The Idol is so bad, they cut the limited series down to five episodes, not six

While I refuse to watch The Idol, I know a lot of people are hate-watching it, or watching it just to laugh and mock the stupidity of the show. Honestly, I’ve enjoyed the widespread derision of the show as well. I’m, like, hate-writing about it? It was hilarious when GQ caught up with The Weeknd about how his character – who is supposed to be a charismatic cult leader – comes across like an uncharismatic loser and con artist, and Abel was like “no, that’s exactly what we were going for!” Then HBO/Max tried to pretend like The Idol was never supposed to be a full first-season, ten-episode TV show with a potential for a second season. HBO corporate was like “no, it was ALWAYS supposed to be a SIX-episode limited series!” Well, hilariously, now it looks like the footage was so awful, they edited everything down so now the fifth episode will be the end of this dreadful show.

The Idol‘s tour is ending sooner than we thought. Next week’s Episode 5 of the controversial HBO drama is being billed as the “season finale,” even though the series was originally reported as having six episodes. The finale, titled “Jocelyn Forever,” will air this Sunday at 9/8c.

An HBO rep declined to comment, but a source tells TVLine, “The season ended up being five episodes when it was all said and done after Sam [Levinson] took over and made significant changes. The story only ended up requiring 5.”

Rumors swirled of a swift cancellation by HBO, with the New York Post quoting an inside source as saying: “This was never meant to be a long-running show, it was always … a limited series.” But HBO pushed back on that by tweeting out a denial: “It is being misreported that a decision on a second season of The Idol has been determined. It has not, and we look forward to sharing the next episode with you Sunday night.”

[From TV Line]

Here’s the thing – there really are a lot of people hate-watching The Idol, and I’ve seen some numbers which show that The Idol really is one of HBO’s most-watched new series in years. Like, at a purely viewership perspective, The Idol is doing well and the show is getting a lot of buzz. The problem is, the buzz is wall-to-wall negative – it’s train-wreck television and everyone involved in The Idol looks dumb as hell. So HBO/Max has to decide whether they want to give the people more dreadful material to mock, or whether they put this terrible show out its misery. It looks like they’ve decided. Do you even know how terrible a show has to be for a network to cut an episode on such little notice?

Heh. The Idol is so bad that they’re cutting a six episode season to five which really makes you wonder what they don’t want people seeing lol.

— roxane gay (@rgay) June 27, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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