The trailer for season four of Westworld, everyone’s favourite puzzle box TV series, has surfaced online.
The dystopian sci-fi neo-Western (that’s too many genres, honestly) has been HBO’s flagship series since Game of Thrones finished. The story started in the titular Westworld, a technologically advanced Wild West-themed amusement park populated by androids.
It’s been a while since the third season of Westworld ended in May 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. That poor timing meant season three didn’t connect with audiences as well as the previous two, but maybe an absence of two years will have fans clamouring for more. In the third season, the setting expanded to the real world in the mid-21st century, where people’s lives are controlled by a powerful AI called Rehoboam.
There’s plenty of eye-popping visuals and intriguing action in the trailer to keep fans happy for now. Lou Reed’s wonderful ‘Perfect Day’ solemnly soundtracks it, although there has to be a moratorium on that song being used to soundtrack a film or TV show for quite a while.
All the big hitters are in the clip: there’s Aaron Paul, looking forlorn while sitting on the edge of a skyscraper; there’s Thandiwe Newton, who probably much prefers working on Westworld than teaming up with Channing Tatum; there’s Ed Harris, staring meanly across the road at someone. The whole thing is intense, and moody, and serious, because Prestige TV demands it.
The trailer ends by displaying the date June 26th, when the fourth season is set to debut on HBO. And with the new Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, arriving on HBO just two months later, Westworld really needs to make this fourth outing count.
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