Questioning your reality: Looking back on the highs and lows of Westworld

Westworld season 3: Attack of the hard-to-pronounce supercomputer algorithm

Season 2 ended with Westworld and all the other parks basically being destroyed, the majority of the hosts either dying or fleeing into the Sublime (the digital great beyond), and a handful escaping out into the human world. Season 3 was always going to be the make-or-break moment for the series; the point when fans discovered whether it could survive and thrive beyond its initial premise.

The result was…interesting. Rather than dial deeper into its vast web of already existing characters and ideas, Westworld season 3 introduced a slew of new characters and the concept that humanity was just as enslaved in their own world as the hosts were back in Westworld, this time by an advanced supercomputer named Rehoboam that dictated each person’s lot in life based on a predictive algorithm.

It was an intriguing, but much of season 3 felt like Westworld just didn’t quite know what do with itself. There are some gems, such as Dolores Abernathy’s turn to total murder-bot and her friendship with new human character Caleb (Aaron Paul). Dolores eventually sacrifices herself to free humanity from Rehoboam, which was a great redeeming moment after she’d spent all season killing people.

This was the show’s cyberpunk season, and the aesthetic was very cool. But the convoluted plot problems that plagued season 2 were jacked up even farther here. Dolores has made copies of herself; at one point we discover that a slew of other characters are actually Doloreses in disguise (some of whom don’t know they’re copies). The entire Rehoboam plotline came pretty much out of nowhere and feels extremely disconnected from anything else in the show; it was never foreshadowed before season 3 and, tellingly, the show largely jettisoned it for season 4. William spends most of the season in an insane asylum, something actor Ed Harris didn’t particularly enjoy. The list of gripes with Westworld season 3 is long.

The ratings started to reflect the growing sense of exhaustion among fans. Viewership for the season 3 premiere was down a jaw-dropping 57% from season 2, and while viewers did gradually begin to get more invested in season 3’s cyberpunk revolution storyline, they never watched in numbers that could match the heights of previous seasons.

Part of the reasons the numbers look so bad is because Westworld season 3 aired right around the time that networks were getting serious about building their own streaming platforms; that 57% drop shrunk to 43% once HBO Now and HBO Go viewers were factored in. But no matter how you slice it, the audience shrank.

Westworld season 3 also had eight episodes, down from the previous order of 10. Since then, 8-episode seasons have become the norm for many prestige genre shows. In many ways, Westworld was always ahead of its time, even when we wish it weren’t.

Westworld season 3 managed to win back some audience members by its finale; the 75-minute epic “Decoherence” managed to draw 1.8 million viewers across streaming and linear TV, down only 18.2% from the finale of season 2. But by then, the damage had been done.

Westworld’s season 4 rebound was too little too late

That brings us just about up to speed. Westworld returned for its fourth season over the summer of 2022, and to many viewers’ pleasant surprise, it was a strong return to form for the series. In particular, the mid-season twist and its roaring ’20s-themed park were highlights on par with anything in the show’s long history. On the creative side, Westworld appeared to be back.

But by then, HBO’s faith in the series had waned. Season 4 received shockingly little marketing support; HBO announced the premiere date scarcely two months beforehand. By comparison, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon aired after Westworld season 4 but had its release date announced weeks earlier.

Meanwhile, many viewers had already checked out on the series. Westworld’s season 4 ratings were, by HBO standards, abysmal; the fourth season often averaged under 400,000 viewers per episode, with its finale clocking in at 391,000, an 81% drop from the finale of season 1 in 2016. These numbers make HBO’s decision to cancel the series seem a lot more reasonable. Westworld is an expensive show to produce; season 4 cost a reported $160 million, which is obviously a lot to spend on a show that so few people are watching, comparatively speaking.

It’s a shame, but was possibly the only thing to do. Despite some strong moments, season 4 fell back on the show’s old, convoluted tricks in its final two episodes, totally overlooking the compelling character beats it had set up only episodes earlier. It’s hard to tell why those decisions were made — keep in mind that season 4 was filmed during the pandemic — but they indicate that, even if Westworld had gotten the fifth and final season its creators wanted, it likely would have still had the problems as it always did.

Season 4’s exceptionally dark finale served as something of a reset, however, so much so that it almost felt like an ending to the show. After the huge twist that the hosts had taken over the world, penning humans into major cities and creating their own versions of Westworld-style parks for young hosts to visit, the finale was utterly apocalyptic. By the end, just about every single character we cared about other than Christina (aka, a new Dolores) had been wiped out.

Even without a finale season, the Westworld season 4 finale still feels like an ending. It’s not like canceling Raised By Wolves after its second season or any number of other shocker cancellations throughout television history. One question that has come up since the show’s cancellation is whether it’s even worth watching at all anymore. Does it feel incomplete? Strangely, it doesn’t. By pulling the plug on Westworld after season 4, HBO has left the show in a place where it feels like a full tale; albeit a rather bleak one.

Perhaps one day we’ll get to find out more about that ending vision that Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy had in mind for Westworld. Until then, we can always get back on our loops and revisit the science fiction epic that helped paved the way for so many other great shows that followed.

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