After a sophomore slump, it's unclear whether the HBO drama can ever reach its potential
When Westworld premiered in 2016, it had all the makings of a juggernaut. HBO, for one, was counting on it. The network was still reeling from the sudden cancellation of its bloated rock saga Vinyl, and the final season of Game of Thrones—despite still being a few years away—was looming. The cowboys ‘n’ robots mashup was weird, thought-provoking and featured an impressive roster of stars who had migrated from the big screen to a 10-episode stay at the show’s namesake adult theme park. While Westworld didn’t come without its skeptics, the numbers were undeniable: With an average of 12 million viewers across all platforms, its debut season became the most-watched inaugural run of all of HBO’s original series, eclipsing even Game of Thrones itself.
Though GoT wasn’t a blockbuster right out of the gate, it spent the next six seasons shattering ratings records, and HBO executives had no reason to think that Westworld wouldn’t follow its flagship show’s same upward trajectory. Both are wildly ambitious, deeply immersive, genre-bending experiences that operate in rich worlds with vast histories and puzzle-box mysteries demanding closer inspection. But that’s where the similarities end.
Although the second season of Westworld inspired as much Reddit frenzy as season one, the audience numbers were surprisingly anemic (more people watched the BET Awards than last Sunday’s finale). At least part of that dip can be blamed on the show’s inscrutable nature. Despite its embrace of violence, gore and sex—the same tenants that helped make GoT such a cultural sensation—Westworld had one major flaw working against it: No one ever really knew what the fuck was going on. Think pieces devoted to decoding the show’s multiple timelines became a genre of writing unto themselves.
The show’s head-scratching narrative wasn’t its only drawback. Apart from the occasional flashes of excitement and the long-awaited expansion into the Japanese-inspired Shogun World, season two just wasn’t much fun to watch. Unless you were willing to deep dive into the endless internet fan forums after every episode and engage with the show’s mythology, it was easy to feel like a passive participant. In other words, Westworld was best enjoyed only if you were willing to do the homework.
Despite the show’s sophomore slump, it’s not all doom and gloom for HBO. Unlike the major networks, HBO is far more concerned with buzz and awards prestige than traditional viewing metrics. While Westworld didn’t win any Emmys last year despite a whopping 22 nods (instead, the network’s big 2017 winner was Big Little Lies), we can expect the series to fare well when 2018’s nominations are announced on July 12. And since it’s still one of the most talked-about shows on television, for better or worse, Westworld remains a valuable property, at least in the eyes of its parent network.
HBO can also take solace in the fact that despite its best efforts, we’ll probably never see a phenomenon on the scale of Game of Thrones again. With the rise of prestige TV, the landscape might simply be too crowded and too fractured to birth that kind of omnipresent hit again. But that’s not for a lack of trying.
Though HBO may have missed the mark with Westworld, its competitors are all racing to develop a series that could be considered the rightful heir to Games of Thrones’, uh, throne. Chief among them is Amazon, which reportedly spent $250 million for the rights to J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, with plans of bringing a series based on the beloved fantasy trilogy to its streaming platform. Amazon has not been cryptic about its intentions. “I do think Game of Thrones is to TV as Jaws and Star Wars was to the movies of the 1970s,” then-Amazon Studios head Roy Price told Variety in Sept. “It’ll inspire a lot of people. Everybody wants a big hit, and certainly, that’s the show of the moment in terms of being a model for a hit.” All told, Amazon could spend upwards of $1 billion by the time production on its show is complete.
Despite its embrace of violence, gore and sex, Westworld had one major flaw working against it: No one ever really knew what the fuck was going on.
A less obvious but still formidable contender is Y: The Last Man, which should make it to series after FX ordered a pilot episode earlier this year. Based on Brian K. Vaughn’s landmark comic book series, the story follows Yorick Brown, who finds himself as the last male on earth after a devastating plague kills everything with a Y chromosome. Having languished in Hollywood development for 10 years, the hugely anticipated adaptation, which will reportedly explore “gender, race, class and survival,” is poised to be a major breakout.
And while Apple has yet to make a single episode of scripted television, the tech giant is investing $1 billion in original shows, including the Steven Spielberg anthology, Amazing Stories; a new space drama from Battlestar Galactica mastermind Ronald D. Moore; and the futuristic drama See from Francis Lawrence, director of the final three Hunger Games films.
Fittingly, no one seems better positioned to recapture the pure spectacle of Game of Thrones than HBO. First and foremost, nerd savant Damon Lindelof is developing a series based on DC’s seminal graphic novel The Watchmen. In an effort to distance himself from Zack Snyder’s polarizing big-screen adaptation, Lindelof has promised a “remixed” take on the source material, which he’ll use as the blueprint for an expansive world built around the show’s iconic characters. And if that fails, HBO has a near-bulletproof failsafe already in place: the recently announced Game of Thrones spinoff that just got a pilot order and will almost certainly make it to series. The prequel will unfold in the Golden Age of Heroes and explore the origins of Westeros’ dark past. Yes, its most popular show is on the verge of ending, but it looks like HBO isn’t quite ready to give up Peak TV’s Iron Throne just yet.