The most popular TV show in America and the surprising rise of its creator

The most watched TV show in America isn’t a reality TV series. And its popularity in Australia is only growing.

The most watched TV show in America is not a reality show.

The most watched TV show in America doesn’t involve anyone dating, cooking and singing for their five minutes of notoriety.

The most watched TV show in America is a scripted series which features the high stakes drama of the Dutton family, a rancher brood fighting back against encroachment on “their” land and the forces of modernity and change.

Yellowstone’s fifth season debuted in the US this week to a record 12.1 million viewers for its broadcast. It’s the highest ratings for any TV that isn’t football.

But significantly, it’s an impressive 10 per cent increase on its season four premiere. Yellowstone is a rarity in the world of broadcast TV in that, five years on, it’s actually growing its audience.

In Australia, where it streams on Stan, the season five premiere also attracted more viewers than season four’s first episode.

Yellowstone is the most popular TV show in America. Picture: Paramount

Fans can’t get enough of watching Kevin Costner skulk and sulk around the Montana ranch purportedly the size of Rhode Island. With grand story beats as dramatic as any prime time soap opera and the production values of prestige TV, Yellowstone quickly became appointment TV.

The success of Yellowstone has propelled the TV empire of creator Taylor Sheridan, a failed actor who is now, by his claim in a profile piece in The Atlantic, overseeing more than $US1 billion ($A1.48 billion) in productions. In addition to Yellowstone, Sheridan also has The Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King (which also premiered this week) and two Yellowstone prequels.

Sheridan’s rise happened very quickly – only since 2015 when his first script, Sicario, was birthed into an acclaimed film directed by Denis Villeneuve, although the French-Canadian director and the producers rewrote the ending over Sheridan’s furious objections.

It was Sheridan’s second feature, which this time he also directed, that really heralded his arrival as a serious industry power.

Hell Or High Water, a neo-western which examined wealth inequality in the fallout of the GFC, was nominated for four Oscars – including original screenplay for Sheridan. Set in his childhood stomping ground of West Texas, Hell Or High Water starred Chris Pine and Ben Foster as two brothers robbing banks to forestall foreclosure on their family ranch.

It’s an extraordinary film with complex characters on both sides of the law, and one which shifted its compassion to its criminal leads.

Taylor Sheridan’s Hell Or High Water was nominated for four Oscars. Picture: Madman Entertainment

There’s a thread you can run from Sheridan’s films, which also includes Wind River and Those Who Wish Me Dead, through to his TV shows.

They’re all stories of the frontier, set in places in which laws are optional and values reign.

They’re ruled by characters such as John Dutton, or Tulsa King’s The General (Sylvester Stallone), characters in a world that’s seemingly moving on without them, but who still try to bend the current to their will.

Tulsa King is Stallone’s first regular TV role after five decades in the business. He plays a mafia capo who’s released after 25 years in prison.

The loyal lieutenant is expecting a big reward for taking the fall, keeping his mouth shut and doing the time, but his “reward” is exile to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he’s told to set up shop.

Not exactly the life the New Yorker envisaged for his post-prison life. But he arrives in Tulsa with bombast and imposes his will on the local marijuana dispensary. The General does things the way he wants to.

Sheridan’s characters reflect his own philosophy, as well as his personal enmity of Los Angeles and “coastal elites”. As one character says in Yellowstone’s pilot: “This is Montana, and we can do whatever we want.” That’s how Sheridan operates as well.

Taylor Sheridan with Kevin Costner. Picture: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

According to The Atlantic, Sheridan’s pitch meeting for Yellowstone wasn’t a game of seduction but one in which he told network executives that he will have full creative control, there will be no story outlines and there will no studio notes.

All the execs are entitled to is to pay for everything – roughly $US90-100 million ($A130-150 million).

Sheridan ended up writing and directing every episode of the first season, something which rarely happens in American TV. Even Aaron Sorkin, who is credited on every episode of The West Wing before his departure, occasionally shared the load and didn’t direct.

The network ended up insisting on a writers room for season two, but it was disbanded by the end of that run. He’s a man who does things his way. But his controlling tendencies has its downsides for everyone who’s not Sheridan.

One Yellowstone veteran told The Atlantic: “It’s tough to work for that guy. He drives everyone crazy.” That person couldn’t put their name to their assessment because of Sheridan’s power in the business – his TV universe is expansive and expanding.

The second Yellowstone prequel, 1923, is due for release in December and it landed Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as its leads. And there are more in the works.

Sylvester Stallone in Tulsa King. Picture: Brian Douglas/Paramount+

It’s a surprising trajectory for a man who once portrayed background players in larger ensembles. Among a short-ish list of guest spots on TV shows, his two recurring roles were on Veronica Mars as Danny Boyd, a crony to the Fitzpatrick gang, and in 21 episodes of Sons Of Anarchy.

Much has been written and discussed about Yellowstone’s appeal and its position in the culture wars.

It’s immensely popular with audiences in so-called Middle America. Commentators and critics have argued that the series’ drawing power is its libertarian tendencies, its valorisation of an old school patriarchy fighting against change.

But it’s a little reductive to see Yellowstone’s success through a purely political lens. John Dutton is not a likeable character. He is violent, cruel and a bully. The show doesn’t always hold him up as the paragon of virtue. No one on Yellowstone is just one thing.

Of course, storytelling is subjective as is how someone reacts to it.

For Australian audiences who have embraced Yellowstone, maybe it has very little to do with partisanship and a deeply divided American polity, or the show’s problematic depictions of Native American communities.

Maybe they just like the show’s heightened drama, drawing as much from the likes of Dallas and Dynasty as it does from The Sopranos or The Godfather.

The only thing that’s certain is it’s made Sheridan a very successful and powerful Hollywood player.

Yellowstone is streaming now on Stan, Tulsa King is streaming now on Paramount+

Originally published as The most popular TV show in America and the surprising rise of its creator