ozjosh03

An interesting exploration of how the west was won - and lost - from several different points of view. It's gritty and illuminating - especially around the duplicitous actions of the Mormon settlers. But it falls short with the central relationship between Sara (Betty Gilpin) and Isaac (Taylor Kitsch). It all might have worked if only Kitsch had even just a shred of charisma, or a personality that encompassed more than endless brooding. He's duller than ever here, which leaves you mystified as Sara becomes increasingly enamoured, and incredulous at what is no doubt intended as moving romance and deep tragedy in the last episode.

Yellowstone gets so much right. It should have been - and nearly was - a TV masterpiece. It managed to bring the Western into the 21st century with a fresh concept and an epic family saga. The cinematography was consistently stunning. And if the performances were not all top notch (especially in the cowboy's quarters), there was at least Kevin Costner bringing his rugged gravitas and Kelly Reilly making the sometimes infuriating Beth consistently compelling. And it's here, Mr Sheridan, that we get to why Yellowstone falls short of being a masterpiece. Despite having something worthwhile to say and a gift for epic storytelling, the Dutton family saga too often nosedives into cheap melodrama. Yeah, sure, bar fights and shoot-outs come with the genre. But Yellowstone's action was often either insufficiently motivated or wildly over-the-top, when less might have been more - or certainly more believable. The worst of this excess is the Dutton's body count. Did anyone ever bother to count just how many corpses were tossed into that ravine just over the Wyoming border? The Duttons dispatched enemies with barely a second thought. One wonders why the Montana police weren't aware that there was a serial killer at large. So many missing, almost always in suspicious circumstances. Every good story deserves a little dramatic licence, but the casual killings in Yellowstone became increasingly implausible, then dramatically counter-productive, and finally ludicrous. It's not just wondering how this Montana holocaust goes unnoticed; it's the more crucial question of maintaining interest and sympathy for the supposedly righteous Duttons when it is increasingly obvious that they are - all of them, in the end - cold-blooded killers, led by a patriarch who is a mass murderer. Some reviews attempt to excuse this by likening Yellowstone to The Sopranos. But even if cowboys could also be hit men in the days of the Wild West, you can't really make a case for murder being so damn easy in modern-day Montana. The point, Mr Sheridan, is that with just a little restraint here and there, Yellowstone could have been the masterpiece it deserved to be.