Remember Netflix’s first ever original show? From all the way back in 2012? It was called Lilyhammer and starred Steve Van Zandt as a New York gangster relocating to a small town. Van Zandt’s small town was in Norway rather than Oklahoma. He had relocated because he’d turned informant, not because a new gen capo had banished him having finished up 25 years in jail. But other than that, the inverse Midnight Cowboy premise of Tulsa King – put streetwise metropolitan outlaw in nowheresville, allow culture clash hilarity to ensue – is pretty much the same, except on Paramount+.
Twenty-five years is a long time. Twenty-five years ago, had Sylvester Stallone’s agent uttered the words, “Hey, how about a TV series?” he probably would have got whacked. For ages now, of course, everybody has done TV. Even Arnie signed up for a Netflix show two years ago, but then his two attempts to reboot his most famous franchise (Terminator) for a new generation both flopped.
