I'm Lauren Tombs. I appreciate you hanging out here with me. I hope you checked out the last episode

if you didn't. I was talking a lot of Star Trek. I talked some Nichols. I gave away

three ideas for shows for Paramount Plus. So if you know anyone in Paramount Plus,

go on and share the ideas with them. I just want credit. Like we can share the

credit. Like if you get into Paramount Plus and they're like, man that's a good

idea. Just be like, yeah, my writing partner Lauren Tombs came up with that. Just do

that. We can share the money, man. We can share it. I don't have to have all of it just

a little bit. I want my name to flash on there after Alexander Courage on Star Trek

stuff. That's a deep cut. Deep cut. I hope that the people who understand that

understand it anyway. This episode is not about Star Trek. Although it is about another

sci-fi series. I'm a big sci-fi head and I got to tell you there has been no series that

has perplexed me more. Like not altered carbon, not black mirror. No series is perplexed

me more than Westworld. I am very much into Westworld and I am when it's there, I am

watching it. I am watching it and the performances are so good. But even I at the end of season

four are sitting there like, one, is it going to come back? And there are questions about

whether it's going to come back. Let me deal with those real quick before I go into my

love-hate relationship with Westworld. HBO is starting to slash its budget when it comes

to original programming. They were bought and because of that HBO Max is going to be, it's

going to be different. When Warner Bros. merged with Discovery, they wanted those subscribers.

But to get to where they want to go and to get to the type of dollars they want to make

from the streaming service, it might mean that original series are going to be cut. And

I, from a financial standpoint, from a return on investment, the ambitions of Westworld, I don't

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