Phil McCarten/Reuters
HBO’s popular sci-fi thriller drama Westworld has been renewed for a second season, the premium cable network announced Monday. According to HBO, the show’s popularity is astonishing: “Westworld is averaging a gross audience of 11.7 million viewers, outperforming Game of Thrones and True Detective during similar times in their first seasons.” The show, which HBO describes as being “set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past... a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin, exploring a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged,” premiered its ten-episode first season on October 2, with hour-long episodes airing each Sunday. The series is based on the 1973 film of the same name (written by Michael Crichton), and has a cast of stars like Evan Rachel Wood, Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, and Thandie Newton.