USA Renews "Mr. Robot" for 4th Season

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Mr. Robot Renewed for Season 4 at USA Network
by Anthony D'Alessandro
December 13, 2017


On the day of the season 3 finale for "Mr. Robot", creator Sam Esmail has announced across his social media channels that his team is returning for season 4, and already in the writers’ room.

The finale airs tonight on USA at 10/9c.

http://deadline.com/2017/12/mr-robot...il-1202226038/

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Mr. Robot creator: The plan is somehwere “between” four and five seasons
Sam Esmail talked about the future of his USA series in discussing the Season 3 finale. Honestly, I've always said it's four or five seasons, and I've said that because I think it's somewhere in between,” he says. “Whether that means the next two seasons are two short seasons, or it could technically still be two full ten-episode seasons, we're still kind of figuring that out. It's something the writers' room and I take very seriously. We never want to feel like we're treading water. Hopefully it fits into two more seasons, but we're trying to figure out that number.” ALSO: Esmail on Season 3: “What’s interesting about the third season is that it comes pretty close to being the end of act two."

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Mr. Robot's final season was partly inspired by the British version of The Office

"I grew up watching a lot of British television — and a lot of those shows, specifically The Office, they sign off with a Christmas special. I’ve always found that fascinating because there’s something bittersweet about the holidays,” creator Sam Esmail tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Something is coming to an end, but there’s also something really optimistic about looking forward. I felt strongly that Christmas be the backdrop for how we ended this show.”

Mr. Robot makes it clear with Season 4 that it's about something bigger than the concept of the show

" started out being about a hacked democracy and one year later that came true (also, on the day that USA picked up Mr. Robot, the Sony hack happened)," says Tim Goodman. "The series has been ahead of its time on a number of fronts. Maybe it will be again and that thing that it will presage is … unknown. There are 13 episodes in this fourth season and five have been released for review. They vary in quality. Some are excellent, some strain credibility to the breaking point (a familiar trait in later seasons, but not so damaging as to seriously dent the show's reputation), some feel uniquely contemplative and odd, others seem alive with forward momentum. It's a strong start, but it's very clearly the end that will matter. At this point, however, the fact that a show in its fourth season still matters enough to raise your excitement level about how it all ends is a real achievement."

ALSO:

• Sam Esmail is at his best with Season 4 -- perhaps he learned a lesson filming Amazon's Homecoming
  It's a bold choice to turn the 13-episode final season into one long Christmas special
  Esmail on ending with Season 4: "It was really the story letting us know when it was time to end it"
  Prepare for the final season with a guide to Mr. Robot's characters

Mr. Robot looks like a bit of a mess so far in its final season

Sam Esmail's USA series was addictive in its first season. In Season 4, it's become TV's biggest disappointment, says Paul MacInnes. "I hope very much that we get some closure on all this," he says. "That, after two seasons of bouncing around from one baffling situation to another violently traumatic one, Elliot will work through his issues and realise something about himself. That is the hero’s journey after all. At this moment in time, however, Mr. Robot seems just as likely to spend its final episodes chasing its tail, trying to tie up all the cryptocurrency and geopolitics and buying and selling of the Congo that it wilfully brought upon itself when it ran out of plot. If so I will shed one single cold tear as White Rose would, then move on." ALSO: Season 4 premiere twist, explained.

Mr. Robot's Season 4 premiere down sharply from Season 3

Sunday's premiere after a two-year absence attracted about 440,000 viewers, compared to 680,000 for the Season 3 premiere.

Sam Esmail had a mesmerizing vision for Mr. Robot that has finally come in to focus in its final season

"Season four is the culmination of everything Esmail has built to date, plus everything he learned on his best work as a director, the Amazon military-conspiracy thriller Homecoming," says Matt Zoller Seitz. "Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is that Esmail’s virtuosity is laser-focused, to the point where he can toss off flourishes that would’ve been the look-at-this centerpiece of a season-one episode, like the premiere’s long tracking shot of Price walking away from Angela as his goons execute her in the out-of-focus background over his left shoulder, or the overhead shot of the villainous Whiterose (the great B.D. Wong) toppling an enormous Christmas tree in rage at Price’s refusal to kowtow, or an upcoming flashback to a sexual origin story from Whiterose’s past, which builds toward a suffocated yet rapturous encounter reminiscent of fiction by Marguerite Duras. The blocking of scenes involving Elliot and Mr. Robot — who finish each other’s sentences, and sometimes relieve each other in the frame like wrestlers tagging out or in — is the sharpest it’s ever been, and the choreography never feels fussy: It’s always expressing aspects of the hero’s personality that were dissociated when we first entered the story. But season four’s biggest revelation is the slowest and most gradual: Despite its regular references to classic paranoid thrillers, it’s not nearly as pessimistic as we might’ve thought based on (Rami) Malek’s hard-boiled and spiritually exhausted narration. What’s done can be undone, if the body politic’s spirit and flesh are equally willing. And when that happens, the dark forces that once plagued us will say good-bye, friend. At least until the reboot." ALSO: It makes no sense that Mr. Robot "tossed aside" a great character.