as today, but it didn’t have its start on HBO Now.
If HBO Now had launched in 2011, the same year “Game of Thrones” premiered, there’s no question the series would have easily beaten “Westworld” for that record title.
Still, “Westworld” managed to bring in 12 million viewers an episode for the entire season, with more than two million live viewers for the finale in December. The Season 1 finale of “Game of Thrones” did beat “Westworld,” bringing in just over three million viewers, but averaged 9.2 million viewers over the course of the entire season.
Moving forward aggressively
Time Warner Chief Financial Officer Howard Averill commented on the growth in the company’s streaming sector, adding the company will continue to move forward aggressively with what HBO Now offers to subscribers.
Like most great science fiction, one of the more enjoyable aspects of “Westworld” is how it manages to layer heady philosophical debates into its juicy human/robot thrills.
For every shootout or step deeper into the mysterious maze, there’s a chance to reflect on the nature of consciousness, or whether androids dream of electric sheep or any one of a dozen other fun philosophical questions.
But while the query of whether the park’s hosts should be thought of as sentient is one of the most obvious issues, there are some fundamental philosophical themes even more central to the show, and are explored in the new video from Wisecrack called, “The Philosophy Of Westworld.”
Like previous videos about the philosophy of DC Comics’ Joker character and others, the 17-minute YouTube clip delves into several key concepts underlying the series. Primary among them is the debate between predestination and free will, details the A.V. Club.
In comparing the first season of the show with the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, the video notes multiple parallels, from the way the park creators play God, to the hosts’ state of blissful ignorance, to the eventual fall into consciousness preceded by whispers, just as the serpent whispered from the tree of knowledge.
It also briefly addresses the theme of suffering as essential to consciousness and free will, as well as the efforts by the Man In Black to make the events within the park to have a meaning, and thereby give consequences to his actions.