Fall TV: How Big a Hit is 'Westworld'?

Last weekend's premiere of Westworld was the most eagerly anticipated series launch on HBO in quite some time, and with the season premiere of Game of Thrones nowhere in sight, much of the channel's hopes are pinned on the new sci-fi thriller. Did the debut of Westworld live up to the elevated expectations?

Well, yes and no. The series premiered on Sunday night opposite the first hour of the season finale of Fear The Walking Dead. In terms of pure numbers, Westworld didn't even come close to FTWD, drawing just 1.9 million viewers as compared to FTWD's 3.6 million. Westworld was also edged out by reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TBS.

On the other hand, live broadcast ratings don't mean as much to HBO as they do to traditional TV networks, and when streaming is taken into account, the debut of Westworld fared better. HBO puts total viewership of the episode at about 3.3 million. That brings it virtually even with FTWD at the top of the charts for the night.

The bottom line is that Westworld debuted with viewership that is essentially typical for an HBO series - not as good as The Newsroom or True Detective, but better than The Leftovers and Vinyl. It doesn't look, though, like a series that is going to draw subscribers to HBO the way GoT does, and that could be a problem for a series with a first-episode production budget of $100 million.