Plenty of shows are temporary flashes in the pan, but have little lasting impact.
It’s even rarer that that show spawns multiple spinoffs, asTaylor Sheridan’sYellowstonedid, becoming an entire universe.
Taylor Sheridan is now one of those names, with everything he touches seemingly turning to gold.
With that success,Sheridan has been anointed the new king of the neo-Western genre.
A Vietnam War-era American audience just wasn’t interested in the seemingly old-fashioned genre.
Possibly a few others.
The Western, it appeared, was back except it wasn’t.
A closer modern equivalent would beSuccession.
That’s a melodrama, not a Western.
Narratively,Yellowstoneis far closer toSuccessionthan toLongmire.It’s closer toThe Godfatherthan toGunsmoke.
For starters, the Montana setting is classic Western iconography.
Regardless, at its core,Yellowstoneis a quasi-gangster family melodrama, not a Western.
Custom image by Debanjana Chowdhury
We’re already seeing the drawbacks of that.
Even so, networks and streamers aren’t known for their brave swings they stick with what works.
They’re certainly not about to launch entire interconnected universes on the level of Taylor Sheridan’s world.
Yellowstone stars Kevin Costner and centers on his character John Dutton. Dutton and his family live on a cattle ranch just a few hours away from Yellowstone National Park. The series chronicles the family’s struggle to defend their home from an Indian reservation and land developers. As if their life wasn’t complicated enough, the Duttons also have medical issues, political aspirations, and family secrets stacked against them.
It’s a real shame, too, as other Western shows deserve just as much attention and marketing.
Can The Western Genre Ever Properly Return To TV After Yellowstone?
It has again, there are definitely TV shows in the true classic Western mold out there right now.
But audiences have to watch them and keep watching them.
Networks and streamers have to greenlight them, and they have to back them.
Dutton and his family live on a cattle ranch just a few hours away from Yellowstone National Park.
The series chronicles the familys struggle to defend their home from an Indian reservation and land developers.
