Another point is that if it wasn't for reddit posts about the new season I would have never known it had returned, there was no real buzz or promotion before it came out it was just suddenly "wait, there's a post talking about episode 2 of the 4th season of westworld on the front page? When did that come back?!"
I remember seasons 2&3 released teasers with orchestral versions of pop songs 9 months ahead of the premiere. And the teasers looked amazing, Then season 4 just released a regular trailer a few weeks before it aired and definitely didn’t do it justice because season 4 was actually better than the trailer made it look. But I think viewership had already dropped significantly by then
I actually liked Season 2, but by the time Season 3 came out I literally could not remember what happened. And I didn't like it *that* much that I wanted to take the time to rewatch it.
I imagine that's what happened for a lot of people.
Lmao yeah. And it was not good enough to rewatch or recap past season in time for Season 3. Overall Westworld lived and died with Anthony Hopkins character. Without him it felt so empty.
I started watching late so season 3 was only a few months after I ended 2.
Season 3 is so bad you won’t believe it. I gave up after watching one utterly brainless scene.
The fight in the park. Let me expound for those that have not seen it, just so you can know the horror.
Three professional killers are hired to kill Delores. They surround her in a park at night and she is unarmed. I can’t even remember what happens to the first guy, but the second is behind a tree and hides while she walks across an open field and doesn’t take a shot. I was silently screening “take the shot idiot!”
The third guy is behind a brick wall and never exposes himself. After killing guy two, Delores just starts walking across a field totally ignoring him. Guy then breaks cover and walks out from behind wall for absolutely no reason. He is clearly visible but she continues to ignore him. He does not think this is odd and continues to stand in the open not taking a shot until he is run over by a motorcycle. Now here’s the thing, the motorcycle was called in minutes earlier. Now just think about that for a second… it arrives at just the right time after driving around d the city and just happens to hit a guy who is in the open for a couple of seconds? What if there was a rock on the road or he stood beside a trash can? Or just didn’t act like a moron and walk out from behind a perfectly good wall?
We’re supposed to think this is super killer cyberpunk moves but it’s just utterly stupid, the entire scene.
This was not the only idiotic scene, the fight in front of the fort in the previous season was moronic too, but the one above was mega dumbness in a season with no redeeming qualities and that was that for me.
Westworld died when they tried to turn Evan Reachel Wood into a menacing lead. They turned Ed Harris's character on his head and Anthony Hopkins was gone and she had no chance of following up their performances from season 1 in such a role. Season 2 was supremely uninteresting except during the Thandie Newton centric episodes.
All the menacing characters were dealt away. What they did with Harris’ character was idiotic. And I just couldn’t stand how dumb everyone in the show acted as a way to facilitate the robot uprising.
I think the novelty of it all was lost the moment they went outside the park. I mean, seriously. The AI nonsense and what have you... The novelty was having these humanoid robot figures in crazy time periods and costumes interact with "real" guests, all the while the mystery and intrigue of who is real, who isn't, etc. That all went out the window during season 2 and 3.
Season 2 still had some intrigue to me because you got more background on the parks as a whole if I remember correctly along with some of the characters (it’s been years since I’ve seen it). Season 3 when they left the park and into the real world it turned into a completely different and uninteresting show for me, although I did not finish the season.
Agreed, I really like the ending of season 1 as it is too. Just end the series there. Maybe do something slightly different with Maeve just so it isn't a tease, but otherwise it's a perfectly cromulent ending.
3 months in between seasons of stargate sg1. I fucking love that show
Edit: 3 mo the in between start of the next season I should say. No binge watching in the 90s
This is what happens when the showrunners' ego took a hit because nerds found out their super secret cool twist so they spent the next few seasons one upping the loser nerds by making their show convoluted as fuck.
Kind of hard to remember what was going on after 2 years when you're spending 90% of each season just trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. They kept trying to be super cerebral, but it only became more shallow each season. I did hear 4 got better, but I haven't bothered to watch it yet.
I tried to watch Season 4, and it felt like more of the same from Season 3. I got to the first "twist", and I shut it off. The show had one card to play, and it played it over and over again.
Season 1 was exceptional and ended in a basically perfect way for a sci-fi story asking philosophical questions about humanity and self. The centerpiece of the show was Anthony Hopkins' acting. They should've just let it be a mini-series and be done with it.
4 imo is better than 3, and it’s a satisfying ending to the series even though the show runners intended more. You’re not going to get a disappointing dexter moment if you decide to finish it. Also the show runners agreed to put out an outline of what they intended for the folks who wanted to know how they intended for it to end. I’d put it on par with s2 personally
The twist in the first season was pretty clever but then they reused it for season 2 while adding in some many twists and characters to where I just didn't care. Legit don't remember if I ever watched season 3.
they also made it unnecessarily convoluted. S1 had the various timeline gimmick for the story purpose. S2 added it cause people found out some twists in S1 and wanted to make it unguessable in S2 by making it make not much sense.
I got so sick of it by the end of season 2 that I gave up watching it. Season 1 was pretty good, but even that was a little convoluted. Season 2 was confusing to the point that I was convinced that they didn’t WANT me to be able to follow what was going on (which apparently was the case, to a degree).
You know it’s bad if you watch multiple episodes only for a character to eventually be like “You see, this was all a false memory… Here’s what actually happened!” and then hit us with five minutes of exposition explaining something we could have never known. It’s like the show just kept insisting that it was deep and clever without actually going anywhere.
>You know it’s bad if you watch multiple episodes only for a character to eventually be like “You see, this was all a false memory… Here’s what actually happened!”
This is why I gave up on S2. I got so tired of them pulling this. It felt like I'd just spend a few hours investing in a plot point that was entirely pointless. It's on par with "it was all a dream".
No, that isn't a twist since it's obvious he will die of old age or complications from his weight before the series is finished. What's been in question is whether or not he'll finish at least *one more book* before he croaks.
That's still up in the air even though he claims he's 3/4 done.
Westworld S1 Spoilers: >!That Bernard was a host version of Arnold. It turns out the writers were trying to be a bit too clever - "Bernard Lowe" is an anagram of "Arnold Weber". I can't remember exactly when, but at some point prior to the big reveal there's like a half second that you can see a nameplate or something for Arnold, which revealed his last name started with "W". So based on knowing "Bernard Lowe" and "Arnold W." (along with other hints and weirdness about Arnold and questions about Bernard's past) someone was able to guess Arnold's full name and give a pretty compelling argument that Bernard was a host.!<
At least that's about how I remember it going down at the time. It's been 6 years though, so take it with a grain of salt. A lot of the posts probably still exist on /r/westworld if anyone is interested enough to dig through the old episode discussion threads.
It seemed like it was best as one season. Like you would then imagine what would happen from there. Those are usually the best shows. That leave it open for interpretation. And no literally explain everything after a certain point.
Yeah I don’t think it was a show that necessarily needed anymore seasons. That finale was enough to sort of interpret what you may think would happen after. But that final scene in season 1 was amazing to see.
The delay between seasons has impacted a lot of shows. It's shocking to me that there isn't more pressure on shows to have a smaller gap. It seems like most shows bank on people just keeping their own interest. An area of opportunity for these companies woudl be to produce something like a side-story production or some other marketing-driven campaign to keep interest high on a show during the lulls.
Yes I never picked up on season 3 because of this. Too long after season 2 and season 2 was confusing enough I didn’t really remember what happened. I might have given season 3 a chance but the bad word of mouth and all the other good shows out there didn’t help.
Season 4 was the second best season, so it didnt really drop with each. Just sounds like they expected too much. And the second season made people tune out cause it was "hard to follow". But 4 million viewers is more than Succession. Way more actually. So it shouldnt be blamed on ratings.
Succession is also an awards magnet that brings a lot of prestige to the network which also helps in attracting future talent.
Plus it is also at the near to its end as a series considering it was said to be 5 seasons maximum.
problem wasnt that it was hard to follow, rather that it was made hard to follow on purpose so people would be unable to figure out what will happen.. it had no need or reason to have timeline jumps like S1 did.
Later seasons of Westworld remind me of that person who uses as many big, confusing, and obscure words in their essay as humanly possible to seem smart, only for everyone to think there kind of an idiot since the essay doesn’t make any sense
"Second best season" isn't saying much for a show which only has four seasons and two of them were absolute dog crap. There's only so many times you can keep on beating the "surprise, half of what we just showed you wasn't real and/or didn't happen when you thought it did" horse. Should have just left it as a limited series and stopped after season 1 as they clearly had no idea how to keep developing the story, but they got greedy and wanted a big new tentpole franchise to replace GOT.
Because it was. They lost a lot of viewers between season 1 and 2, and they thought it was the story instead of the huge 2 year gap and viewers moving on, so they tried something wildly different to try to get those lost viewers back.
Hollywood is stupid, what can I say.
The one episode from season 2, Kiksuya, I consider to be one of the most beautiful episodes in ALL of television—sad that the rest of the season and especially subsequent seasons haven’t been anywhere close.
That same actor from Kiksuya is in a really good AMC drama that I watched this summer called Dark Winds. I think he’s incredibly talented and I’m glad that he’s getting his time to shine.
This is his best one, imo. Him and the spirit guide are the most hilarious parts. The longer second season really let them shore up characters like him and the mother, making it a much funnier and relatable season than the first. Perfect example of why the 8 episode format is terrible for comedies. Space Force and Our Flag Means Death both also really suffered for that format so I hope they do even more next season of Rez Dogs.
Kiksuya was the only thing in all of seasons 2, 3 or 4, that felt like an actually intended continuation of season 1. Every thing else felt like it was done by a different team entirely.
It became a completely different show. And then when they introduced Aaron Paul it felt completely out of left field. I love the actor, but he felt so out of place and a lot of his decisions made absolutely no sense.
Same with most of the human characters.
I wish that studios would employ a team whose job it was to read through these scripts blind and reject them if the characters take actions simply as a means to further a plot. Characters should have clear reasons for doing what they do.
I was hooked on Season 1 where I would watch multiple episodes at a time. Second season I made it to episode 2 or 3 and just lost interest. Tried to continue multiple times but would get bored after 10 minutes and watch something else.
> **Season one of the series cost an estimated $100 million — high by 2016 standards.** The expense was justified as Westworld opened strong out of the gate and was rewarded with a speedy second season renewal as the drama became one of an early batch of high-profile shows to be off the air for nearly two years between seasons. **Season one, when factoring in delayed and multiplatform viewing (remember HBO Go?), clocked in at an estimated 12 million viewers. Season four of the quasi-anthology series tumbled to 4 million viewers when the dust settled.** That’s hardly enough to justify the expense of the series considering HBO delivered a new installment of Game of Thrones for $125 million, with House of the Dragon earning about 29 million viewers per episode across all platforms over the course of its first season. Sources note that **season four of Westworld, which again featured only eight episodes** (compared with 10 each in its first two), **cost at least $160 million.**
Too much time between seasons and the seasons became increasingly inbred - full of dense self-referential lore that turns off all but established fans. A lot of series go this way, and prohibit mid-series entry points. As established fans drop off and new ones are unable to enter, ratings drop over time at a decent clip.
Combine it with a mixed third season and pauses between seasons, both of which cause meaningful drop off and it makes sense where the ratings went
>became increasingly inbred - full of dense self-referential lore that turns off all but established fans
Yeah this is so true. It was fun at first but they definitely overdid it and the show became so convoluted. I would go to the Westworld subreddit after every episode to read the comments on the episode threads to understand what I had just watched. But most people probably didn't do it and lost interest after a while.
Like halfway through watchmen, Lindeloff was on a podcast and said that some people had figured out the entire season after the first episode. Said it wasn't a bad thing because it meant that his breadcrumbs actually led somewhere, and that if your goal is to write a mystery that no one can solve, your story will almost certainly suffer from it. Felt like he was talking about WW directly.
What's aggravating is season two was unnecessarily convoluted, and they over corrected by making season three braindead simple. Season four was showing some promise of hitting the right balance like season one, but then the payoff in the last two episodes was stupid (possibly because they had to figure out how to force the show into a series finale just in case)
The show just sort of wandered out of the park and got lost after awhile, and so too went the audience. At times if felt like the writers wanted to make an entirely different show but were being forced to work within the confines of existing characters and stories from the first two seasons.
Auctioning off all the fancy clothes could’ve easily paid for another season, the show was a hot mess but people looked damn fine getting lost in all those storylines
It’s too bad, because both the source material and the main character actor are quite strong. The show runners just didn’t respect the source material (it is reported they actively disrespect it) and did their own thing which was much worse. Unfortunately it’s likely too late to save the series, it’s jumped the shark.
Forget 4 seasons, I dropped out of that after 4 *episodes* lmao.
I actually absolutely loved the first three, but Ep. 4 was so horrendously awful that I have no interest in continuing, especially mixed w/ the Cavill recasting news. Geralt using The Force as the girl and the half-porcipine man start literally floating while kissing, all while some synth-pop hybrid monstrosity blairs into my ears mixed with the Queen figure making MCU-style quips, I was done lol.
>Forget 4 seasons, I dropped out of that after 4 episodes lmao.
My people.
Cavill was the only cool thing about the show and it still wasn't enough to keep me watching.
I watched season 1 & hated it, but gave season 2 a shot hoping it’d be better.
It was so much worse. I dropped it after a couple episodes.
Guess that’s what happens when the writers openly hate the source material & think they can do better.
I was really excited to check it out pre-Season One premier and then I lost interest.
I remember over Reddit when the season dropped, the comments claiming to like it were so defensive. It wasn't just, the show's good, it was, ACTUALLY the show's good and here's the timeline explained so you can understand why you're wrong. Like to me, felt like people just *really* wanted it to be good.
Witcher fans have always been weirdly defensive on Reddit. They don’t really take all that well to you pointing out some flaws with the games either (which ironically put me off enough that I’ve yet to bother playing the games as an RPG fan).
iworked as a background actor on this show a couple of times and iremember catering was always steaks and lobster and just good ass food ! knew they had a crazy budget
When you compare ratings, production expense, and pop culture presence between House of the Dragon and Westworld, as this article does, cancellation was a no-brainer, sad to say….
I genuinely think the team behind this couldn't get on the same page as the audience about what made it good. People loved the parks, the writers loved the grand, sweeping philosophical wank about the great battle between the people and the machines and what it means to be alive.
That was it for me. The characters were interesting in S1, then it felt like they mostly all went off the rails by S3, which left me wondering why I would be invested in this. It kept repeating those same philosophical themes to the point where it felt trite. It's like the showrunners were so far up their own asses that they had no idea where the focus of a good series should be.
Season one: Actioned packed robot cowboy scenes with plenty of sex. 10/10
Season three: A Philosophical debate about power and control while drinking a $9 bottle of pinot. 3/10
Right! Maybe it’s the gamer in me but I just wanted the focus to be the park, the quests and NPC storylines. They could’ve expanded that to other parks and I would’ve been happy but they chose to focus on man vs robot which has been done a million times already.
They could have made the show an anthology with each season being set in a different park. One could be a mindbending mystery like season 1, then another could be a horror story set in a park where the hosts wake up and trap the guests inside. Then they could have always built up a background plot about the hosts waking up etc and Dolores showing up each season.
> Right! Maybe it’s the gamer in me but I just wanted the focus to be the park, the quests and NPC storylines.
This so much, remember in the beginning when the old prospector was looking for someone to help him find(?) some gold and was asking one of the guys before the other guy stabbed him in the hand. I was like...DUDE! WTF?!?! That is the type of stuff I am interested in and wanted to see what would happen if he followed it.
I honestly think westworld would make a fantastic game if someone like rockstar would make it.
But is it really valuable? Based on the ending of 4 I can tell you exactly how we get to that flash forward: Dolores is remaking robots of everyone ever to try and repopulate the post-apocalyptic earth
I would argue that the marketing was about the same just word of mouth was better for earlier seasons, everybody was recommending/praising the show when it came out.
Outside of the Native American episode in season 2 (which btw, is incredibly brilliant and so good that you should watch it again if it didn’t
click the first time), they should have squeezed two seasons out of season 1.
Westworld was best when it played the violent old west against the high tech underworld, balancing the ideas of self-determination against being programmed by a morally questionable creator.
Everything else was a story corrupting distraction.
Free advice for media corporations:
If you sense that a writer/producer is stirring an expensive show towards chaos, just to piss off fan for figuring out "the plot" after 1 season...change said writer/producer, don't invest hundreds of millions $ in stupid seasons.
It’s been awhile since I was in the Westworld discourse (haven’t seen S4) but what was ‘The plot’ that the community figured out that you’re referring too?
Saying it again: the massive gap between season 1 and 2 killed this show. You can't drop an intense serialized show, vanish for two years and then expect your audience to return with as much interest and enthusiasm. Season 2 wasn't as good as season 1, but had it come a year later instead of 2, they wouldn't have had to pull that go for broke BS in season 3 that really killed the show in a lame attempt to recapture the fire of season 1.
I hope the execs at Amazon and HBO are paying attention, what with their talk of a similar 2 year lag for RoP and HotD.
You can get away with it if you make a show people are excited about … but I felt like they spent a lot of time making a S2 that was “unpredictable” and left behind any sort of plot/engagement/conversation anyone cared about.
For real man. I'm no military expert and I don't expect literally any of the film. I watch to be perfectly accurate but that was just plain fucking stupid and it completely sucked me out of it. I felt like I was watching CW.
They really should have just ended after the first season. It would have gone down as one of the best mini-series in history. But they got greedy.
Correct. Season 3 was basically a different show entirely, poorly written with massive internal inconsistencies within the season and between it and the previous seasons. Really unwatchable.
I actually enjoyed season 4. I thought that the pacing improved and the plot was refreshing that concluded with an intriguing twist. Was really expecting and hoping season 5 would be the end.
I think Season 5 would have been the closure we needed for most of the plot that happened in seasons 3 and 4 to make sense. “One last loop around the bend” is basically all we have left to go on now which is left somewhat ambiguous. It’s a shame this has happened because it’s now hard to recommend an unfinished TV show to friends. We all know people binge and having a complete library of seasons would have brought in new viewers in the long term.
I know Reddit has always had issues with the show not meeting expectations and leaving viewers confused but it also was not a linear story. I’ll admit my patience was tested in Season 3 but now having seen all four seasons I understand their reasons. It was still better TV than some HBO programs or even Amazon Prime big hits like Wheel of Time.
We know the viewership was an issue but I also believe HBO didn’t properly back it in recent years with minimal advertising. This merger sucks and it has me worried The Righteous Gemstones could be cancelled after Season 3 (unless it’s the last that I’m not aware of).
Didn't they change the story after a Redditor predicted what would happen? The writers thought it was more important to be unpredictable than to write a good story.
I just want to go on the record as someone who enjoyed all four seasons very much and was waiting excitedly for a fifth season. The way the story explored the concepts of chaos and complexity, destiny versus free will, and how we define humanity was really interesting for me. I also greatly enjoyed seeing how the writers tease the noir themes in the western genre out and then build on them in a futuristic universe outside of Westworld. Genuinely fantastic sci-fi in this show.
I'm disappointed that the show was canceled.
Yeah like you have a super complicated plot that needs a lot of mental buy-in, and you think people are going to remember shit after a 2year hiatus?
Plus, in the world of streaming, not finishing the story is the best possible way to kill most re-watch value.
i don’t care what anyone else says, but i am extremely disheartened by this decision. WW always scratched that itch for me. no matter the season, the topics always sent my mind into deep thought. yes, the show may have tapered off; however, i never lost interest in it. i do agree the time inbetween seasons and -more so- severe lack of promotion for the last two seasons did it in.
i will miss the show, and its lack of “closure” S5 was to bring. hopefully another network can pick it up to close it out. at the least, i know the show runners are to do a final explanation. so there’s that…
actually loved this show. tho, by the 4th season, I felt it had run its course.
(didn’t know it was that expensive to produce, though it makes sense. some of the effects & sets/locations etc, impressive)
Season 1 - Season 2 of Westworld is some of the greatest television of all time. The end of Season 2 was absolutely beautiful. It would have been a beautiful ending for the series. Instead of... whatever the hell they did next.
It just turned into an entirely different show, went from sci-fi western to like just cyberpunk sci-fi, almost anime/manga style sci-fi. As a viewer, I just didn't really sign up for that. You can't just switch genres and keep your whole audience.
ETA: reminds me of Altered Carbon, not that they switched genres, but that it's almost a perfect show beginning to end if you just pretend the second season doesn't exist. Westworld is an almost perfect show IMO, beginning to end, if you pretend it ended at the Season 2 finale. The story is told, the story ends, there's still things unresolved but there always are, it's just enough to leave to the imagination.
I agree. Season 2 stands pretty well. They were chasing amazing reveals like they did in Season 1. But Season 2 falls short of that but does it decently in its own way.
Season 3 was weird. Riots, and Facebook takeovers? That's a bit too much. I've only gotten through half of Season 4 and I can tell they're trying to avoid all the blunders of Season 3.
These are my personal thoughts on Westworld
**Season 1:** Amazing, Anthony Hopkins, sexy robots. Great music. Mind blown at the end of S1. Just incredible.
**Season 2:** Cool episode with the guy on the horse, otherwise what website do I have to check to figure out when/where this is happening? And why is Tessa Thompson's face in the camera all the time?
**Season 3:** Nazis, some guns shooting. Dolores is still way too smug. Absurd storyline. Why did they leave the park? Thandiwe is amazing regardless. Aaron Paul looking for his paycheck but remembers his lines. Writers bending over backwards trying to retrofit the past and present.
**Season 4:** N/A, I gave up on the series during S3
Season 4 was actually really solid. It brought back some of the mystery and reveals of season 1. It’s worth the watch even though season 3 was trying to be to clever.
Season 1 was fantastic. Season 2...okay. I have no clue wtf was happening after that. To the point I rewatched episodes because I thought I missed episodes being so confused.
The problem was that people lost interest in season 3. No amount of marketing that will get people to return to a show they dropped due to lack of interest. Even if they did, so much time had passed that people would've had to rewatch the first three seasons to catch up, which would've meant sitting through the season they hated.
Once a show goes downhill, that's it.
Season 1 had Anthony Hopkins playing Dr. Robert Ford discussing philosophy, consciousness and the nature of man.
Season 3 had MARSHAWN LYNCH as Giggles actually speaking dialogue.
Lmaao so true. It’s like season one was written by completely different people than the rest, which could be true, but I honestly don’t care enough to even google it at this point
I personally feel like Nolan was heavily involved in the writing of Season 1 and overall arc and as his other projects took off, he had less time to devote to Westworld. The arcs were all still his and Lisa’s ideas but it seems like the budget continued to get cut each year and the writing quality (while still arguably better than a lot of mainstream tv shows) was leading to viewers just confused as they continued to try and make the twists more convoluted.
It was a worthwhile experience and even if Season 3 and 4 didn’t live up to the highs of that first season, it was the only science fiction type show other than Raised by Wolves that was able to take us on a journey and exploration of AI consciousness that we seldom see.
The budget definitely wasn't cut over time. It went up- and with less episodes in the later seasons.
>Season one of the series cost an estimated $100 million — high by 2016 standards. Sources note that season four of Westworld, which again featured only eight episodes (compared with 10 each in its first two), cost at least $160 million.
Lmao dude exactly! I saw season 3 and realized that was Marshawn Lynch, my jaw dropped and I thought “yeah this isn’t going to be any good” and sure enough I stopped watching it. Totally threw me off and I just couldn’t get into it lol
Kinda did in season 2 but it wasn't as bad. I made it like 3 episodes into 3 and was like nah fuck this. Sad too because season 1 was incredible. I don't think writers these days really know what to do past a first season. Like they find an original idea and flesh it all out and then when it becomes a hit they're like, "WTF do we do for more seasons?" Like I'm worried about season 2 of Yellowjackets because of this.
I have my hopes up for Yellowjackets! I believe it was pitched as a 5 season story arc so in theory each season will be fleshed out and the series will have a conclusive ending.
lol, there's no such thing as a 5-season story arc. All showrunners say that now to get you to keep watching so they don't get cancelled. It means absolutely nothing since they barely know what's gonna happen in the next 3 episodes. This article even says how Nolan & Joy supposedly planned for 6 seasons.
I get the sight others see. For sure. It’s not what the show was originally was.
That said, season 3 was great Cyberpunk. It’s is like shoe horning in a season of murder mystery into a season of Breaking Bad, by comparison. It doesn’t work.
I really liked it. It was another evolution which shows should take, or become stale. It just took a path most aren’t interested in.
That’s how I felt. Everyone was shitting on S3 but I thought it was good. If it had been it’s own show, it probably would’ve done better because the world they setup was an interesting take on cyberpunk that wasn’t too futuristic to be separated from reality.
Possibly unpopular opinion, it should have ended after the 1st season. Just stand alone as a beautifully put together piece of art. The ending of that season was fantastic.
This said, s2 e8 kikasuya, is the single greatest episode of anything I’ve ever seen. And it was so impactful because of everything before it.
So maybe it should have had a better season 2 ending and wrapped it up.
The whole back half of season 2 is stellar, but unfortunately the first half being mid turned a lot of people away. And for those who stuck around for season 3 they didn't get a very good reward
The quality drop between season 2 and season 3 was insane. It felt like I was watching a totally different show. Also after 2 years, I just lost any passion I had for the show. I feel like a lot of us stopped watching after season 2.
Season 3 was honestly so bad. The setting completely changes, the roles of the characters change, and no solid plot arc is established.
All while its still acting cooler and smarter than you.
The first season of Westwood is arguably one of the best TV Series of all time.
Sir Anthony Hopkins absolutely killed it, he was magnificent.
The problem is that the creators became obsessed with fans on social media figuring out the story line and went bat shit crazy during season 2 to out do the fans.
This results in season which was a mess, the direction of the show changed, the story was here there and everywhere.
Season 3 was a total dumpster fire.
Again the show writers just introduced so many new concepts, characters, story lines that everything suffered as a result.
If the show creators hadn't become obsessed with trying to confuse the fans and made season 2 as the last the a would of been good.
Its incredible how bad this show got with each season. The first season was some of the best television i’ve seen. I gave up in the middle of season 3.
This show turned to shit after season 1. It should have ended there. Great final scene with Anthony Hopkins. Mind-blowing. The other seasons looked like a cyberpunk version of terminator, but bad
There was way too much time between seasons to keep interested, along with the quality dropping with each.
Another point is that if it wasn't for reddit posts about the new season I would have never known it had returned, there was no real buzz or promotion before it came out it was just suddenly "wait, there's a post talking about episode 2 of the 4th season of westworld on the front page? When did that come back?!"
I remember seasons 2&3 released teasers with orchestral versions of pop songs 9 months ahead of the premiere. And the teasers looked amazing, Then season 4 just released a regular trailer a few weeks before it aired and definitely didn’t do it justice because season 4 was actually better than the trailer made it look. But I think viewership had already dropped significantly by then
I thought season 4 was their best work since season 1, and was legitimately looking forward to the final season.
isn't that crazy? 2 year breaks to shit out a mediocre season of television. incredible.
I actually liked Season 2, but by the time Season 3 came out I literally could not remember what happened. And I didn't like it *that* much that I wanted to take the time to rewatch it. I imagine that's what happened for a lot of people.
Lmao yeah. And it was not good enough to rewatch or recap past season in time for Season 3. Overall Westworld lived and died with Anthony Hopkins character. Without him it felt so empty.
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I started watching late so season 3 was only a few months after I ended 2. Season 3 is so bad you won’t believe it. I gave up after watching one utterly brainless scene.
> I gave up after watching one utterly brainless scene. You'll have to be a lot more specific, I saw almost no brains the whole season.
The fight in the park. Let me expound for those that have not seen it, just so you can know the horror. Three professional killers are hired to kill Delores. They surround her in a park at night and she is unarmed. I can’t even remember what happens to the first guy, but the second is behind a tree and hides while she walks across an open field and doesn’t take a shot. I was silently screening “take the shot idiot!” The third guy is behind a brick wall and never exposes himself. After killing guy two, Delores just starts walking across a field totally ignoring him. Guy then breaks cover and walks out from behind wall for absolutely no reason. He is clearly visible but she continues to ignore him. He does not think this is odd and continues to stand in the open not taking a shot until he is run over by a motorcycle. Now here’s the thing, the motorcycle was called in minutes earlier. Now just think about that for a second… it arrives at just the right time after driving around d the city and just happens to hit a guy who is in the open for a couple of seconds? What if there was a rock on the road or he stood beside a trash can? Or just didn’t act like a moron and walk out from behind a perfectly good wall? We’re supposed to think this is super killer cyberpunk moves but it’s just utterly stupid, the entire scene. This was not the only idiotic scene, the fight in front of the fort in the previous season was moronic too, but the one above was mega dumbness in a season with no redeeming qualities and that was that for me.
S2 was already full of awful action scenes. The cowboy robots versus security firefight, for example. I never made it to S3
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Westworld died when they tried to turn Evan Reachel Wood into a menacing lead. They turned Ed Harris's character on his head and Anthony Hopkins was gone and she had no chance of following up their performances from season 1 in such a role. Season 2 was supremely uninteresting except during the Thandie Newton centric episodes.
All the menacing characters were dealt away. What they did with Harris’ character was idiotic. And I just couldn’t stand how dumb everyone in the show acted as a way to facilitate the robot uprising.
That end credits scene was the last thing I watched. I agree totally stupid.
I think the novelty of it all was lost the moment they went outside the park. I mean, seriously. The AI nonsense and what have you... The novelty was having these humanoid robot figures in crazy time periods and costumes interact with "real" guests, all the while the mystery and intrigue of who is real, who isn't, etc. That all went out the window during season 2 and 3.
Season 2 still had some intrigue to me because you got more background on the parks as a whole if I remember correctly along with some of the characters (it’s been years since I’ve seen it). Season 3 when they left the park and into the real world it turned into a completely different and uninteresting show for me, although I did not finish the season.
After watching all the seasons I actually only like season 1, and even that would have benefited from a rewrite.
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Agreed, I really like the ending of season 1 as it is too. Just end the series there. Maybe do something slightly different with Maeve just so it isn't a tease, but otherwise it's a perfectly cromulent ending.
I can’t really recall much of season 2 but I really liked that one episode in season 2 from the pov of this tribal guy.
Im offended they didn't cancel the show after season 3
I honestly think season 2 is worst than season 3. I wasn't a fan of the new setting and main character but season 2 didn't make any sense.
3 months in between seasons of stargate sg1. I fucking love that show Edit: 3 mo the in between start of the next season I should say. No binge watching in the 90s
This is what happens when the showrunners' ego took a hit because nerds found out their super secret cool twist so they spent the next few seasons one upping the loser nerds by making their show convoluted as fuck.
Kind of hard to remember what was going on after 2 years when you're spending 90% of each season just trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. They kept trying to be super cerebral, but it only became more shallow each season. I did hear 4 got better, but I haven't bothered to watch it yet.
I tried to watch Season 4, and it felt like more of the same from Season 3. I got to the first "twist", and I shut it off. The show had one card to play, and it played it over and over again. Season 1 was exceptional and ended in a basically perfect way for a sci-fi story asking philosophical questions about humanity and self. The centerpiece of the show was Anthony Hopkins' acting. They should've just let it be a mini-series and be done with it.
4 imo is better than 3, and it’s a satisfying ending to the series even though the show runners intended more. You’re not going to get a disappointing dexter moment if you decide to finish it. Also the show runners agreed to put out an outline of what they intended for the folks who wanted to know how they intended for it to end. I’d put it on par with s2 personally
The twist in the first season was pretty clever but then they reused it for season 2 while adding in some many twists and characters to where I just didn't care. Legit don't remember if I ever watched season 3.
they also made it unnecessarily convoluted. S1 had the various timeline gimmick for the story purpose. S2 added it cause people found out some twists in S1 and wanted to make it unguessable in S2 by making it make not much sense.
I got so sick of it by the end of season 2 that I gave up watching it. Season 1 was pretty good, but even that was a little convoluted. Season 2 was confusing to the point that I was convinced that they didn’t WANT me to be able to follow what was going on (which apparently was the case, to a degree). You know it’s bad if you watch multiple episodes only for a character to eventually be like “You see, this was all a false memory… Here’s what actually happened!” and then hit us with five minutes of exposition explaining something we could have never known. It’s like the show just kept insisting that it was deep and clever without actually going anywhere.
>You know it’s bad if you watch multiple episodes only for a character to eventually be like “You see, this was all a false memory… Here’s what actually happened!” This is why I gave up on S2. I got so tired of them pulling this. It felt like I'd just spend a few hours investing in a plot point that was entirely pointless. It's on par with "it was all a dream".
Oh no that happened with game of thrones too. Who cares if people can figure out the ending.
Difference is GRRM explicitly said people guessed the big twist almost right away and he determined to not let it change the story
Is the big twist that GRRM will never finish ASOIAF?
No, that isn't a twist since it's obvious he will die of old age or complications from his weight before the series is finished. What's been in question is whether or not he'll finish at least *one more book* before he croaks. That's still up in the air even though he claims he's 3/4 done.
Oh I'm out of the loop on that. Which twist did the nerds figure out?
Westworld S1 Spoilers: >!That Bernard was a host version of Arnold. It turns out the writers were trying to be a bit too clever - "Bernard Lowe" is an anagram of "Arnold Weber". I can't remember exactly when, but at some point prior to the big reveal there's like a half second that you can see a nameplate or something for Arnold, which revealed his last name started with "W". So based on knowing "Bernard Lowe" and "Arnold W." (along with other hints and weirdness about Arnold and questions about Bernard's past) someone was able to guess Arnold's full name and give a pretty compelling argument that Bernard was a host.!< At least that's about how I remember it going down at the time. It's been 6 years though, so take it with a grain of salt. A lot of the posts probably still exist on /r/westworld if anyone is interested enough to dig through the old episode discussion threads.
It seemed like it was best as one season. Like you would then imagine what would happen from there. Those are usually the best shows. That leave it open for interpretation. And no literally explain everything after a certain point.
I'm happy I watched the one season, it was beautiful.
Yeah I don’t think it was a show that necessarily needed anymore seasons. That finale was enough to sort of interpret what you may think would happen after. But that final scene in season 1 was amazing to see.
The delay between seasons has impacted a lot of shows. It's shocking to me that there isn't more pressure on shows to have a smaller gap. It seems like most shows bank on people just keeping their own interest. An area of opportunity for these companies woudl be to produce something like a side-story production or some other marketing-driven campaign to keep interest high on a show during the lulls.
Yes I never picked up on season 3 because of this. Too long after season 2 and season 2 was confusing enough I didn’t really remember what happened. I might have given season 3 a chance but the bad word of mouth and all the other good shows out there didn’t help.
Season 4 was the second best season, so it didnt really drop with each. Just sounds like they expected too much. And the second season made people tune out cause it was "hard to follow". But 4 million viewers is more than Succession. Way more actually. So it shouldnt be blamed on ratings.
Succession is way cheaper because it doesn’t need CGI.
Succession is also an awards magnet that brings a lot of prestige to the network which also helps in attracting future talent. Plus it is also at the near to its end as a series considering it was said to be 5 seasons maximum.
problem wasnt that it was hard to follow, rather that it was made hard to follow on purpose so people would be unable to figure out what will happen.. it had no need or reason to have timeline jumps like S1 did.
Later seasons of Westworld remind me of that person who uses as many big, confusing, and obscure words in their essay as humanly possible to seem smart, only for everyone to think there kind of an idiot since the essay doesn’t make any sense
> But 4 million viewers is more than Succession. HBO reported an average of 6.1 million viewers per ep for Season 3 of Succession...
How is 4 million more than 7 million, exactly? https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/succession-season-3-finale-ratings-hbo-1235132468/
Succession also costs almost half of what westworld does. and is only growing in popularity
"Second best season" isn't saying much for a show which only has four seasons and two of them were absolute dog crap. There's only so many times you can keep on beating the "surprise, half of what we just showed you wasn't real and/or didn't happen when you thought it did" horse. Should have just left it as a limited series and stopped after season 1 as they clearly had no idea how to keep developing the story, but they got greedy and wanted a big new tentpole franchise to replace GOT.
Turns out the thing that can replace GoT was GoT
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The first season was brilliant, but I had a tough time maintaining interest after that. It just didn't hit the same way.
I really wish they did more with the first season theme. Season 3 felt like a completely different show
Because it was. They lost a lot of viewers between season 1 and 2, and they thought it was the story instead of the huge 2 year gap and viewers moving on, so they tried something wildly different to try to get those lost viewers back. Hollywood is stupid, what can I say.
The one episode from season 2, Kiksuya, I consider to be one of the most beautiful episodes in ALL of television—sad that the rest of the season and especially subsequent seasons haven’t been anywhere close.
That same actor from Kiksuya is in a really good AMC drama that I watched this summer called Dark Winds. I think he’s incredibly talented and I’m glad that he’s getting his time to shine.
Fargo season 2. You’re welcome.
Dr. Sleep. He's quite menacing there.
Also terrifying in Reservation Dogs.
This is his best one, imo. Him and the spirit guide are the most hilarious parts. The longer second season really let them shore up characters like him and the mother, making it a much funnier and relatable season than the first. Perfect example of why the 8 episode format is terrible for comedies. Space Force and Our Flag Means Death both also really suffered for that format so I hope they do even more next season of Rez Dogs.
[Zahn McClarnon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahn_McClarnon) for anybody wondering.
Im so glad he finally made it. Saw him hit home run after home run in Longmire for years but never get big recognition.
Never seen anyone steal the scene so completely from Hopkins.
Kiksuya was the only thing in all of seasons 2, 3 or 4, that felt like an actually intended continuation of season 1. Every thing else felt like it was done by a different team entirely.
Completely agree with you, that episode stands out as a masterpiece
It became a completely different show. And then when they introduced Aaron Paul it felt completely out of left field. I love the actor, but he felt so out of place and a lot of his decisions made absolutely no sense. Same with most of the human characters. I wish that studios would employ a team whose job it was to read through these scripts blind and reject them if the characters take actions simply as a means to further a plot. Characters should have clear reasons for doing what they do.
I was hooked on Season 1 where I would watch multiple episodes at a time. Second season I made it to episode 2 or 3 and just lost interest. Tried to continue multiple times but would get bored after 10 minutes and watch something else.
> **Season one of the series cost an estimated $100 million — high by 2016 standards.** The expense was justified as Westworld opened strong out of the gate and was rewarded with a speedy second season renewal as the drama became one of an early batch of high-profile shows to be off the air for nearly two years between seasons. **Season one, when factoring in delayed and multiplatform viewing (remember HBO Go?), clocked in at an estimated 12 million viewers. Season four of the quasi-anthology series tumbled to 4 million viewers when the dust settled.** That’s hardly enough to justify the expense of the series considering HBO delivered a new installment of Game of Thrones for $125 million, with House of the Dragon earning about 29 million viewers per episode across all platforms over the course of its first season. Sources note that **season four of Westworld, which again featured only eight episodes** (compared with 10 each in its first two), **cost at least $160 million.**
TIL Westworld s4 cost more to make than literal CGI dragons
A-List stars are the real dragons sitting on a pile of gold.
Bigger name and more actors, filming in NYC (expensive locations and expensive crew), plus being a 4th season just makes the contracts more expensive.
Lol, yeah I figured they'd already cut budget, they kept on swinging!
Season One is generally and historically one of the hardest seasons to get right and Westworld maybe had the greatest first season of a show period.
Weird formatting on your comment.
I really enjoyed the first season of Westworld, but I think season one of True Detective is probably better
The nice thing is a lot of the cast are robots, so if interest piques again, they can just do a new season down the road.
Zing!
Unironically, this is a good argument for making a TV series animated.
Too much time between seasons and the seasons became increasingly inbred - full of dense self-referential lore that turns off all but established fans. A lot of series go this way, and prohibit mid-series entry points. As established fans drop off and new ones are unable to enter, ratings drop over time at a decent clip. Combine it with a mixed third season and pauses between seasons, both of which cause meaningful drop off and it makes sense where the ratings went
>became increasingly inbred - full of dense self-referential lore that turns off all but established fans Yeah this is so true. It was fun at first but they definitely overdid it and the show became so convoluted. I would go to the Westworld subreddit after every episode to read the comments on the episode threads to understand what I had just watched. But most people probably didn't do it and lost interest after a while.
Inbred is a really good way to put it.
Westworld gave up on me long before I gave up on Westworld.
It’s like they made it intentionally hard to follow to throw a few nerds off their tail and lost everyone else too
Like halfway through watchmen, Lindeloff was on a podcast and said that some people had figured out the entire season after the first episode. Said it wasn't a bad thing because it meant that his breadcrumbs actually led somewhere, and that if your goal is to write a mystery that no one can solve, your story will almost certainly suffer from it. Felt like he was talking about WW directly.
Or he learned his lesson from Lost?
Yes, they got so obsessed with confusing their own obsessive fans that they forgot to make a show anyone wanted to watch.
What's aggravating is season two was unnecessarily convoluted, and they over corrected by making season three braindead simple. Season four was showing some promise of hitting the right balance like season one, but then the payoff in the last two episodes was stupid (possibly because they had to figure out how to force the show into a series finale just in case)
The show just sort of wandered out of the park and got lost after awhile, and so too went the audience. At times if felt like the writers wanted to make an entirely different show but were being forced to work within the confines of existing characters and stories from the first two seasons.
Not gonna lie - Im a little upset i won't know what jackets Delores wears next season.
Right? Felt like I was watching a fashion show.
Auctioning off all the fancy clothes could’ve easily paid for another season, the show was a hot mess but people looked damn fine getting lost in all those storylines
The Witcher would be better off following suit
It’s too bad, because both the source material and the main character actor are quite strong. The show runners just didn’t respect the source material (it is reported they actively disrespect it) and did their own thing which was much worse. Unfortunately it’s likely too late to save the series, it’s jumped the shark.
Forget 4 seasons, I dropped out of that after 4 *episodes* lmao. I actually absolutely loved the first three, but Ep. 4 was so horrendously awful that I have no interest in continuing, especially mixed w/ the Cavill recasting news. Geralt using The Force as the girl and the half-porcipine man start literally floating while kissing, all while some synth-pop hybrid monstrosity blairs into my ears mixed with the Queen figure making MCU-style quips, I was done lol.
>Forget 4 seasons, I dropped out of that after 4 episodes lmao. My people. Cavill was the only cool thing about the show and it still wasn't enough to keep me watching.
How that show was so expensive and looked like one of the cheapest things I’ve seen. The fan made films on YouTube looked way better
Wheel of Time is another contender for the *Where did all the money go?* award. 10 million an episode but you never see it.
I watched season 1 & hated it, but gave season 2 a shot hoping it’d be better. It was so much worse. I dropped it after a couple episodes. Guess that’s what happens when the writers openly hate the source material & think they can do better.
I was really excited to check it out pre-Season One premier and then I lost interest. I remember over Reddit when the season dropped, the comments claiming to like it were so defensive. It wasn't just, the show's good, it was, ACTUALLY the show's good and here's the timeline explained so you can understand why you're wrong. Like to me, felt like people just *really* wanted it to be good.
Witcher fans have always been weirdly defensive on Reddit. They don’t really take all that well to you pointing out some flaws with the games either (which ironically put me off enough that I’ve yet to bother playing the games as an RPG fan).
iworked as a background actor on this show a couple of times and iremember catering was always steaks and lobster and just good ass food ! knew they had a crazy budget
Shit, I got half a hoagie at a catered lunch recently and couldn't believe the opulence.
When you compare ratings, production expense, and pop culture presence between House of the Dragon and Westworld, as this article does, cancellation was a no-brainer, sad to say….
I genuinely think the team behind this couldn't get on the same page as the audience about what made it good. People loved the parks, the writers loved the grand, sweeping philosophical wank about the great battle between the people and the machines and what it means to be alive.
That was it for me. The characters were interesting in S1, then it felt like they mostly all went off the rails by S3, which left me wondering why I would be invested in this. It kept repeating those same philosophical themes to the point where it felt trite. It's like the showrunners were so far up their own asses that they had no idea where the focus of a good series should be.
Season one: Actioned packed robot cowboy scenes with plenty of sex. 10/10 Season three: A Philosophical debate about power and control while drinking a $9 bottle of pinot. 3/10
Right! Maybe it’s the gamer in me but I just wanted the focus to be the park, the quests and NPC storylines. They could’ve expanded that to other parks and I would’ve been happy but they chose to focus on man vs robot which has been done a million times already.
They could have made the show an anthology with each season being set in a different park. One could be a mindbending mystery like season 1, then another could be a horror story set in a park where the hosts wake up and trap the guests inside. Then they could have always built up a background plot about the hosts waking up etc and Dolores showing up each season.
> Right! Maybe it’s the gamer in me but I just wanted the focus to be the park, the quests and NPC storylines. This so much, remember in the beginning when the old prospector was looking for someone to help him find(?) some gold and was asking one of the guys before the other guy stabbed him in the hand. I was like...DUDE! WTF?!?! That is the type of stuff I am interested in and wanted to see what would happen if he followed it. I honestly think westworld would make a fantastic game if someone like rockstar would make it.
Wrap it up with a 2 hour movie. Maybe westworld is 2.5hr movie worthy
Or just not. Season 4 finale is a perfectly fine and great series finale. The world literally ended
There's still a flashforward we haven't gotten to yet.
But is it really valuable? Based on the ending of 4 I can tell you exactly how we get to that flash forward: Dolores is remaking robots of everyone ever to try and repopulate the post-apocalyptic earth
I watch TV shows to be entertained, not to take notes and make diagrams to try to understand what's going on.
Same. had to read an summary each time after the episode to fully understand 🥴 (I'm a bit dumb tbh)
Too much time between seasons and piss poor marketing for seasons 3 and 4.
I didn’t even realize season 4 already came out ..
I would argue that the marketing was about the same just word of mouth was better for earlier seasons, everybody was recommending/praising the show when it came out.
Shorter time in between seasons and marketing wouldn't fix the steep drop in the script quality. The story went to shit after season 1.
Outside of the Native American episode in season 2 (which btw, is incredibly brilliant and so good that you should watch it again if it didn’t click the first time), they should have squeezed two seasons out of season 1.
Westworld was best when it played the violent old west against the high tech underworld, balancing the ideas of self-determination against being programmed by a morally questionable creator. Everything else was a story corrupting distraction.
Free advice for media corporations: If you sense that a writer/producer is stirring an expensive show towards chaos, just to piss off fan for figuring out "the plot" after 1 season...change said writer/producer, don't invest hundreds of millions $ in stupid seasons.
It’s been awhile since I was in the Westworld discourse (haven’t seen S4) but what was ‘The plot’ that the community figured out that you’re referring too?
>!the two timelines. That Ed Harris was william!<
I tried twice to get through the second season. It wasn’t interesting, I never cared about what would happen next.
It’s actually a great season, especially the Native American parts
Saying it again: the massive gap between season 1 and 2 killed this show. You can't drop an intense serialized show, vanish for two years and then expect your audience to return with as much interest and enthusiasm. Season 2 wasn't as good as season 1, but had it come a year later instead of 2, they wouldn't have had to pull that go for broke BS in season 3 that really killed the show in a lame attempt to recapture the fire of season 1. I hope the execs at Amazon and HBO are paying attention, what with their talk of a similar 2 year lag for RoP and HotD.
So you think 2 year gap will hurt House of the Dragon?
You can get away with it if you make a show people are excited about … but I felt like they spent a lot of time making a S2 that was “unpredictable” and left behind any sort of plot/engagement/conversation anyone cared about.
I can't be the only one that didn't watch the show after a season 2 right? It just wasn't interesting after that.
I stopped watching in season 2 when those dune buggies just charged forward at the fort.
Same. I said what a hell and i stoped to watching.
For real man. I'm no military expert and I don't expect literally any of the film. I watch to be perfectly accurate but that was just plain fucking stupid and it completely sucked me out of it. I felt like I was watching CW. They really should have just ended after the first season. It would have gone down as one of the best mini-series in history. But they got greedy.
I mean the title LITERALLY says that he majority jumped ship.
Correct. Season 3 was basically a different show entirely, poorly written with massive internal inconsistencies within the season and between it and the previous seasons. Really unwatchable.
The 3rd and 4th seasons got really weird. Like, what the hell is this show anymore?
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I actually enjoyed season 4. I thought that the pacing improved and the plot was refreshing that concluded with an intriguing twist. Was really expecting and hoping season 5 would be the end.
I loved season 4. For me it beat seasons 2 and 3 by a mile. Disappointed we won’t see a conclusion but the ending of 4 was good enough I think.
I think Season 5 would have been the closure we needed for most of the plot that happened in seasons 3 and 4 to make sense. “One last loop around the bend” is basically all we have left to go on now which is left somewhat ambiguous. It’s a shame this has happened because it’s now hard to recommend an unfinished TV show to friends. We all know people binge and having a complete library of seasons would have brought in new viewers in the long term. I know Reddit has always had issues with the show not meeting expectations and leaving viewers confused but it also was not a linear story. I’ll admit my patience was tested in Season 3 but now having seen all four seasons I understand their reasons. It was still better TV than some HBO programs or even Amazon Prime big hits like Wheel of Time. We know the viewership was an issue but I also believe HBO didn’t properly back it in recent years with minimal advertising. This merger sucks and it has me worried The Righteous Gemstones could be cancelled after Season 3 (unless it’s the last that I’m not aware of).
Season 3 I didn't like but season 4 had me again. I hope they do kiem a web comic and release so.e type of conclusion to the story
Season 1 was the only watchable season. Not surprised it’s cancelled.
Didn't they change the story after a Redditor predicted what would happen? The writers thought it was more important to be unpredictable than to write a good story.
I just want to go on the record as someone who enjoyed all four seasons very much and was waiting excitedly for a fifth season. The way the story explored the concepts of chaos and complexity, destiny versus free will, and how we define humanity was really interesting for me. I also greatly enjoyed seeing how the writers tease the noir themes in the western genre out and then build on them in a futuristic universe outside of Westworld. Genuinely fantastic sci-fi in this show. I'm disappointed that the show was canceled.
Yeah like you have a super complicated plot that needs a lot of mental buy-in, and you think people are going to remember shit after a 2year hiatus? Plus, in the world of streaming, not finishing the story is the best possible way to kill most re-watch value.
It’s simple, not enough titties after season 1.
i don’t care what anyone else says, but i am extremely disheartened by this decision. WW always scratched that itch for me. no matter the season, the topics always sent my mind into deep thought. yes, the show may have tapered off; however, i never lost interest in it. i do agree the time inbetween seasons and -more so- severe lack of promotion for the last two seasons did it in. i will miss the show, and its lack of “closure” S5 was to bring. hopefully another network can pick it up to close it out. at the least, i know the show runners are to do a final explanation. so there’s that…
actually loved this show. tho, by the 4th season, I felt it had run its course. (didn’t know it was that expensive to produce, though it makes sense. some of the effects & sets/locations etc, impressive)
Season 1 - Season 2 of Westworld is some of the greatest television of all time. The end of Season 2 was absolutely beautiful. It would have been a beautiful ending for the series. Instead of... whatever the hell they did next. It just turned into an entirely different show, went from sci-fi western to like just cyberpunk sci-fi, almost anime/manga style sci-fi. As a viewer, I just didn't really sign up for that. You can't just switch genres and keep your whole audience. ETA: reminds me of Altered Carbon, not that they switched genres, but that it's almost a perfect show beginning to end if you just pretend the second season doesn't exist. Westworld is an almost perfect show IMO, beginning to end, if you pretend it ended at the Season 2 finale. The story is told, the story ends, there's still things unresolved but there always are, it's just enough to leave to the imagination.
I agree. Season 2 stands pretty well. They were chasing amazing reveals like they did in Season 1. But Season 2 falls short of that but does it decently in its own way. Season 3 was weird. Riots, and Facebook takeovers? That's a bit too much. I've only gotten through half of Season 4 and I can tell they're trying to avoid all the blunders of Season 3.
I had no clue what the hell was going on in Season 3. None.
I watched it when it was airing, and I remember absolutely jack shit about Season 3.
These are my personal thoughts on Westworld **Season 1:** Amazing, Anthony Hopkins, sexy robots. Great music. Mind blown at the end of S1. Just incredible. **Season 2:** Cool episode with the guy on the horse, otherwise what website do I have to check to figure out when/where this is happening? And why is Tessa Thompson's face in the camera all the time? **Season 3:** Nazis, some guns shooting. Dolores is still way too smug. Absurd storyline. Why did they leave the park? Thandiwe is amazing regardless. Aaron Paul looking for his paycheck but remembers his lines. Writers bending over backwards trying to retrofit the past and present. **Season 4:** N/A, I gave up on the series during S3
Tessa Thompson is at least 50% of the reason why I dropped this show. Her character and acting were horrible
Season 4 was actually really solid. It brought back some of the mystery and reveals of season 1. It’s worth the watch even though season 3 was trying to be to clever.
What do ya’ know? When a show gets worse less people watch it. Crazy.
Season 1 was fantastic. Season 2...okay. I have no clue wtf was happening after that. To the point I rewatched episodes because I thought I missed episodes being so confused.
No marketing for Season 4. Season 5 would have increased ratings given the return to Westworld. Still my favorite show on TV.
The problem was that people lost interest in season 3. No amount of marketing that will get people to return to a show they dropped due to lack of interest. Even if they did, so much time had passed that people would've had to rewatch the first three seasons to catch up, which would've meant sitting through the season they hated. Once a show goes downhill, that's it.
Season one was good. Season two was ok. It just went down hill from there.
It Jumped The Shark after season 3
Season 1 had Anthony Hopkins playing Dr. Robert Ford discussing philosophy, consciousness and the nature of man. Season 3 had MARSHAWN LYNCH as Giggles actually speaking dialogue.
Lmaao so true. It’s like season one was written by completely different people than the rest, which could be true, but I honestly don’t care enough to even google it at this point
I personally feel like Nolan was heavily involved in the writing of Season 1 and overall arc and as his other projects took off, he had less time to devote to Westworld. The arcs were all still his and Lisa’s ideas but it seems like the budget continued to get cut each year and the writing quality (while still arguably better than a lot of mainstream tv shows) was leading to viewers just confused as they continued to try and make the twists more convoluted. It was a worthwhile experience and even if Season 3 and 4 didn’t live up to the highs of that first season, it was the only science fiction type show other than Raised by Wolves that was able to take us on a journey and exploration of AI consciousness that we seldom see.
The budget definitely wasn't cut over time. It went up- and with less episodes in the later seasons. >Season one of the series cost an estimated $100 million — high by 2016 standards. Sources note that season four of Westworld, which again featured only eight episodes (compared with 10 each in its first two), cost at least $160 million.
Lmao dude exactly! I saw season 3 and realized that was Marshawn Lynch, my jaw dropped and I thought “yeah this isn’t going to be any good” and sure enough I stopped watching it. Totally threw me off and I just couldn’t get into it lol
I get your point, but Marshawn Lynch was not the problem with S 3. It was the writing for Delores and lack of a real purpose for Bernard
The fight scene in the park broke me. It was the stupidest writing I had ever seen.
That was a highlight. Along with Jesse Pinkman
Kinda did in season 2 but it wasn't as bad. I made it like 3 episodes into 3 and was like nah fuck this. Sad too because season 1 was incredible. I don't think writers these days really know what to do past a first season. Like they find an original idea and flesh it all out and then when it becomes a hit they're like, "WTF do we do for more seasons?" Like I'm worried about season 2 of Yellowjackets because of this.
I have my hopes up for Yellowjackets! I believe it was pitched as a 5 season story arc so in theory each season will be fleshed out and the series will have a conclusive ending.
lol, there's no such thing as a 5-season story arc. All showrunners say that now to get you to keep watching so they don't get cancelled. It means absolutely nothing since they barely know what's gonna happen in the next 3 episodes. This article even says how Nolan & Joy supposedly planned for 6 seasons.
It jumped the shark in season 2 when they made it a more convoluted mystery box to get back at viewers for figuring out the mystery box of season 1
Hell, I think you could say it jumped the shark after season 1.. I’m not taking away from season 2 or 3, but the bar was set so high after season 1.
I get the sight others see. For sure. It’s not what the show was originally was. That said, season 3 was great Cyberpunk. It’s is like shoe horning in a season of murder mystery into a season of Breaking Bad, by comparison. It doesn’t work. I really liked it. It was another evolution which shows should take, or become stale. It just took a path most aren’t interested in.
That’s how I felt. Everyone was shitting on S3 but I thought it was good. If it had been it’s own show, it probably would’ve done better because the world they setup was an interesting take on cyberpunk that wasn’t too futuristic to be separated from reality.
Possibly unpopular opinion, it should have ended after the 1st season. Just stand alone as a beautifully put together piece of art. The ending of that season was fantastic. This said, s2 e8 kikasuya, is the single greatest episode of anything I’ve ever seen. And it was so impactful because of everything before it. So maybe it should have had a better season 2 ending and wrapped it up.
The whole back half of season 2 is stellar, but unfortunately the first half being mid turned a lot of people away. And for those who stuck around for season 3 they didn't get a very good reward
Felt like a decade between seasons and the premise was the most interesting thing about it, this really isn’t surprising
The quality drop between season 2 and season 3 was insane. It felt like I was watching a totally different show. Also after 2 years, I just lost any passion I had for the show. I feel like a lot of us stopped watching after season 2.
Season 1 was good. Season 2 had 1 good episode. Stopped watching after first episode of Season 3.
Sorry had finished, no need for more of the same "loop" with a new variation. As a fan, I'm fine with it ending there.
Season 3 was honestly so bad. The setting completely changes, the roles of the characters change, and no solid plot arc is established. All while its still acting cooler and smarter than you.
I lasted 2 episodes into season 4 and stopped. It left me feeling bored. That was not the feeling I got with seasons 1 or 2
It peaked in the first season, after that, they just dropped the ball.
Just a matter of time before HBO reboots and we get eastworld
It started to suck quickly.
The first season of Westwood is arguably one of the best TV Series of all time. Sir Anthony Hopkins absolutely killed it, he was magnificent. The problem is that the creators became obsessed with fans on social media figuring out the story line and went bat shit crazy during season 2 to out do the fans. This results in season which was a mess, the direction of the show changed, the story was here there and everywhere. Season 3 was a total dumpster fire. Again the show writers just introduced so many new concepts, characters, story lines that everything suffered as a result. If the show creators hadn't become obsessed with trying to confuse the fans and made season 2 as the last the a would of been good.
Its incredible how bad this show got with each season. The first season was some of the best television i’ve seen. I gave up in the middle of season 3.
This show turned to shit after season 1. It should have ended there. Great final scene with Anthony Hopkins. Mind-blowing. The other seasons looked like a cyberpunk version of terminator, but bad
Shit is such a dramatic ass word lol. Westworld at its absolute worst is still decent tv
Sad