Yellowstone is America’s most-watched television series, and its cocreator Taylor Sheridan is quickly becoming one of Hollywood’s most prolific showrunners, with at least eight series in production or development. He’s got a massive deal with Paramount and a constellation of stars on his shows. But none of that helped with this year’s Emmy nominations, where Yellowstone was completely blanked, while its recent spin-off, 1883, scored just three technical nods.
TV executives often claim to want programming that appeals to a broad audience. “But at the same time,” says a longtime television writer-producer, “you see what they kind of put forward as award-worthy—and it is stuff that appeals to the coastal elite, for the most part.” Take Succession. It led this year’s nomination count with 25, and, like Yellowstone, it revels in melodrama and bitter familial struggles. “But a soap set in the big money world of a publishing empire seems fancy and a ranch in Middle America doesn’t,” the writer-producer continues. “There’s both a conscious and unconscious bias against the arena of horses and cowboys.”
Yellowstone boasts splendid cinematography, a stellar cast, and a passionate fandom enthralled by the show’s brutal power struggles and its nostalgia for a vanishing way of life—not to mention a gritty brand of American masculinity that refuses to bow to outside authority. V.F. extolled Yellowstone’s story lines as “reminiscent of Succession’s power grabs, The Godfather’s mob mentality, and Dallas’s bitchy infighting—except with cattle.” Soon to be in its fifth season, the drama stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton, the patriarch of a Montana ranch, and Kelly Reilly as his daughter, Beth, a sharp-tongued corporate raider with a self-destructive streak. Yellowstone prequel 1883, a limited series about settlers on the frontier, features married country music legends Faith Hill and Tim McGraw as Dutton’s forebears. Those stars may actually cause some of the disconnect, as one Emmy voter suggests: “I think it’s partly a demographic issue. The fact that 1883 has Faith Hill and Tim McGraw means it speaks to a country audience a little bit. It is hugely popular, but not in the right places for the Emmys.”
Sheridan’s dramas also lack some of the satirical edge or darkly comic elements that many of this year’s Emmy nominees incorporate; even Stranger Things is peppered with winking retro references to popular culture. “I think the earnestness of Yellowstone may alienate some [Hollywood] people,” the writer-producer says. “It’s not cynical, which is probably why many, many millions of people enjoy it. It’s telling a good story, it’s not making fun of itself, and it’s beautiful to look at. But for whatever reason, that doesn’t feel premium and elevated enough [to win awards]. Cynicism is equated with quality.”
David Glasser, an executive producer and the CEO of 101 Studios, which produces Sheridan’s shows, says he often meets people who assume Yellowstone has already won Emmys: “When I tell people it’s only ever gotten one nomination, they really don’t believe it.” His main reaction to this year’s nominations is disappointment on behalf of the people behind Yellowstone and 1883. “These are not easy shows to make,” he says. “For 1883, when we said we were going to take 30 wagon trains and 300 people across America—we did it. Except for a tornado, there were no special effects. We started in 108-degree weather in July, and we ended up in negative 5 on the top of a mountain in Montana. So if it doesn’t get that recognition, we feel for our crew and our cast and the team that have put this together.”
Emmy voters who watch Yellowstone may not find it to their taste—but, even forgetting those who didn’t bother giving it a chance, there are likely many more who’ve never figured out how to watch it at all.
Yellowstone’s home is Paramount Network, a linear cable channel that has no other scripted originals to draw in viewers. “I think it’s hard if you are on linear and not a ‘prestige’ channel like FX or AMC,” a television insider points out. To make things even messier, Yellowstone’s back seasons are available on Peacock rather than Paramount+, which is where other Sheridan shows like 1883 and Mayor of Kingstown stream.
Peacock and Paramount+ are both relatively fledgling streamers, and both lagged in the Emmy race this year—they received a combined 14 nominations, or as many as the Succession actors alone. “There’s a hierarchy of streamers, you know? We kind of assume that everything good is going to be on HBO or Apple or Hulu,” says the Emmy voter. Or as the writer-producer puts it: “Some Emmy voters immediately knock subconscious points off of your thing if you’re coming from a lower-prestige place. Something that’s on Peacock and Paramount+, people are not going to have the same gut reaction as to a Netflix thing. Emmy voters should be more sophisticated and not be swayed by factors like that. But I still think they are.”
All it takes is one culture-shaking series to put a streamer in the top tier—Netflix had House of Cards, Hulu had The Handmaid’s Tale, Apple had Ted Lasso. But in a wildly crowded television universe, it is getting harder and harder to break through. Looking at this year’s nominee list, it wasn’t hard to picture the Emmy electorate as exhausted party loyalists voting straight down the ticket for a handful of shows they’d watched or that sounded vaguely familiar; actors from critical sweethearts like Ted Lasso, The White Lotus, and Succession dominated whole categories. And some of the choices were baffling: Why the loyalty to Killing Eve’s Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer despite a disappointing final season? Are Emmy voters still hopelessly devoted to The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? And why the outstanding-limited-series and best-actress nominations for glossy grifter drama Inventing Anna, which was found disappointing by many critics but still topped Netflix’s streaming charts?
Emmy voters may not be tuning in to Sheridan’s shows, but plenty of other people certainly are: More than 11 million people watched the Yellowstone season four finale, and Mayor of Kingstown and 1883 are top original series for Paramount+. That’s why Paramount is betting on the success of an ever-expanding “Taylor Sheridan universe.” On the upcoming slate is an array of drama series with gritty settings and boldface names: Tulsa King, a mob boss drama featuring Sylvester Stallone and showrun by Terence Winter (The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire); the Zoe Saldana CIA epic Lioness; and the oil company drama Land Man, based on the podcast Boomtown and starring Billy Bob Thornton. Other Yellowstone spin-offs are also in the works, including one with a high-profile cast. Next up is 1923, a Yellowstone prequel starring Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford that is set to premiere later this year.
Will the Taylor Sheridan universe ever win over Emmy voters? “I can imagine a situation where Helen Mirren gets nominated for an Emmy next year for her Taylor Sheridan spin-off,” the writer-producer says. “I think the Helen Mirren–Harrison Ford casting is so smart, because you’re going to get a new wave of people who weren’t interested in a Western. It could be the one for Paramount+ that transforms them into the kind of place that has Emmy shows.”
Executive producer Glasser has heard all the conspiracy theories about why Sheridan’s shows get overlooked by the Emmys, and he doesn’t buy into them. However, he says, “I think [1923] is going to really catapult it all to the next level. So maybe two years from now, if we’re still in the same boat, I might try to come up with a theory. But right now my head is down on delivering Taylor’s shows.”
