Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone will go down as one of the most successful TV series of all time… so why do some people refer to it as a western soap opera?
The family drama that followed the Duttons – and was led by Kevin Costner for most of the way – ran for five seasons and is easily one of more popular TV shows of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Sure, it might have limped to the finish line, but there were a lot of moving parts that affected the end of the show.
When the show was at its peak, there wasn’t much on television that was more entertaining. But time and time again, people refer to the drama that Taylor Sheridan created as a simple “soap opera.” Even one of soap opera’s biggest stars, Don Diamont, recently described the western series as a daytime show.
Diamont first starred in Days of Our Lives in 1984, before becoming a mainstay on The Young and the Restless for the better part of three decades. Following that impressive run, he joined CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful in 2009. All that to say, the actor knows a thing or two about how soap operas operate.
And in a recent interview with People, he stated that the daytime soaps that have been on for decades share a lot of similarities with shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Yellowstone:
“It is very generational. The audience builds relationships with daytime characters that are different than nighttime, than film, even nighttime soap operas. I mean, for all intents and purposes, ‘Yellowstone’ or ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ or any of these shows, they are soap operas.
Maybe ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is a really good example in nighttime, as a nighttime soap opera, of the loyalty of an audience. An audience feels that those characters are almost family.”
Diamont isn’t the first person to jump to that conclusion.
Highly respected filmmaker and Hollywood icon, Quentin Tarantino, also referred to Yellowstone as a soap opera a few years ago. The director supported his perspective by pointing out that once you get to know the characters, the back stories and all of their connection points… the Sheridan just turns into a repetitive, soap-opera-like program:
“I’ll use Yellowstone. I didn’t really get around to watching Yellowstone the first three years or so, and then I watched the first season and I went, ‘Wow this is f**king great. I’ve always been a big Kevin Costner fan. He’s wonderful in this.’ I got really caught up in the show and all of the sudden I’m having a good time and I’ve got a couple of seasons I haven’t seen so I’m watching it.
In the first season, I’m like, ‘This is like a big movie.’ So I end up watching three seasons of it, and I watch that 1883 (spinoff) and say, ‘Oh this is a good western show.’ Then, after I’ve watched two of three seasons or one season of 1883… while I’m watching it, I’m compelled. But at the end of the day, it’s just a soap opera.”
He even went as far to call Yellowstone “forgettable,” and I’m not so sure about that one.
But in defense of Tarantino and Diamont, Yellowstone’s creator even agreed that the western drama was a bit on the soap opera side. Taylor Sheridan didn’t come straight out and say it, but in an interview where he talked about having to win over Sam Elliott to star in one of his shows, he agreed with the mustachioed actor’s point of view of Yellowstone:
“With Sam Elliott, which I used him in ‘1883’… it’s funny because I called him and we talked and he’s like, ‘I don’t like that Yellowstone. That’s a cowboy soap opera.’
I said, ‘You’re right. I’m not asking you to be on that. That’s the punk rock me throwing middle fingers at the industry and a lot of other sh*t. This is gonna be the grown up me. I have a story I want to tell. Here’s the story, and here’s the arc of your character.’ I pitched it to him and he said, ‘That’s beautiful. I’d love to do that.’”
Like Sheridan stated in that quote, Sam did end up joining the prequel show – 1883 – and currently stars in another one of the writer and director’s hits: Landman. So he must not view the oil drama he stars in alongside Billy Bob Thornton as a soap opera? Or he’s made peace with it?
Regardless of what Yellowstone and the many other Sheridan shows can be categorized as, you can’t argue that they aren’t successful. From Yellowstone and its many spinoffs to The Mayor of Kingstown, the prolific writer, creator and director pumps out must-see TV. Call them “Sheridan Soaps” if you want to…
