Westworld Debut Earns HBO's Biggest Premiere in Years

Westworld is only a week old, but it’s already looking more promising than many of its predecessors. The first episode, which premiered on Sunday, earned 3.3 million viewers across its first two airings and streaming, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Those numbers would make the show HBO’s biggest premiere in nearly three years. HBO’s True Detective (the good one, not the other one) was the last show to debut with bigger ratings. True Detective, in turn, saw the network’s biggest premiere ratings since Boardwalk Empire back in 2010. This of course means that Westworld did much better than the network’s other big swing of the year, Vinyl, which debuted to 764,000 viewers and was canceled after a single season.

Westworld’s ratings are also smaller than its obvious counterpart at HBO, Game of Thrones, which debuted with 4.2 million viewers in 2011. Still, those numbers might grow if the show keeps up its initial level of quality. Westworld might be the closest thing HBO’s had to a certified hit in almost five years. Read our review of the premiere here.

Westworld Debut Earns HBO’s Biggest Premiere in Years