News that the HBO show will be ending after five episodes instead of six has left its few viewers confused
It’s safe to say that HBO’s The Idol has been met with less than enthusiastic reviews, to put it lightly, since the first episode dropped on Sky Atlantic on 5 June. The show, starring Lily-Rose Depp and Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, has famously been mired in controversy and now that the first season is coming to an end, rumours have started circulating that The Idol has been cancelled early, with HBO cutting the season from six episodes to five.
This is everything you need to know.
Has The Idol been cancelled early?
The Idol is not finishing earlier than expected, despite
reports which claim the show has been suddenly cut from six episodes to
five.
The show was originally slated to have six episodes when
it was still headed up by Amy Seimetz, the original director of The Idol.
However, when Seimetz parted ways with the production, so too did the six
episode version of the story.
Under Sam Levinson, The Idol appears to have always planned to
wrap season one with five episodes. After Seimetz, the show was subjected to
extensive rewrites, with the story seemingly condensed into five episodes.
According to TVLine, a source said: “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 five.”
In a recent interview with GQ, Tesfaye described The Idol as a
“five hour film”, and when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year, it was
also billed as a five episode series - so reports of a mysterious sixth
episode have been greatly exaggerated.
