Too much of everything

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Pillars of the Earth and World without end are such great works it is sad to see what was done to produce a movie. The characters and story are not even close to the book. Standing alone the series was entertaining but it should not even be referenced to the books as it diminishes their greatness.

Well, everybody starts an IMDb account for a good reason; mine was the misguided information in the many reviews for this underrated movie... ;)You see, reviews should NOT be about the question "does the movie follow or match up to the original book?" Instead, reviews should purely focus on the question "what is the quality of the movie itself?" The above misunderstanding on itself already explains why 58 out of the 68 reviews (to date July 3rd 2016) are very negative, which not only is a pity but very misleading as well.I watched "The Pillars of the Earth" and give that a 8 out of 10. "World Without End" gets the exact same rating...Both series give the same type of atmosphere, story telling, acting; in all both are excellent done, compliments to the casts and directors. I can highly recommend watching both.Note: in order to compensate a bit for the misleading underrating I rate this one 10 out of 10; just a small contribution from my side to bring the balance in rating back to where it rightfully should be to my personal humble opinion... ;)Have fun watching "World Without End" ;)René

The plot deviates several times from the book, but in most cases, the miniseries plot is BETTER. I mean, why have Godwyn be a kind-of bad guy and then have Philemon be the guy who does a lot of his dirty work when you can just have Godwyn be totally evil? Cynthia Nixon's Petranilla character is also great & even though I can't stand her in Sex & the City she really shines in this. And having the one-armed monk be Edward II was a good idea and was what I thought was going to happen when I read the book.The softcore porn scenes throughout the miniseries are also a nice touch.My advice is: Read Pillars of the Earth but skip the miniseries & Watch World without End but skip the book.

While the production quality was excellent and the acting above par (the actors did what they could with the script), this mini-series was a huge disappointment.I was an enormous fan of the previous series ("The Pillars of the Earth")--indeed, enough of a fan to sludge through the tastelessly pretentious and mind-numbingly boring novel afterwards--so I was keen on a sequel series. Alas.Major issues: None of the protagonists had *any power whatsoever* the entire length of the series. None. I understand the whole "rising above the odds" trope that the plot was going for, but this series took it too far. "The Pillars of the Earth" used this trope, but perhaps due to actors with less charisma, or a weaker script, or something else, "World Without End" was simply painful to watch. Even the conclusion was weak--bad guys die in a hurry, hooray. The protagonists are never empowered. The antagonists, of course, are both many and powerful, and even receive the better half of the script.I couldn't cheer for any of the protagonists. One, because they never won anything; and two, because they were hardly given enough character for me to cheer for.You could call this a "sprawling epic," but I would place the emphasis on "sprawling." It overreached itself and fell on its face, sprawled on the muddy floor to be--hopefully--forgotten.