Westworld Episode 4 Viewership Drops 19 Percent, But There May Be a Good Reason

The third episode of HBO's Westworld had strong ratings, grabbing 2.1 million viewers, good for the best so far. But Episode 4, which premiered on Sunday night, went in the other direction.

According to Entertainment Weekly, viewership dropped 19 percent to 1.7 million views for the TV broadcast of Episode 3. Westworld had the tough task of going up against the Season 7 premiere of The Walking Dead on October 23. That episode had a huge amount of interest and netted 17 million viewers, which was the show's second-highest viewership figure ever.

Westworld's first episode, which aired on October 2, has now been watched by 12 million people. According to EW, this is "very high for HBO," and is in fact more than any episode of the network's marquee program Game of Thrones during its first season.

Another important thing to note is that HBO is a subscription service, unlike AMC.

"Since HBO isn’t selling ads, the important measurement is how many people cumulatively watch their shows, not how many watch new episodes the first time they air at 9 p.m. on Sundays," EW said. "So Westworld should be just fine even if TWD keeps batting away at it in the weeks to come as long as fans still catch up on the latest action in Sweetwater each week after their TWD PTSD wears off."

For more on Wetsworld Episode 4, "Dissonance Theory," check out this spoiler-filled post to hear directly from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. You can also watch GameSpot's recap and theories about the episode, which also contains spoilers.

Episode 5 airs this coming Sunday, October 30. You can watch a teaser video for it here.