Yellowstone (2018)

Through its first three episodes, Yellowstone is big and broad and a little too full of misfires. But it’s never as determinedly over the top as Dallas or Dynasty, both of which can be seen as ancestors.

Co-creator Taylor Sheridan has written and directed every episode I’ve seen so far, and when he’s not indulging himself with random gunfights, he has a weakness for wannabe poeticism, letting his characters muse darkly. Everybody gets one portentous line per scene.

The story refreshingly shirks Dallas-style melodrama, but its violent, tragic twists often lacks the intended impact, because it feels we've ridden this dolorous trail too many times before. [25 Jun - 8 Jul 2018, p.11]

There are larger-than-life characters and then there are impossible-to-believe roles, and “Yellowstone” runs deep with the latter. ... There’s a much easier way of summing up “Yellowstone”: Horsepucky.

It's all very pretty, but it doesn't conceal a rather pokey and dull series. Yellowstone is a rote family drama that's too self-important for its own good.

Yellowstone, of course, has the right to be exactly the show it wants to be, but for now (I’ve seen three episodes, including the double-length pilot) it’s an unsteady mix of several, held together by the sepia of basic-cable grittiness.

Yellowstone’s weaknesses is its failure to teach viewers why (or why not) we should root for his independence; his Western entitlement alone won’t cut it, and the character Costner plays is unfortunately averse to explanatory monologues. ... Sheridan mostly resists the temptation to turn the series into a soap opera, relying on his knowledge of what today’s West actually looks and feels like, which gives the series its authentic air. The Montana and Utah locations help, too, supplying plenty of high-def beauty.

The clashes between the indigenous population and the Duttons--personified by Kayce, a man more at home with horses than either the white family of his birth or the American Indian one into which he married--are fascinating stuff. Less so are brother-on-brother rivalries that feel drawn from a show with less ambition. Yellowstone is stunningly shot, and yet beneath its mountain vistas lies nothing new, just more squabbling.

Costner delivers one of the most leaden performances in the recent history of marquee stars coming to TV, operating from a baseline of mild irritation that’s modulated only when he’s, say, in mourning, or being shot at in a helicopter. (And even then, just barely.) Much of the cast is out to sea here. ... Part of the show’s failure to connect might have to do with Sheridan (who co-created with fellow Sons Of Anarchy vet John Linson) crafting his characters primarily as symbols.

So much of Yellowstone seems needlessly morbid and painfully paced.

For every horse galloping across the plains, there’s a rattlesnake attack, or for each successfully delivered calf there’s a tractor accident. The balance that Sheridan finds here can be a good thing, but it can also be emotionally exhausting. There’s no clear direction, or much hope for how things might turn out for our key players.

Yellowstone gets bogged down in minutia and politics, and generally winds up being about as exciting as watching a zoning-commission meeting.