The Rings of Power and 4 more disappointing genre shows from 2022

Westworld season 4

Speaking of HBO shows that improved in their final seasons after they’d already driven most people away, this year we bid goodbye to Westworld, which was once a sparkling jewel in HBO’s crown and is now a head-scratching relic removed from HBO Max so it can die a quiet death of FAST streaming services.

And to be clear, I don’t think Westworld deserved to die so ignoble a death, but it partly brought its fate on itself. The first season of Westworld was exciting, thought-provoking sci-fi. The second ran on fumes from the first and the third was a turgid death march. The fourth, which aired this year, did a hard reset that both returned to some of the themes that made Westworld interesting in the first place (What is the nature of consciousness? What makes us human?) without sacrificing entertainment value. There were some intriguing mysteries and deliciously evil villains this time around, but as with His Dark Materials, it was too little, too late.

Also, Westworld still had to pull a Westworld right at the end and descend into ponderous lore dumps that were both over-explained and under-explained at the same time. And given how much the show’s star had fallen since its glory days, the fourth season didn’t get as big a budget as the previous three, which showed.

Still, it would have been nice had Warner Bros. Discovery allowed Westworld to finish out the story with a fifth and final season. I regret not getting to see that…but given the show’s track record, I don’t regret it too much.

So farewell, Westworld. It was the best of shows and the worst of shows, and now it’s over.