Next Sunday, November 13, is the premiere of season five ofYellowstone受欢迎的戏剧由泰勒谢里登,e of the leading filmmakers in the neo-Western revival in contemporary American cinema. We’re going to talk more about Sheridan later, but for now, let’s talk aboutYellowstone, which averaged 11 million viewers in season four, with9.3 million tuning infor the season finale earlier this year. In contrast,Successiondrew6.1 million total viewersfor its season three finale in December 2021.Yellowstonepremiered in the summer of 2018; by its fourth season finale in January 2022, it grew to be the #1 series on television across broadcast, cable, and premium cable in the key 18-49 and 25-54 demographics (this does not account for streaming-exclusive series, as streamers do not consistently or transparently report ratings).
Yellowstoneis about the Dutton family, headed by patriarch John Dutton III (Kevin Costner). His family owns the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch, billed within the world of the show as the largest contiguous ranch in the US (in real life, this is the Waggoner Ranch in Texas,here is a great story abouthow f-cked up the Waggoners are,Yellowstoneis basically a documentary). Sheridan’s conceit throughout the show and its prequels (1883and the upcoming1923,as well as the still developing1883: The Bass Reeves Storyspin-off, there is also aTexas-set spin-offinspired by the legendary Four Sixes Ranch, whichTaylor Sheridan now owns) is to tell the story of America through the lens of the Dutton family. It’s a particularly Western view, and largely uncritical of the long-term effects of the Civil War (the Duttons move west after losing), and the way the show handles the conflict between white settlers and Native Americans, both historically and contemporarily, is problematic at best. But the idea is there, that the Duttons and their rise, and their problems, reflects America through the same eras.
就像Yellowstone,Successioncenters on a preeminent American family which can be extrapolated as an allegory for America itself. It’s a distinctly Eastern view, centered on urban metropolises and the problems arising from media and knowledge-based industries like technology and finance. The Roys are the Duttons’ neoliberal counterparts, a billionaire, multi-generational dynasty whose inheritance is based on shares, not acres. But both shows are essentially family dramas, and more importantly,they are both soap operas. Both shows depend on conflict between a patriarch and his children, both shows feature complex plots involving siblings trying to stake their claim, personally and publicly, amid their oppressive family expectations. Both families have black sheep children who make everything harder for everyone, and both families have conniving daughters who aren’t as smart as they think they are. Both shows are also fun to watch just to enjoy the spectacle of terrible people being terrible to each other, and the catharsis of seeing fabulously wealthy people portrayed as constantly, deeply, existentially unhappy. Both shows are predicated, to a certain degree, on middle class schadenfreude.
With so many similarities between these two shows, why, then, are their Emmy hauls so disparate?Yellowstonehas one nomination to its name, for production design in 2021.Successionhas thirty nominations and thirteen wins to date, including two for Outstanding Drama Series (in 2020 and 2022). The answer is very simple:Yellowstoneisn’t extraordinary. It isgood, but in an era in which television is exceptional and there is too much good TV to ever recognize everything that deserves to be recognized, it’s not surprising thatYellowstonelags in awards recognition. Especially because the first season, consisting of nine episodes entirely directed and primarily written by Taylor Sheridan, is actually the show’s weakest season. It has gotten better as it goes along, but in the current television landscape, it’s hard for a show that doesn’t break out immediately to find purchase in the overcrowded awards landscape.
Audiences caught up toYellowstoneover time, but trophies haven’t, because the Emmys are already choked to death by competitive family narratives. Meanwhile,Successionbroke out immediately as an awards darling, earning an Outstanding Drama Series nomination in 2019 (it lost toGame of Thrones’ final season, in hindsight: silly). This is largely thanks toSuccession’s extraordinary writing, and an ensemble cast that is so good even one-off characters are memorable.Yellowstone’s writing isn’t as sharp asSuccession’s, which is not only tightly plotted but also Shakespearean in its dialogue. Sheridan can plot the hell out of a story, but his dialogue is forgettable, and the show is not as strongly cast—it’s easy to lose track of the ensemble players, who tend to blend together.
NowYellowstonehas to play catch-up in an Emmys landscape dominated bySuccession, Stranger Things, The Crown, Game of Thrones/HOTD,andEuphoria. There’s a tendency to blame the trophy oversight on red state/blue state nonsense, butYellowstone’s ratings are too high to bear that out—people from across the country and socio-economic landscape are watchingYellowstone. Are there some people dumb enough to limit their entertainment choices based on narrow political affiliation? Sure. Just like there are undoubtedly people who don’t watchSuccession贝科use it’s about “the lib’ruls” (even though the Roys are a Disney/Murdoch inspired dynasty, and thus, not liberal). But that is not the majority of people. Most people can actually watch stuff depicting people who live different lives from them, whether it’s Montana ranchers or New York media elite or Westerosi incest monsters or the dissolute fashion models ofEuphoriahigh. To say otherwise is to underestimate the American audience, which is not as stupid or mean as certain factions want us to believe.
ButYellowstonedefinitely has a “no one talks about this” problem, which stems from two major issues. One is that no one is watching this show at the same time, which makes talking about it together difficult. On linear television, it airs on the Paramount Network, which I am not convinced anyone knows how to find on their channel guide. Like “The Roku Channel”, I suspect “Paramount Network” is some kind of long con. But wait, it gets worse, because on streaming,Yellowstoneis on Peacock, one of the least-used streaming platforms out there. Season five will stream on Paramount+, finally consolidatingYellowstoneinto one distributor’s landscape, but it will still split viewership between linear and streaming viewing.(Correction:Yellowstoneseason 5 will air Sunday nights on the Paramount Network from November 13, 2022. It can also be streamed on Philo and Sling TV with a subscription. Someday as yet unknown, season 5 will stream on Peacock.)I am convinced if you movedYellowstoneinto a singular streaming environment, it would postHouse of the Dragon-level numbers, but it’s hard to find and out of synch, and no one is watching it at the same time or place, the way we are all trained to expect dysfunctional family drama on Sunday nights on HBO.
Also,Yellowstoneis not a sexy social media show. It has this in common withAndor, billed as “Star Wars for grownups”.Andor’s popularityis growing over time, as positive word of mouth spreads, but its social media engagement is relatively low for a Star Wars title. It doesn’t have the flashy moments provided by, say,Luke Skywalker showing upwith a laser sword to save the day, there’s no meme-generating Baby Yoda, or Timothy Olyphant being cool in space.
Yellowstoneis likeAndor, in that it lacks big moments that can be taken out of context and memeified without losing appeal.Succession, though, is a meme machine. Cousin Greg alone is worth his weight in gold for reaction GIFs. Like, I just spent 30+ minutes trying to pick ONE Cousin Greg reaction. I could do a whole separate post dedicated JUST to Cousin Greg!
And this isn’t even touching on how easilySuccessioncrosses over with other pop cultural landmarks.
Yellowstone, meanwhile, doesn’t produce the same level of engagement. Not because people aren’t watching, we have established they are. It’s more thatYellowstoneexists within its own universe and isn’t trying to reach beyond its own borders. This is what makes it so ripe for spin-offs, but it also limits the larger cross-over appeal of abstracting it to represent unrelated context. (Andorexists in the same way, it does not use the bigger pieces of Star Wars to tell its story, it exists in its own street-level context.)Succession, at times, feels designed for the internet, every episode chock-a-block with jokes that can be extracted and reshared digitally.
Yellowstoneis “for grownups” likeAndoris “for grownups”, but what that really means isn’t that it is aiming, specifically, for an older audience, but that it simply isn’t catering to the extremely online fans.Successionfeels written FOR the internet, like everyone involved with the show knows exactly which scenes and quotes and moments will be replicated online. Similarly,Euphoria’s costume design inspired an online meme of “people dressing forEuphoriahigh”, and now it feels like the costume design is self-parodying by leaning into this meta-context provided by online viewers. (What makes this meme great is the emphasis on ditching regular backpacks for teeny-tiny handbags because no one atEuphoriahigh has schoolbooks.)
@aarmanijones_ The first is actually how I dressed in High School 🥲😅#euphoriahighschool#euphoria#maddieeuphoria
♬ And why arent you in uniform - No context Spongebob
This isn’t a bad thing! Not every show has to be extremely online.Yellowstoneis a solid primetime soap, it gets steadily better with each successive season,1883was totally enjoyable unto itself which bodes well for1923, and not everyone who watches television WANTS to participate in exhaustive online discourse about every show they watch. Honestly, it’s nice to have shows you can just watch and enjoy and not splice and dice every scene for regurgitation online. Even younger viewers don’t want to memeify every show they watch.Yellowstone, then, is a kind of digital oasis. Even as its audience grows, I’m not sure it will ever become a meme show, partly because the writing doesn’t favor that, and partly because the audience just doesn’t seem interested in it. I am not interested in it! I likeYellowstone, but I don’t feel a need to turn it into a reaction GIF mine, and apparently no one else does, either. Not that GIFs don’t exist, they do. But a lot come from the show’s branded account:
Yellowstoneis the most successful show we don’t talk about, and maybe that will never change. But does it matter, when the show IS, verifiably, one of the biggest dramas on television? And does it matter if it never dominates the Emmys?聚会了从来没有一个艾美奖提名to date,Reservation Dogsis 0 for 0 on that score, too.The Wire, widely regarded as the best drama of the modern era, only ever got two nominations (both for writing), and never won an Emmy. Lots of good—even great—shows don’t get Emmy nominations (although spin-off1883actually bagged three). Measuring a show’s success by trophies is dumb. Bad shows win, good shows get snubbed, it happens every year. It’s especially dumb to do with the Emmys because of the sheer volume of TV shows and the mathematical impossibility of nominating/rewarding everything. What matters is that people watchYellowstoneby the millions, and they like it so much they’re watching the spin-off, too. Taylor Sheridan created a self-sustaining television universe. That IS the trophy.
