Kind of yeah, but honestly I think it was way better. I thought Pillars was awful, especially toward the end. I only watched World Without End because I had already rented the DVD before seeing Pillars. And I'm glad I did, because it was immensely preferable. It was similarly bad on historical accuracy, but I thought the script and the acting was far superior.
In Pillars, all the "good guys" were unlikable self-righteous morons whom the writers were trying way too hard to say "we're the good guys, love us and root for us". That got annoying. I couldn't actually care about them at all. A good character is a good character if you actually like them, not if the script tells you to like them. I thought Prior Philip was a moron, Jack was an unlikable turd, that witch woman was annoying as piss, etc. And the villains were just these ridiculous mustache-twirling caricatures that I couldn't take seriously at all. Nobody's dialogue or actions were believable to me and I rolled my eyes through most of it, especially the last few episodes.
In World Without End, the villains were assholes, as villains are, but still believable as people, and I was actually able to feel sympathetic for the "good guys" because they felt more real to me than the ones in Pillars. The dialogue was believable, the chemistry between characters was believable, and I really felt like something was at stake. I was able to care about the story.
I didn't care at all about Pillars and wouldn't have minded if an earthquake had wiped out every character and their cathedral along with them. The only good actor in it was Ian McShane, who always comes out well even if he's working with shit. And IMO Pillars was shit.
World Without End was just... better. Even if it was the same story over again, it was done way better.
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