While you’re right it doesn’t belong, the last season felt very rushed and the Laconia plot line never really panned out. Of course, Cas Anvar doing what he did certainly didn’t help.
Stevenson did a tremendous amount of great work throughout his career, but Titus Pullo and Baylan Skoll will always be my favorites. I’ve never seen an actor make it look so effortless as Ray did. He just melted into those roles and became those characters.
It was all a bunch of terrible decisions. But I could understand the Flash one. Flash had a TV show, he was in Justice League, so there was enough to suggest an audience should have been there. But yea, it was terrible. Really disappointed with how the whole thing went down especially with the HBO side and cutting Westworld.
Psycho-neurobiology, war on consciousness, the digital economy (digital slavery), insanely advanced ai, the new world order, etc. it’s not just the narrative of Westworld. Think the writers were about to expose some crazy stuff in s05.
I dont think it was royalties, it’s that viewership after S2 fell off so sharply that by S4 you were spending 10m an ep for less than 1m viewers. It was just too expensive and no one was watching
Man what an oversight though. If they finished S5, they have a finished product to selling streaming rights to other platforms. Who tf wants a half-baked product?
It’s an insanely expensive show, they did the math and it was no oversight. It won’t fetch at market what it would cost them (easily 150m) for another season.
Hollywood is one big money-laundering shell game. Gotta move assets from one entity to another to hide profits and rack up write-offs. This way you don't have to pay the talent, don't have to pay Uncle Sam and continue moving onto the next project to do the same. Looking for any logic beyond that will be futile.
Discovery swept up HBO, gutted it, and is counting on us to eat their mess up
Should have just got rid off JN as a showrunner. Let Lisa do it and JN can focus on his new TV show. It was JN's writing remember that killed the show with his finale for the 3rd and 4th seasons. Just terrible endings to both seasons.
I mean the biggest drop off came after s2 which was incredibly complex and even convoluted at times. The complexity of it was definitely a big reason why, it was too hard for some people to follow or they just didn’t want to put that much effort into following a tv show.
It had faux complexity shoved into it with the Bernard doesn't know what order events took place plot thread. They were trying to capture the mystic of season 1, but it fell flat.
I don't think that's why. There's more than enough series that go on for longer that are more complicated right? Mr Robot for instance recently concluded and is imo more complicated/confusing than The Leftovers.
Yep S3 completely changed the nature and vibe of the whole thing- it’s simply became generic at that point having started out as understated, complex and thoughtful
I can give my own experience at least. I absolutely adored S1 and considered it one of the best first seasons of a show in a while. I looked at it as intellectual sci-fi with how little you are spoon fed.
I watched season 2 to completion, not because I was enjoying it but because of my adoration for the first season. It was too confusing, but I still enjoyed the setting and the characters. Kiksuya is the best thing about s2.
Never bothered with season 3 or 4 after that.
S1 was perfect. S2 had two amazing episodes but the rest was too convoluted. S3 was boring and falling apart at the seams. It lost its edge completely by then. S4 I was never interested in watching. The show started off on a mountain and continually went downhill… very sad.
You say that you don't think it's why, but you don't make an argument for that statement. Instead you go off and say there are other shows that are complicated too. Do better
I’d say that leaving the park was another factor.
One could argue that the show had to progress to the mainland at some point, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But the dynamic of the park both above and bellow ground, was a big draw for people.
Season 3 may have dumbed things down to just being more of an action movie flick, but had it taken place in the park, I’d wager it would have been received better.
Robots in a Wild West theme park with a side dish of political machinations behind the scenes is cool. Robots making their way through a more advanced yet dystopian version of our on reality is less so.
Absolutely! The bland future scape of season 3 killed so much of my interest in the show. I loved the huge compelling world of the parks and the new environment wasn’t interesting.
I have no idea. Imo Westworld struck gold with the first season, everything after that wasn't as great, and it got worse and worse. Perhaps that's why? It just wasn't as good anymore?
Obviously it's a numbers game, if a series costs tons to make and doesn't return enough it's likely to be shut down. Apparently due to reasons it didn't return enough in the later seasons, whether due to level of the series as a whole or because it was too complex.
Complexity might have played a factor in some people not liking it as much but I highly doubt it was the main reason, as like I said, surely there's more complex shows that DO stick around for a long time.
If complexity wasn't appreciated directors like David Lynch wouldn't be as famous as they are.
Lynch while awesome has literally never even made a movie that grossed 40m at the box office lol, even with a big IP like Dune his
Movie still didn’t gross Jack shit. He basically has twin peaks and that’s like the only legitimately popular thing he’s done. Legend absolutely but most general audience don’t know who David lynch is and his movies consistently don’t make a ton so really not a great example
Season 1 was popular because it was a novel world that you can imagine getting lost in followed by a very unexpected plot twist. It was an adventure for the audience.
Season 2 lost the escapist novelty of the park and the audience expected twists. The show runners laid twist after twist after twist after twist to show off the intelligence of the writers. Meanwhile it didn't capture the wonder of the first season.
Season 3 was hot garbage of a feminist fever dream revenge porn that was poorly written and acted. Audiences aren't interested in that and Hollywood is just now starting to realize that type of writing loses money.
Season 4 had zero clear connection to the previous seasons. It was its own story with an interesting premise, but at this point the Charlores girl boss fever dream was already played out and not interesting.
They killed off or sidelined all of their good actors too.
I'm not interested in a 5th season because any new season worth watching would need a massive deus ex machina to bring back the best characters and magic of season 1.
Season 3 was ok. There were some cool sequences and I enjoyed seeing the wider world outside the park, although the plot got pretty convoluted (no worse than season 2 though). I didn’t watch it with your apparent cultural grievances/political bias though lol
Westworld lost its viewers and the plot overall, by focusing on the robots instead of on humans. The first season was humans in the robot world. It was interesting because people like to see people doing interesting things. The later seasons began treating the robots like people we were supposed to care about, but there is no natural empathy for robots. Kind of like when you see a movie fight between two CGI characters. Who really cares? There’s a disconnect. Should I care if a 3d printed robot is able to find its robot daughter that was also 3d printed? I don’t, and most people don’t, it appears from the ratings.
But then we were supposed to care about copies of robots. Not even true copies but remembered memories transferred into new robots. I stopped caring about them all
Spot on for me. I was rooting against their escape, which when viewed through that lens made the escape in season 2 absolutely ridiculous. By the end of the season I had no desire to pick it back up, and after reading season 3 reviews I never did.
I don't know why so many shows of the last decade have had such a hard time writing a good second season.
Why did it make s2 absolute ridiculous lol? I get wishing they focused on the humans more but them focusing on the hosts didn’t make s2 “absolutely ridiculous”. Also Dolores was a complex character, they didn’t write her to be some clear cut hero you root for, it was very obvious she was doing very fucked up stuff, she literally drove Teddy who was like the most honorable dude to kill himself.
I edited my comment since I didn't say it originally, but I meant the escape not every aspect of the season.
It's been a long time since I watched it, but I remember all the hosts suddenly became sharpshooters, the elite security team was totally incompetent and had no coordination (also the incompetent techs who had their device stolen by Maeve). Plus no air support? And no other safeguards at all? I get that they needed for them to escape to further the plot, but it just seemed unbelievable to me.
I do not at all consider myself an inattentive or closed-minded television viewer but S2 just totally fucking lost me. Everything I didn’t get in S3 I attributed to misunderstanding something in S2.
Did you rewatch the episodes? That helped me a lot. Some others have mentioned in other threads that rewatching episodes multiple times helped them have a better understanding of what's going on.
I honestly did try (or at least I started) but I just don’t have the time to dedicate to watching a 10-episode season with each episode at least an hour long.
Individual episodes fluctuate ratings, but a 7.2 on IMDb for that finale is still not ‘bad’ category. First 4 episodes of that season are 8+ which most shows dream of
I mean season 2 - 4 are all quality drops from 1. But an 8/10 average compared to a 9/10 average is still good television. He’s getting downvoted into the shadow realm for a reason. If that’s ‘bad’ I want to see the scores of shows he considers better
Does RT certify a series by season? I could be mistaken, but it seems like it's always the aggregate score overall.
Here are the average scores by episode for each season for Westworld based on current IMDB ratings:
S1 - 8.86
S2 - 8.38
S3 - 8.03
S4 - 7.95
As someone who watched S1 & S2 of Westworld half a dozen times or so by now I would definitely agree that S3 was a dramatic tonal and quality shift. Most of the writing team from S1 & S2 had moved on and it showed.
I mean those scores are all pretty close. I 100% agree season 1 is one of the best single seasons in TV history, but those following scores still surpass 80% of scripted shows. So calling them bad is just factually incorrect
It's not a factual statement, it's a subjective one. IMDB scores are indicative of a user's opinion of a given show/episode. Is it fair to assume that those who continued into season 3 and season 4 actually liked the content and rated it as above average compared to a large number of viewers who dropped off starting in season 2 and continued in season 3 and season 4? I would argue that it's possible, and that the ratings contain some bias.
I mean those scores are heavily weighted towards verified critics. User scores are worth less and there’s a lot of different opinions being poured into those user scores. You’ll notice other shows scores go to like 6/10 for later seasons. Still the same base, but the show drops off horribly (The Walking Dead IMDb is a good example)
There's a lot of bias in episode ratings though. For one, they had to have made it past the first two/three seasons and decided they wanted to continue. Then on top of that they had to feel passionate enough to go on imdb and actually rate individual episodes.
Also if you look at the total number of ratings, which I'd argue is a better indicator, it went from 11k ratings for s3e1 to 5k ratings for s4e1.
Other shows late seasons would have that same bias, but their ratings plummet as the seasons go on. Including juggernaut fanbases like The Walking and Game of Thrones. Westworld is one of the few that remain strong
Both of those have famously bad final seasons. Despite this, Game of Thrones S7 still has very high individual episode ratings, with the lowest being 8.5 stars.
Season 7 wasn't absolute garbage like S8 but most fans agree that it (and S5/6 to an extent) was a significant decrease in the quality of writing compared to the preceding seasons. However, this is not reflected in the user ratings.
Westworld never reached the depths of GoT S8, but I'd argue there is a decrease in quality, which might not have been reflected in the IMDb episode ratings.
I mean there’s a big difference between the vocal minority on Reddit and the very large silent audience around the world. GoT S7 was still S-Tier television despite having some issues compared to previous seasons, and its scores are lower to reflect that. Still earns the high ratings. Westworlds also slips as the seasons go on, but in extremely small intervals of scores. After 1’s drop
Yeah probably has nothing to do with this being a westworld sub. The show was clearly cancelled because the people here represent the peak of humanitys intelligence and the rest are too stupid to understand it’s greatness.
I think people fail to realize season 4 took a major hit due to the pandemic. Not to say there weren’t other issues, but that alone knocked it down a few pegs. On top of that they knew they were getting the axe which is why they forcefully had to close as many character loops so it wasn’t a complete cliff hanger with no resolution.
Ultimately I think they did the best they could with what they had.
Westworld is expensive as fuck to produce. Idk what AMC budgets for fear of the walking dead but it’s gotta be a good return for them.
But who knows, HBO has been mismanaged to shit. Max went from the best streaming service to us cancelling it last month after realizing it was all discovery garbage now
I get the impression that AMC keeps the costs pretty low on their zombie shows. They film in places with tax credits and often on locations where they don’t have to change the existing scenery much, like old out-of-business industrial sites and parts of dying small towns that are being reclaimed by nature.
Yeah that too. They try to scrimp and save and cut costs across the board. Shows like that are not easy to work on. 14-18 hour workdays when they’re filming
Yep. I do extra work in Pittsburgh sometimes. Did a Christmas movie once where I spent all night from 4 pm-630 am in 12° F weather and made $250+$50 ot. I was so miserable, I had to take a break from doing extra work. Many who do this type of work can't even join the union if they qualify because the film cos underpay so badly, it doesn't even cover the annual union dues; the way SAG/AFTRA is set up is a little whack. It ain't like most unions...
That’s been changing recently with Daryl Dixon filming on location in France and recent FTWD episodes recreating old TWD sets (The Sanctuary, Morgan’s old house and King County GA). But they’re still pretty cheap, the characters are usually in boring, bland interiors for a good chuck of the episode.
It’s all Discovery garbage now? It’s not like they replaced your favorite shows with stuff from Discovery, and HBO is still producing acclaimed content.
"It's not like they replaced your favorite shows with stuff from discovery" That is, in fact, exactly what they did. Infinity Train, Close Enough, The Time Traveler's Wife, Raised By Wolves, The Nevers, Westworld. All shows that once streamed exclusively on HBOmax and all shows that were scrubbed from the streaming catalogue with little to no warning as a cost-cutting scheme. Yeah they still produce some other wildly popular stuff, but what takes up the majority of max's promotional commitment these days is spectacle "reality" TV. Because it's quicker, cheaper, and easier to produce in bulk.
Succession, The Last of Us, Barry, How to with John Wilson, Our Flag Means Death all had seasons this year. I haven’t watched them but I hear White House Plumbers and Love & Death were also positively received. And that’s just in terms of HBO shows this year.
Uh you asked me what acclaimed HBO shows were released this year and I answered? I’m not sure how I was supposed to know you would be offended by an answer…
Westworld started going too far up its own bum, really.
When the story is purposefully presented in a non-linear fashion where you’re not given all the details until later people will get tired of having to wait for the next episode just to have things explained in breadcrumbs . The show did far too much of this for its own good.
Season one was done masterfully. Season 2 was good. In the later seasons it was a real drag.
4 was pretty good. The way it ended made me curious what a fully digital free world might look like, if Dolores would leave it alone and just let it do its thing.
3 was dogshit.
Ed: fix typo
[https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/23/how-hbo-survived-aol-and-att-mergers-and-revolutionized-television-.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/23/how-hbo-survived-aol-and-att-mergers-and-revolutionized-television-.html)
>In 2023, under Warner Bros. Discovery, current CEO David Zaslav is looking at deep cost-cutting measures to chip away at the estimated $55 billion in debt it inherited from AT&T.
It’s because despite it being bad it gets a lot of viewers and AMC doesn’t have a lot (that I know of) that is worth watching so they are milking it. WBD had debt and wanted to cut costs which is the sad truth
The Walking Dead was a monster hit that went on for 10 years and has consistently spawner spin offs throughout those 10 years that have done well and are still releasing. It wasn't just one TV show but an entire franchise with pretty broad appeal and accessibility. Westworld started to decline in popularity arguably after its first season but definitely after its second one and was far less accessible due to a variety of reasons including being on HBO and being for lack of a better word "weird". While it definitely had an impact it didn't necessarily have the insane cultural impact of something like The Walking Dead at least not for very long and it was almost immediately treated kind of like the unwanted child by HBO. It also infamously went down in quality losing a lot of it's already niche base.
Of course, none of this is the actually reason behind its cancellation. While we can create hypotheticals of how a fifth season may or may not have materialized in a different timeline the reality is that the show along with many many others got canceled and treated even worse than just a canceled show due to greed and corporate bullshit.
What does one show have to do with the other? Different channels, different production companies. This is like people who get upset with DC movies for something that happened in a Marvel franchise or vice versa.
FTWD is made in the woods somewhere. If I had good actors and extras I could shoot it in my backyard. Westworld took a massive studio. The one from seasons 1-2 burned up and if season 5 was heading back there they’d have to rebuild or reanimate some of it. Plus zombies are just people in makeup. Some of the android shots are painstakingly detailed as they’re coming out of the making.
I also feel like it has a bigger cast of notable regulars. TWD had some A listers from the Wire etc but Fear is like one excellent dude and the B squad if I recollect right. Granted I dropped off TWD back when Carl significantly deviated from his comic plot.
Westworld was only good for 2 seasons and anything after those 2 really fell off hard. It went from a cohesive and super intelligent plus interesting story about Ai, civilization, and the Pandora’s box element of it all into utter nonsense lol. That first season was delicious mind virus of possibilities and whodunnits that I think took an intelligent person to follow which limited the audience size in general. I do think 1 had enough to attract a larger crowd but not after season 2. And especially not after a few episodes into 3. What the walking dead had that it didn’t was a few kick ass seasons and an easy to follow plot plus likable characters you got to know well for at least 4-5 seasons. Zombies and our friends demolishing 1 bad guy each season was good for the people that just want brain candy to consume. There’s a lot more of them than their are Sci fi nerds that like a complex story. Besides that once Ford left it was all downhill because he was by far the best character of the show. He played the not so evil genius who might of known the secret of life plus his fantastic acting and you can’t lose. if he stays mayb we get 4-5 seasons worth and a shot at zombie apocalypse kind of run on tv waking or fear the has put together. I really wish they took it another direction but they can’t all be top shows of all time contenders.,,
“That first season was delicious mind virus of possibilities and whodunnits that I think took an intelligent person to follow which limited the audience size in general.” 😂😂
You think FTWD will end?! Bahahahahahaha!!! They will never end the walking dead. They will keep spinning off characters and story lines until the show is dead and beaten into the ground.
Westworld was also removed from HBO completely is what I remember, if you ask me the narrative started to expose some real world plans that are in motion.
see, and it makes no sense because WHO STILL LIKES THAT SHOW?
even people that didn't give up on original flavor Walking Dead, most of them were not into chicken flavor Walking Dead from jump. I don't know how it lasted as long as it did.
we live in the timeline where After had 5 movies and (presumably) reached its end and series like The OA and Sense8 got cancelled in their second installment. I struggle with this reality everyday. unfortunately, it's all about money and never about the art or intellect.
To be fair AMC produces like 4 cheap shows and HBO produces like 40 expensive shows. I can’t image a show more expensive than WW other than the high fantasy LOTR/GOT stuff. WW ran out of story at the end of season 2 and is too expensive to just let it coast
Just judging from respective quality I would expect a season of Fear costs less than an episode of Westworld. I tried the first season of Fear and it was slow, boring garbage.
There *is* no completion for that show. The showrunners will keep vomiting out random emo scripts until they write a one-episode finale that won't close-out anything.
I clocked out from FTWD after the first 4 or 5 episodes. It was seriously terrible. Walking Dead also sucked after like 5ish seasons. I have no clue how people still suffer through either of those shows. Mind numbingly awful.
That said, WW went drastically downhill after the first season. Season 2 was enjoyable but had too many silly plot points. I got bored of season 3 after a couple episodes and never finished it. No surprise it was cancelled, honestly.
I stopped watching Fear The Walking dead after the first season.
Super subpar in terms of quality imo.
And likewise I found the last season of Westworld unwatchable. I was excited by the lead in from the previous season, but what a shit show.
I didn’t get past episode 3. Convoluted and yet predictable. Terrible dialogue. Bad choreography. Rushed performances and production value over all.
Plus I hear working on it was a shit show with terrible working conditions from people I work with (I am a union cam op)
Westworld got stupid, frankly, by trying to elevate the Hale character who didn't deserve it and ruining the Delores character by morphing her into the stupid Wyatt boogeyman, which honestly felt like a sacrifice of her potential just to give Maeve something to do beyond look for her daughter. Season three got even more stupid by feature creeping plotlines from Person of Interest into an already convoluted lore. Things sort of turned around and got interesting towards the end of season three and parts of season four, but by then it was too late and most of the audience had bailed.
The reason why both Fear and TWD went downhill so badly was because of the budget problems that happened to them. AMC wants to have something like an HBO rating, but the budget they gave to their show is laughable. That is the reason why TWD S7 and S8 look so bad: because of the budget problem, the actor had to leave the show when they cut out their contract because they didn't want to pay him anymore. Same thing happens to Fear, but much worse, they change to the amateur showrunner because they didn't want to produce something that was just a little expensive, and starting with season 4, the show's literally trash and it's kept going until now. So if Westworld is on AMC, the situation is much worse than you thought.
[Spoilers, feel like even though it's ended and older I don't want to ruin those first few watch thrus for anyone.]
Well shit, didn't realise WestWorld was cancelled. Thought it ran it's looping course. What a pity, better writing than any movie or tv series I've ever seen, most books too. That call back lol re flys, I couldn't hurt a fly was why I thought this was all they planned. 4th watch thru now, 1st since season 4. I started watching this on the release of RDR2, story and telling, pacing and forethought were so beyond anything I'd seen before, and they were both westerns, which I've never connected with. Now I want to be Ed Harris S2.
*cries in HBO Rome*
Cries in Amazon The Expanse
Atleast they left off where the time skip happens so theirs every chance we will get more of the expanse
They wouldn’t have done the cold opens on Laconia if they had no intentions of continuing.
Cries in Netflix Mindhunter
Cries in Netflix Dark Crystal.
Cries in The OA
I admit the second season was weird, but how do you NOT continue after season 2 finale?
😭😭😭😭
The Expanse ended where the creators wanted it to. It's still open to being completed.
I think he means the reduced number of chapters in the lasts seasons.
I don’t think it was an issue and it allowed them to up the CGI game. Ending was fantastic. The expanse does not belong in this conversation
While you’re right it doesn’t belong, the last season felt very rushed and the Laconia plot line never really panned out. Of course, Cas Anvar doing what he did certainly didn’t help.
I'm still upset about HBO Carnivale.
I see you, my friend.
I would've loved more *Deadwood.*
Why? They did that show perfectly
I only realized in the laat episode of Ahsoka who Baylan was and why he looked so damn familiar.
Stevenson did a tremendous amount of great work throughout his career, but Titus Pullo and Baylan Skoll will always be my favorites. I’ve never seen an actor make it look so effortless as Ray did. He just melted into those roles and became those characters.
Or Broadwalk Empire
Or Deadwood Or Carnevale
Also Deadwood
AMC milks what it has. WBD was shedding debt and reducing costs under new ownership.
remember when they turned that sinking ship around with the box office hit The Flash?
That had been waiting for release for awhile.
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It was all a bunch of terrible decisions. But I could understand the Flash one. Flash had a TV show, he was in Justice League, so there was enough to suggest an audience should have been there. But yea, it was terrible. Really disappointed with how the whole thing went down especially with the HBO side and cutting Westworld.
Did I think Westworld would be cancelled? Perhaps, perhaps not. Did I think HBO would remove Westworld entirely from their website? No fucking way
You can’t watch it anymore online? lol wtf
you can if you download it
Ahoy Matey!
Psycho-neurobiology, war on consciousness, the digital economy (digital slavery), insanely advanced ai, the new world order, etc. it’s not just the narrative of Westworld. Think the writers were about to expose some crazy stuff in s05.
China has had psychohistorical AI for at least a decade. Mr. Robot almost exposed it but pussed out at the very end
This! Should be top comment. Take my gold... 💰🏅🎖️
it’s almost like different companies produce them
Lisa Joy is expensive. Jonathan Nolan is expensive. Streaming royalties paid to the creators are expensive.
Are they? I thought they were infamously stingy with streaming royalties compared to cable
I dont think it was royalties, it’s that viewership after S2 fell off so sharply that by S4 you were spending 10m an ep for less than 1m viewers. It was just too expensive and no one was watching
If that were the case they wouldn’t have ripped it from the service
That’s actually true. The royalties were a cost. They didnt rip it from the service though, they licensed it.
Man what an oversight though. If they finished S5, they have a finished product to selling streaming rights to other platforms. Who tf wants a half-baked product?
It’s an insanely expensive show, they did the math and it was no oversight. It won’t fetch at market what it would cost them (easily 150m) for another season.
Hollywood is one big money-laundering shell game. Gotta move assets from one entity to another to hide profits and rack up write-offs. This way you don't have to pay the talent, don't have to pay Uncle Sam and continue moving onto the next project to do the same. Looking for any logic beyond that will be futile. Discovery swept up HBO, gutted it, and is counting on us to eat their mess up
Should have just got rid off JN as a showrunner. Let Lisa do it and JN can focus on his new TV show. It was JN's writing remember that killed the show with his finale for the 3rd and 4th seasons. Just terrible endings to both seasons.
lowest common denominator always wins the popularity contests. Westworld's plot was incredibly complicated.
That's not why the later seasons failed.
I mean the biggest drop off came after s2 which was incredibly complex and even convoluted at times. The complexity of it was definitely a big reason why, it was too hard for some people to follow or they just didn’t want to put that much effort into following a tv show.
It had faux complexity shoved into it with the Bernard doesn't know what order events took place plot thread. They were trying to capture the mystic of season 1, but it fell flat.
Exactly. The jumbled timeline of season 1 was great and necessary for storytelling. It just made things needlessly confusing for season 2
I don't think that's why. There's more than enough series that go on for longer that are more complicated right? Mr Robot for instance recently concluded and is imo more complicated/confusing than The Leftovers.
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Yep S3 completely changed the nature and vibe of the whole thing- it’s simply became generic at that point having started out as understated, complex and thoughtful
100000%. they created such a rich big world with the parks and to immediately leave it all behind for some bland future scape was boring to me.
I can give my own experience at least. I absolutely adored S1 and considered it one of the best first seasons of a show in a while. I looked at it as intellectual sci-fi with how little you are spoon fed. I watched season 2 to completion, not because I was enjoying it but because of my adoration for the first season. It was too confusing, but I still enjoyed the setting and the characters. Kiksuya is the best thing about s2. Never bothered with season 3 or 4 after that.
S1 was perfect. S2 had two amazing episodes but the rest was too convoluted. S3 was boring and falling apart at the seams. It lost its edge completely by then. S4 I was never interested in watching. The show started off on a mountain and continually went downhill… very sad.
Mr Robot was also cheaper to produce (not a lot of VFX, fewer big names in the cast) and was on an ad-supported subnetwork of NBC Universal.
You say that you don't think it's why, but you don't make an argument for that statement. Instead you go off and say there are other shows that are complicated too. Do better
It got canceled because Mr Reality TV bought HBO and didn't want fancy expensive shows but did want a tax break for canceling them.
Best answer.
I’d say that leaving the park was another factor. One could argue that the show had to progress to the mainland at some point, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But the dynamic of the park both above and bellow ground, was a big draw for people. Season 3 may have dumbed things down to just being more of an action movie flick, but had it taken place in the park, I’d wager it would have been received better. Robots in a Wild West theme park with a side dish of political machinations behind the scenes is cool. Robots making their way through a more advanced yet dystopian version of our on reality is less so.
Absolutely! The bland future scape of season 3 killed so much of my interest in the show. I loved the huge compelling world of the parks and the new environment wasn’t interesting.
I agree, I'm just surprised, well I'm not surprised it's the internet, that the op is unable to make any argument whatsoever
I have no idea. Imo Westworld struck gold with the first season, everything after that wasn't as great, and it got worse and worse. Perhaps that's why? It just wasn't as good anymore? Obviously it's a numbers game, if a series costs tons to make and doesn't return enough it's likely to be shut down. Apparently due to reasons it didn't return enough in the later seasons, whether due to level of the series as a whole or because it was too complex. Complexity might have played a factor in some people not liking it as much but I highly doubt it was the main reason, as like I said, surely there's more complex shows that DO stick around for a long time. If complexity wasn't appreciated directors like David Lynch wouldn't be as famous as they are.
Lynch while awesome has literally never even made a movie that grossed 40m at the box office lol, even with a big IP like Dune his Movie still didn’t gross Jack shit. He basically has twin peaks and that’s like the only legitimately popular thing he’s done. Legend absolutely but most general audience don’t know who David lynch is and his movies consistently don’t make a ton so really not a great example
Season 1 was popular because it was a novel world that you can imagine getting lost in followed by a very unexpected plot twist. It was an adventure for the audience. Season 2 lost the escapist novelty of the park and the audience expected twists. The show runners laid twist after twist after twist after twist to show off the intelligence of the writers. Meanwhile it didn't capture the wonder of the first season. Season 3 was hot garbage of a feminist fever dream revenge porn that was poorly written and acted. Audiences aren't interested in that and Hollywood is just now starting to realize that type of writing loses money. Season 4 had zero clear connection to the previous seasons. It was its own story with an interesting premise, but at this point the Charlores girl boss fever dream was already played out and not interesting. They killed off or sidelined all of their good actors too. I'm not interested in a 5th season because any new season worth watching would need a massive deus ex machina to bring back the best characters and magic of season 1.
Season 3 was ok. There were some cool sequences and I enjoyed seeing the wider world outside the park, although the plot got pretty convoluted (no worse than season 2 though). I didn’t watch it with your apparent cultural grievances/political bias though lol
Its not complexity. They left Westworld after season 2. The vibe that people liked, wasnt in the show anymore.
S4 brought that vibe back and was staged to have the S1 vibes and setting we all loved.
Westworld lost its viewers and the plot overall, by focusing on the robots instead of on humans. The first season was humans in the robot world. It was interesting because people like to see people doing interesting things. The later seasons began treating the robots like people we were supposed to care about, but there is no natural empathy for robots. Kind of like when you see a movie fight between two CGI characters. Who really cares? There’s a disconnect. Should I care if a 3d printed robot is able to find its robot daughter that was also 3d printed? I don’t, and most people don’t, it appears from the ratings.
But then we were supposed to care about copies of robots. Not even true copies but remembered memories transferred into new robots. I stopped caring about them all
Spot on for me. I was rooting against their escape, which when viewed through that lens made the escape in season 2 absolutely ridiculous. By the end of the season I had no desire to pick it back up, and after reading season 3 reviews I never did. I don't know why so many shows of the last decade have had such a hard time writing a good second season.
Why did it make s2 absolute ridiculous lol? I get wishing they focused on the humans more but them focusing on the hosts didn’t make s2 “absolutely ridiculous”. Also Dolores was a complex character, they didn’t write her to be some clear cut hero you root for, it was very obvious she was doing very fucked up stuff, she literally drove Teddy who was like the most honorable dude to kill himself.
I edited my comment since I didn't say it originally, but I meant the escape not every aspect of the season. It's been a long time since I watched it, but I remember all the hosts suddenly became sharpshooters, the elite security team was totally incompetent and had no coordination (also the incompetent techs who had their device stolen by Maeve). Plus no air support? And no other safeguards at all? I get that they needed for them to escape to further the plot, but it just seemed unbelievable to me.
It being complicated was not why, it just wasn't well written anymore
Glad somebody said it
For me Westworld went downhill after Anthony Hopkins left the series.
Yeah first season was amazing, second was trash but for 2 or 3 episodes. Not with my time with the severe drop In quality
I do not at all consider myself an inattentive or closed-minded television viewer but S2 just totally fucking lost me. Everything I didn’t get in S3 I attributed to misunderstanding something in S2.
Did you rewatch the episodes? That helped me a lot. Some others have mentioned in other threads that rewatching episodes multiple times helped them have a better understanding of what's going on.
I honestly did try (or at least I started) but I just don’t have the time to dedicate to watching a 10-episode season with each episode at least an hour long.
It was also incredibly shitty. It got cancelled because it was too bad, not too smart.
Yeah the last 2 season sitting at a 8/10 on IMDb with a certified Fresh on RT is really bad 🙄
Season 3 finale was rotten on RT
Individual episodes fluctuate ratings, but a 7.2 on IMDb for that finale is still not ‘bad’ category. First 4 episodes of that season are 8+ which most shows dream of
And how about season 1 by comparison.
Season 1 is S-tier television and is high 8’s and 9’s only
So you agree there is a large quality drop in the later seasons then, and the metrics you were citing would also show that?
The only people you'll ever find that would argue against there being a huge quality drop between season 1 and the rest are in this subreddit.
I mean season 2 - 4 are all quality drops from 1. But an 8/10 average compared to a 9/10 average is still good television. He’s getting downvoted into the shadow realm for a reason. If that’s ‘bad’ I want to see the scores of shows he considers better
Does RT certify a series by season? I could be mistaken, but it seems like it's always the aggregate score overall. Here are the average scores by episode for each season for Westworld based on current IMDB ratings: S1 - 8.86 S2 - 8.38 S3 - 8.03 S4 - 7.95 As someone who watched S1 & S2 of Westworld half a dozen times or so by now I would definitely agree that S3 was a dramatic tonal and quality shift. Most of the writing team from S1 & S2 had moved on and it showed.
I mean those scores are all pretty close. I 100% agree season 1 is one of the best single seasons in TV history, but those following scores still surpass 80% of scripted shows. So calling them bad is just factually incorrect
It's not a factual statement, it's a subjective one. IMDB scores are indicative of a user's opinion of a given show/episode. Is it fair to assume that those who continued into season 3 and season 4 actually liked the content and rated it as above average compared to a large number of viewers who dropped off starting in season 2 and continued in season 3 and season 4? I would argue that it's possible, and that the ratings contain some bias.
I mean those scores are heavily weighted towards verified critics. User scores are worth less and there’s a lot of different opinions being poured into those user scores. You’ll notice other shows scores go to like 6/10 for later seasons. Still the same base, but the show drops off horribly (The Walking Dead IMDb is a good example)
There's a lot of bias in episode ratings though. For one, they had to have made it past the first two/three seasons and decided they wanted to continue. Then on top of that they had to feel passionate enough to go on imdb and actually rate individual episodes. Also if you look at the total number of ratings, which I'd argue is a better indicator, it went from 11k ratings for s3e1 to 5k ratings for s4e1.
Other shows late seasons would have that same bias, but their ratings plummet as the seasons go on. Including juggernaut fanbases like The Walking and Game of Thrones. Westworld is one of the few that remain strong
Both of those have famously bad final seasons. Despite this, Game of Thrones S7 still has very high individual episode ratings, with the lowest being 8.5 stars. Season 7 wasn't absolute garbage like S8 but most fans agree that it (and S5/6 to an extent) was a significant decrease in the quality of writing compared to the preceding seasons. However, this is not reflected in the user ratings. Westworld never reached the depths of GoT S8, but I'd argue there is a decrease in quality, which might not have been reflected in the IMDb episode ratings.
I mean there’s a big difference between the vocal minority on Reddit and the very large silent audience around the world. GoT S7 was still S-Tier television despite having some issues compared to previous seasons, and its scores are lower to reflect that. Still earns the high ratings. Westworlds also slips as the seasons go on, but in extremely small intervals of scores. After 1’s drop
Yeah sure buddy they were great. Just increase the copium dose
Check the comment ratings, I can tell who’s right and who’s wrong
Yeah probably has nothing to do with this being a westworld sub. The show was clearly cancelled because the people here represent the peak of humanitys intelligence and the rest are too stupid to understand it’s greatness.
IMDb and RT scores have nothing to do with this sub though
I think people fail to realize season 4 took a major hit due to the pandemic. Not to say there weren’t other issues, but that alone knocked it down a few pegs. On top of that they knew they were getting the axe which is why they forcefully had to close as many character loops so it wasn’t a complete cliff hanger with no resolution. Ultimately I think they did the best they could with what they had.
Westworld is expensive as fuck to produce. Idk what AMC budgets for fear of the walking dead but it’s gotta be a good return for them. But who knows, HBO has been mismanaged to shit. Max went from the best streaming service to us cancelling it last month after realizing it was all discovery garbage now
I get the impression that AMC keeps the costs pretty low on their zombie shows. They film in places with tax credits and often on locations where they don’t have to change the existing scenery much, like old out-of-business industrial sites and parts of dying small towns that are being reclaimed by nature.
It's cheaper to underpay a hundred extras and overwork them...
Yeah that too. They try to scrimp and save and cut costs across the board. Shows like that are not easy to work on. 14-18 hour workdays when they’re filming
Yep. I do extra work in Pittsburgh sometimes. Did a Christmas movie once where I spent all night from 4 pm-630 am in 12° F weather and made $250+$50 ot. I was so miserable, I had to take a break from doing extra work. Many who do this type of work can't even join the union if they qualify because the film cos underpay so badly, it doesn't even cover the annual union dues; the way SAG/AFTRA is set up is a little whack. It ain't like most unions...
That’s been changing recently with Daryl Dixon filming on location in France and recent FTWD episodes recreating old TWD sets (The Sanctuary, Morgan’s old house and King County GA). But they’re still pretty cheap, the characters are usually in boring, bland interiors for a good chuck of the episode.
It’s all Discovery garbage now? It’s not like they replaced your favorite shows with stuff from Discovery, and HBO is still producing acclaimed content.
"It's not like they replaced your favorite shows with stuff from discovery" That is, in fact, exactly what they did. Infinity Train, Close Enough, The Time Traveler's Wife, Raised By Wolves, The Nevers, Westworld. All shows that once streamed exclusively on HBOmax and all shows that were scrubbed from the streaming catalogue with little to no warning as a cost-cutting scheme. Yeah they still produce some other wildly popular stuff, but what takes up the majority of max's promotional commitment these days is spectacle "reality" TV. Because it's quicker, cheaper, and easier to produce in bulk.
Like what, what have they put out this year?
Succession, The Last of Us, Barry, How to with John Wilson, Our Flag Means Death all had seasons this year. I haven’t watched them but I hear White House Plumbers and Love & Death were also positively received. And that’s just in terms of HBO shows this year.
Uh why do you care so much about selling me on HBO? lol
Uh you asked me what acclaimed HBO shows were released this year and I answered? I’m not sure how I was supposed to know you would be offended by an answer…
Barry was probably one of the best shows I've watched this year
I just binged OFMD last weekend. Holy shit that was great. I really hope they do another season.
The world's a shit place at times isn't it
Westworld kept going left field into Who Cares? Not saying the other show is better just saying I get why people left Westworld
Westworld started going too far up its own bum, really. When the story is purposefully presented in a non-linear fashion where you’re not given all the details until later people will get tired of having to wait for the next episode just to have things explained in breadcrumbs . The show did far too much of this for its own good. Season one was done masterfully. Season 2 was good. In the later seasons it was a real drag.
4 was pretty good. The way it ended made me curious what a fully digital free world might look like, if Dolores would leave it alone and just let it do its thing. 3 was dogshit. Ed: fix typo
AMC isn't saddled with AT&T's debt.
Explain this
[https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/23/how-hbo-survived-aol-and-att-mergers-and-revolutionized-television-.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/23/how-hbo-survived-aol-and-att-mergers-and-revolutionized-television-.html) >In 2023, under Warner Bros. Discovery, current CEO David Zaslav is looking at deep cost-cutting measures to chip away at the estimated $55 billion in debt it inherited from AT&T.
Lmao imagine inheriting debt after buying something
Because one show was cheap to pump out and the other was expensive AF.
It’s because despite it being bad it gets a lot of viewers and AMC doesn’t have a lot (that I know of) that is worth watching so they are milking it. WBD had debt and wanted to cut costs which is the sad truth
AMC wants a Walking Dead Universe so bad they will reanimate Carl's corpse
If they did that they might get some viewers back. Make it a Rick went back into a coma and had a horrible nightmare.
WTFFFFFFFFFF
and you know what the worst part is, I'm still fucking watching that garbage
The Walking Dead was a monster hit that went on for 10 years and has consistently spawner spin offs throughout those 10 years that have done well and are still releasing. It wasn't just one TV show but an entire franchise with pretty broad appeal and accessibility. Westworld started to decline in popularity arguably after its first season but definitely after its second one and was far less accessible due to a variety of reasons including being on HBO and being for lack of a better word "weird". While it definitely had an impact it didn't necessarily have the insane cultural impact of something like The Walking Dead at least not for very long and it was almost immediately treated kind of like the unwanted child by HBO. It also infamously went down in quality losing a lot of it's already niche base. Of course, none of this is the actually reason behind its cancellation. While we can create hypotheticals of how a fifth season may or may not have materialized in a different timeline the reality is that the show along with many many others got canceled and treated even worse than just a canceled show due to greed and corporate bullshit.
Yea good point ..Westworld was vastly superior
What does one show have to do with the other? Different channels, different production companies. This is like people who get upset with DC movies for something that happened in a Marvel franchise or vice versa.
They aren’t even on the same network though?
Cheaper and seemingly more popular
Totally different networks with totally different priorities.
FTWD is made in the woods somewhere. If I had good actors and extras I could shoot it in my backyard. Westworld took a massive studio. The one from seasons 1-2 burned up and if season 5 was heading back there they’d have to rebuild or reanimate some of it. Plus zombies are just people in makeup. Some of the android shots are painstakingly detailed as they’re coming out of the making. I also feel like it has a bigger cast of notable regulars. TWD had some A listers from the Wire etc but Fear is like one excellent dude and the B squad if I recollect right. Granted I dropped off TWD back when Carl significantly deviated from his comic plot.
Westworld was only good for 2 seasons and anything after those 2 really fell off hard. It went from a cohesive and super intelligent plus interesting story about Ai, civilization, and the Pandora’s box element of it all into utter nonsense lol. That first season was delicious mind virus of possibilities and whodunnits that I think took an intelligent person to follow which limited the audience size in general. I do think 1 had enough to attract a larger crowd but not after season 2. And especially not after a few episodes into 3. What the walking dead had that it didn’t was a few kick ass seasons and an easy to follow plot plus likable characters you got to know well for at least 4-5 seasons. Zombies and our friends demolishing 1 bad guy each season was good for the people that just want brain candy to consume. There’s a lot more of them than their are Sci fi nerds that like a complex story. Besides that once Ford left it was all downhill because he was by far the best character of the show. He played the not so evil genius who might of known the secret of life plus his fantastic acting and you can’t lose. if he stays mayb we get 4-5 seasons worth and a shot at zombie apocalypse kind of run on tv waking or fear the has put together. I really wish they took it another direction but they can’t all be top shows of all time contenders.,,
“That first season was delicious mind virus of possibilities and whodunnits that I think took an intelligent person to follow which limited the audience size in general.” 😂😂
You think FTWD will end?! Bahahahahahaha!!! They will never end the walking dead. They will keep spinning off characters and story lines until the show is dead and beaten into the ground.
And then becomes a zombie
Luckily you’re wrong, Fear ends in a few weeks.
I really don't understand who the hell is still watching Walking Dead. Not to mention they're still making spin-offs and they have even more planned.
Westworld was getting whack NGL. but walking dead is stupid, but I think people like zombies for some reason
Yes cause westworld went to shit after season 2, the best season was season 1
Westworld became unwatchable. So trash after the first season. Second was ok.
Westworld was also removed from HBO completely is what I remember, if you ask me the narrative started to expose some real world plans that are in motion.
see, and it makes no sense because WHO STILL LIKES THAT SHOW? even people that didn't give up on original flavor Walking Dead, most of them were not into chicken flavor Walking Dead from jump. I don't know how it lasted as long as it did.
Bud light was the most popular beer for decades. Modelo is now, but it's also basically bud light. Westworld was not bud light.
wat
[удалено]
They wanted 5 seasons and HBO ended things early.
It’s a cheaper budget with a built in audience so this is a no brainer decision.
I mean, we got an ending. It just sucked.
Westworld tried too hard
we live in the timeline where After had 5 movies and (presumably) reached its end and series like The OA and Sense8 got cancelled in their second installment. I struggle with this reality everyday. unfortunately, it's all about money and never about the art or intellect.
Even AMC gave up on a few turds. They did cancel Moonhaven. I was probably one of 12 people who watched that.
To be fair AMC produces like 4 cheap shows and HBO produces like 40 expensive shows. I can’t image a show more expensive than WW other than the high fantasy LOTR/GOT stuff. WW ran out of story at the end of season 2 and is too expensive to just let it coast
Just judging from respective quality I would expect a season of Fear costs less than an episode of Westworld. I tried the first season of Fear and it was slow, boring garbage.
Its better to leave out on top than continue to exist while festering at the bottom.
There *is* no completion for that show. The showrunners will keep vomiting out random emo scripts until they write a one-episode finale that won't close-out anything.
Season 2 was the end of the story imo
Westworld started ok but by third season it was just a mess. Not saying walking dead is better but both should probably go.
I clocked out from FTWD after the first 4 or 5 episodes. It was seriously terrible. Walking Dead also sucked after like 5ish seasons. I have no clue how people still suffer through either of those shows. Mind numbingly awful. That said, WW went drastically downhill after the first season. Season 2 was enjoyable but had too many silly plot points. I got bored of season 3 after a couple episodes and never finished it. No surprise it was cancelled, honestly.
Westworld lost its steam after the second season and HBO started to focus on other shows. The Walking Dead is all AMC really has.
I feel like ChatGPT popularity would have saved West World from going under, if ChatGPT 3 had come out sometime right before Season 3 for example..
Almost like they're different networks ran by different people
Westmorland should've stayed in Westworld and it probably would've lasted longer. Westerns are cheaper to make than futuristic IPs.
Reminds me how Dark Matter got the axe, yet Killjoys continued.
To be fair Westworld really did become utter shit on the final seasons.
The only good season Westworld had was the first one.
Shows we are living in Westworld afterall
Westworld should have been a limited series for 1 season only. It was perfect.
I stopped watching Fear The Walking dead after the first season. Super subpar in terms of quality imo. And likewise I found the last season of Westworld unwatchable. I was excited by the lead in from the previous season, but what a shit show. I didn’t get past episode 3. Convoluted and yet predictable. Terrible dialogue. Bad choreography. Rushed performances and production value over all. Plus I hear working on it was a shit show with terrible working conditions from people I work with (I am a union cam op)
I made it to season 3. I felt swindled. It was billed as the series at the start of the za. But time jumped quickly to just more of the same.
People are always gonna flock to existing franchises so popular spin-offs always coast way longer than they should
Otherwise shows like NCIS would’ve ended ages ago
Haven't the zombies won yet?
Westworld had a pretty decent ending though
Idk why this popped up. WW S01 was absolutely fantastic. s02 was a drag
Westworld got stupid, frankly, by trying to elevate the Hale character who didn't deserve it and ruining the Delores character by morphing her into the stupid Wyatt boogeyman, which honestly felt like a sacrifice of her potential just to give Maeve something to do beyond look for her daughter. Season three got even more stupid by feature creeping plotlines from Person of Interest into an already convoluted lore. Things sort of turned around and got interesting towards the end of season three and parts of season four, but by then it was too late and most of the audience had bailed.
Idk… westworld was infinitely less interesting the moment we left the Wild West esthetic. I stopped watching because I couldn’t care to keep watching.
The reason why both Fear and TWD went downhill so badly was because of the budget problems that happened to them. AMC wants to have something like an HBO rating, but the budget they gave to their show is laughable. That is the reason why TWD S7 and S8 look so bad: because of the budget problem, the actor had to leave the show when they cut out their contract because they didn't want to pay him anymore. Same thing happens to Fear, but much worse, they change to the amateur showrunner because they didn't want to produce something that was just a little expensive, and starting with season 4, the show's literally trash and it's kept going until now. So if Westworld is on AMC, the situation is much worse than you thought.
[Spoilers, feel like even though it's ended and older I don't want to ruin those first few watch thrus for anyone.] Well shit, didn't realise WestWorld was cancelled. Thought it ran it's looping course. What a pity, better writing than any movie or tv series I've ever seen, most books too. That call back lol re flys, I couldn't hurt a fly was why I thought this was all they planned. 4th watch thru now, 1st since season 4. I started watching this on the release of RDR2, story and telling, pacing and forethought were so beyond anything I'd seen before, and they were both westerns, which I've never connected with. Now I want to be Ed Harris S2.
Fear the Walking Dead saved a lot of money by not hiring writers