The only thing this miniseries has in common with the book it was "based on" (?) is the name of the characters. This is not Ken Follet's World without end, it is something entirely different. If you hsve read the book, don't watch it! If you have not read the book, go read it, it's excellent!

I note that some other reviewers here mention that they gave up watching this series part-way through Episode 1. That was probably wise, especially if you like Ken Follett's books.The series from the first book "Pillars of the Earth" was fairly satisfying. So how could "World Without End" be such a fizzer? Where do I begin?Perhaps, with all the production companies involved - from at least three different countries - simply too many cooks spoiled the broth. You get the impression that someone asked all stakeholders to fill out a questionnaire on what they wanted. Then all answers were compiled, and someone decided to include them all. None of the stakeholders had read the book? No problem.The studio moguls obviously wanted at least one international draw-card among the cast. Who gets top billing here? Cynthia Nixon! (Who?) She stood out all right, but for absolutely woeful acting. Very ably assisted by a number of ham-acting sequences by much of the cast at one time or another. (And most of these people can actually act, so you really can't blame anything except poor direction or the awful script.)I often marveled at the way the miniseries characters were turned into cartoon caricatures, making any logical character development almost impossible. The most ludicrous example was changing relatively minor book character Petranilla into a vehicle for Cynthia Nixon to channel mass murderer Lucrezia Borgia - but laughably. And while the fatal character flaws of Godwin in the novel interestingly turn him bit by bit from a basically good person towards ever greater moral degradation, the treatment in the miniseries has him labeled 'baddie' about as soon and unsubtly as possible. I'm sure black stetson hats would not have been thought amiss by some of the people putting this film together.But every character was pretty one-dimensional, good or bad. And to be honest, it was difficult to care too much about what happened to any of them. And what could even the best actors and directors do with this screenplay? Besides its careless historical deficiencies, it often just didn't come together dramatically or logically. From a rather awful first episode in which the clichés come thick and fast, the miniseries actually improves for the middle episodes, but it does eventually get tedious with the continually repeated pattern: 'goodies try to do good, baddie thwarts this for no good reason, goodies back to scratch, next item'. It's turned a complex and generally very satisfactory novel into R-rated late-night soap opera. Historical accuracy is an obvious casualty. Other reviewers have pointed out things wrong with this historically, but no-one else seems to have seen the most obvious and careless error. After witnessing a battle in France, nuns Caris and Meir are seen returning to England by ship, with this shot labeled on screen "Autumn 1341". And in the same scene we see they are accompanied at the dock by (drum roll) plague-bearing rats. Then shortly after, of course, the Black Death makes its entrance. Except that the Black Death didn't even get to Europe until 1347, and certainly not to England until 1348! The director could have got away with no date labeling here, since there was none that existed or that at least stood out anywhere else. But to get the onset of the Black Death - one of the defining events of British and European history - so publicly wrong! All you have to do is look up Wikipedia to check this! But guess what? No-one had the sense to.I was wondering if this gaffe was a result of the international crew? Was the label actually supposed to read "Autumn 1347"? (Which would have been accurate.) Could it have been that a European crew created this graphic, misreading an English "7" as a European "1? Who knows? But that may be an explanation rather than an excuse. The fact that no-one bothered to proof-read this date is completely symptomatic of the carelessness with which this series was put together.Historical accuracy apart, the plot doesn't flow logically either. I have seldom seen a story "tie all strands together" so unsatisfactorily in its concluding episode. It's not this way in the novel, but since the script artificially extends the life spans of the two now principal baddies (Godwyn and Petranilla actually die about two thirds of the way though the novel during the first wave of the Black Death), the miniseries has to somehow kill them off spectacularly. But it even manages to turn these sequences into somewhat ridiculous anticlimaxes.And the final battle! Clearly the medieval miniseries rulebook states that any remotely medieval story must end in an epic final battle, although there is no hint of such in the book and it certainly doesn't suffer for it. Having the series end with the king's army attacking Kingsbridge might have worked, if it were not so unconvincing logically and dramatically. (That's ignoring its historical inappropriateness, but when has anyone in this series cared about that?) Virtually everything about it from the tactics of both attackers and defenders, through to the fight of the two kings does not work logically. (No-one seriously notices that another knight has a sword to the throat of Edward III?!) And then Edward suddenly calls the whole thing off, with everyone obediently stopping the fight. (And really - Thomas Langley IS Edward II? Did no-one ever recognize their former king? Seriously?)I was not able to recall how this miniseries had ended the morning after I watched this last episode, despite wracking my brains and being able to blame neither alcohol nor Alzheimer's. All I actually remembered was laughing in disbelief for the last few minutes. Such was the impression it made. I give "World Without End" a reluctant two stars for the fact that it got better in the middle - for a while.

I was intrigued by the first 15 minutes of the first episode, watched the rest and was disappointed. The plot moves so quickly with no character building what soever and the characters are so one dimensional. Caris is married to an abusive man in 30 seconds and then 1 minute later is raped and then he leaves her 2 minutes... and she seems to be unmarred by the horrific events - seriously? The men are either sexually perverse or chivalrous and there seems to be no redeeming quality to anyone that is bad. You either hate them or love them, you cannot be unsure of them. Let's not speak about all the historical inaccuracies. In fairness, the costumes and sets are brilliant and the casting is great. But I couldn't get past the second episode without turning it off.

The World Without End Production was not even the same story. They changed everything. What a complete shame. I also thought that they destroyed The Pillars series as well. How can you change and mutilate two of the best books I've ever read. I hope if they make movies of his newer trilogy that they keep the story the intact or I will refuse to finish watching those just like I stopped watching these. Ken why did you let this happen? Please remake the movies.Did someone pay you a lot of money to change these story lines?Stop the madness. Give the readers what they want. We are loyal fans. I was looking forward to seeing these great stories come to life.