Yellowstone creator’s new star-studded Western might be a hit – but not for me

Have you ever been introduced to someone by a mutual friend who, on paper at least, you should get on with, but for whatever reason, the moment your friend leaves, there’s nothing but awkward silence? 

That terrible icy feeling in the bottom of your stomach that you just don’t click with someone. 

That’s me with The Madison, the newest show from Taylor Sheridan, the man behind Yellowstone, who’s single-handedly corralling the Western genre into the new millennium.  

Nominally a family drama and love story, the show stars the always excellent Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell as Stacy and Preston Clyburn, the heads of a wealthy New York family.

When tragedy strikes the Clyburn clan, however, their lives are flipped upside down, and the only place they can find respite is the rugged wilderness of Montana. 

Ok, so what’s my problem with The Madison then? Well, honestly, I‘ve just never felt more intensely that what I’m watching wasn’t made for me. 

I don’t think it’s bad. In fact, there are several things about the show I quite enjoyed, and I can see why people would like it. 

This presents something of a problem, as this middle-of-the-road feeling is basically anathema to a review, which by its very nature demands you summon up a certain level of passion or vitriol for the thing you are viewing. 

I wish I could write some bombastic praise like “The Madison is to television what the Mona Lisa is to paintings of smirking women”, or tell you “I’d rather rub bell peppers in my eyes and stuff carrots in my ears than be subjected to even another minute of this dreck”.

Yet I can’t. I think the show looks gorgeous, capturing the stunning beauty of the Madison River valley of southwest Montana. 

Seriously, if the Montana tourism board is looking for someone to shoot their next ad campaign, you could do worse than director Christina Alexandra Voros.

I also think the decision to make the Clyburns a matriarchal family was a compelling one, especially for Sheridan, who is so regularly criticised for writing macho neo-cowboys. I expected Russell to be the lead and was pleasantly surprised when it became clear this was Pfeiffer’s story. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering her body of work, Pfeiffer is fantastic. In the hands of a lesser actor, Stacy would have been a caricature of a ‘strong woman’. But Pfeiffer makes Stacy both exceptionally strong and fragile in a believable way. 

The rest of the cast – Patrick J. Adams, Elle Chapman, Matthew Fox, and Beau Garrett – are all great as well. Beau in particular is fantastic as the eldest Clyburn daughter, and Adams brings some much-needed comic relief to proceedings. 

The Madison also has a really engaging hook, which I can’t explain here lest the spoiler sheriff come into town to round up any loose-lipped bandits. It’s brave and were you to describe it to me, I’d say, “I want to watch that!”

But I did watch it, and I didn’t like it. In fact, getting through the three episodes I’ve seen for this review was a slog. 

I just wasn’t entertained by what I watched for reasons that I can’t quite articulate (Not exactly great when your job is explaining why you like or don’t like something).

Which brings me back to the central problem with this review. What do you do when you can recognise the craft in a piece of art, but you still don’t enjoy it?  

Ultimately, I think the problem is that The Madison just isn’t a show I’d ever choose to watch. 

Partly that’s because I don’t enjoy Sheridan’s small-screen work and never have. 

Call me sensitive, but shows like Yellowstone and Landman – with their emphasis on rugged individualism and traditional values – have a conservative streak to them that I’ve always found off-putting.

Indeed, The Madison makes several references to New York City being a crime-ridden hive of scum and villainy, which is then contrasted with the borderline utopian countryside. 

Needless to say, wheels have rolled less than my eyes while watching. 

But as much as that irked me, it wasn’t a deal-breaker.

I just don’t think I’m interested in this particular genre of storytelling. I gravitate towards sci-fi, horror, and comedy. I like dramas, of course, but Sheridan’s rural romanticism just isn’t my vibe.

So, to take it back to the imagined introduction we began with, The Madison is like a person you can respect, and that others may love, but you know you never want to be left alone with them again.

The Madison premieres globally on Saturday 14th March, with three episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus.

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