The Idol has been HBO‘s latest major venture into original content. After releasing The Last of Us earlier this year and reaching the conclusion of Succession, the platform needed a new groundbreaking endeavor to capture the audience’s attention. And their answer was The Idol, the series created by The Weeknd that aimed to break all the molds… although it hasn’t quite succeeded.
As announced when it premiered at the Cannes Festival, the series was supposed to have six episodes, but HBO has now announced that the last episode, which is actually the fifth, will premiere next week. Therefore, the series will ultimately have five episodes instead of the promised six, and one less single than expected.
A lifesaver… in time?
This reshuffling of the series apparently stems from a complete overhaul by Sam Levinson, the showrunner who also created Euphoria. After the initial criticisms, he reportedly locked himself in the editing room to change the ending of the series, which ultimately resulted in one less episode than expected.
Undoubtedly, being regarded as the worst series in HBO’s history has prompted the production company to try and salvage the final product before it was too late. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it is still seen as a series of significantly lower quality compared to HBO’s usual standards. While it appears that it will only have one season, it also makes it clear that they will have to tread carefully in their upcoming original productions on the new Max platform.
Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for Softonic.
