10 Years Ago Today: HBO Launched One Of Its Most Ambitious Sci-Fi Series

By mid-2016, "Game of Thrones" only had thirteen episodes left in its run, which meant that HBO needed a new high-concept genre series to replace it. In December of that year, HBO programming president Casey Bloys told Variety, "I look at ['Westworld'] as a really important building block on our drama slate. I have 'Game of Thrones' for two more years, I've got 'Westworld' hopefully for many seasons to come, and I can build other dramas around them."

Although many skeptics predicted that "Westworld" would fail, the first season seemed to prove them wrong. Season 1 was a ratings success and a hit with critics, who praised it for its ambitious serialized storytelling and for sticking the landing with its climactic season finale. From the superb performances to the movie-level production values to the killer soundtrack, "Westworld" was on track to be HBO's next flagship series.

"What's been really nice has been the fan engagement," Bloys said. "The fan theories, the social-media interaction, the think pieces. All of this shows that 'Westworld' is really getting into the popular culture." The show had an extra advantage over "GoT" in that there were no books to spoil future plot points; in Season 1, the storytelling possibilities seemed limitless — as did the show's viewership potential.

Early into "Westworld" Season 2, fans started to notice that the show seemed to be on the decline. The plot had grown a little too convoluted, and the viewership stumbled as a result. Season 2's ratings were slightly worse than Season 1's; after that, they halved with each subsequent season. 

By Season 4, the show was raking in less than a quarter of the viewership it had drawn in for Season 1, and HBO had little choice but to cancel the show before it could finish its five-season plan. Although it wasn't unprecedented for HBO to cancel the series given its poor ratings, the network did shock some fans in late 2022 when they removed "Westworld" from its streaming service entirely. That the once-hit show was no longer deemed important enough to keep available to viewers felt like a clear sign of how far it had fallen. 

Showrunner Jonathan Nolan told The Wrap in 2024 that, while he was happy the fourth season ended on a "somewhat complete" note, he still hoped the series wasn't completely over. "I think our hope is still somewhere down the line [for] a chance to revisit that story," Nolan said. Perhaps a movie-length feature to wrap up the story, like the ending Netflix allowed for "Sense8" in 2018, could go a long way?