More happens in a single episode of Yellowstone than will happen in a full season of any other series. There’s so much “show” to Yellowstone, about to enter its fifth year on the Paramount network, that it’s actually now five shows – set in the various decades since white men first rode West.
There’s 6666, a contemporary drama about a cowboy who once worked for John Dutton, the taciturn cattle rancher played by Kevin Costner in the original Yellowstone. Then there’s 1923, a forthcoming series about a different man called Dutton – this time, Harrison Ford – surviving the Great Depression. And 1883, a drama about how a different, different man called Dutton – a burly Tim McGraw – founded his ranch in the aftermath of the civil war. (There was so much to 1883 that the spin-off is getting its own spin-off; 1883: The Bass Reeves Story will be about the first Black US marshal west of the Mississippi.) If you think the most impressive TV dynasty of our times belongs to Game of Thrones, you’re in a different bubble. Yellowstone isn’t just a family-owned ranch outside Bozeman, Montana; it’s a solar system.
