HBO announces ‘Westworld,’ ‘Divorce’ premiere dates, renews ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’

There is quite a bit of big news to come out of HBO today, so let’s start by confirming the premiere dates for a number of different shows.

First, let’s begin with the epic series “Westworld,” which has had a tremendous amount of hype around it and also has Jonathan Nolan (“Person of Interest”) as one of its executive producers. This show will launch on Sunday, October 2 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. This is an adaptation of the 1973 movie, which in turn was based on the Michael Crichton novel. Here’s what the official logline has to say about the show:

“WESTWORLD is 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.”

Meanwhile, the network also confirmed that “Divorce” (the new comedy starring Sarah Jessica Parker) is going to premiere on October 9 at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time, while “Insecure” starring Issa Rae will premiere at 10:30. The latter show is executive-produced by Rae along with Larry Wilmore.

Finally, HBO also renewed “Real Time with Bill Maher” through 2018, with network programming head Casey Bloys saying the following about it:

“Bill Maher’s fearless and irreverent insights make him an important voice of common sense. We are happy to extend our partnership and continue to provide him with the same uncensored forum that he’s enjoyed on the network since the late ‘80s.”

Ultimately, we’re glad to see some consistency still on the network with Maher, but that there are some new ideas and experiments being pursued elsewhere. This is in part what is making things so interesting right now for a network that really needs some other major hits beyond “Game of Thrones.”