Taylor Sheridan has taken over TV. The popular creator seemingly has at least six shows airing at any given moment – and they attract movie stars like Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Hollywood talks about Sheridan like he’s the “middle America” whisperer, since his shows are hits with often an misunderstood audience. But, the real secret to his success is simple.
He’s the king of dad shows.
“Anybody – any age, gender, anything — can enjoy a dad show,” Liam Mathews, author of the “Dad Shows” Substack, exclusively told Page Six. “But, they are from the perspective of a dad, or a dad-like figure.”
Sheridan’s vast portfolio of shows fits the bill.
The prolific writer/producer burst onto the TV scene in 2018 with “Yellowstone,” which starred Costner as John Dutton, the patriarch of a ranch family.
Sheridan hasn’t let up in nearly a decade since. He’s exec producing its two spinoffs, “Dutton Ranch” starring Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser, and “Marshals” starring Luke Grimes. He’s also got the Sylvester Stallone-led “Tulsa King” and “Landman” starring Billy Bob Thornton, among other shows. There were a handful of “Yellowstone” prequels, starring big names like Ford and Sam Elliott.
Even his attempt at a show aimed at women — “The Madison,” which follows a widow, Stacy (Pfeiffer), as she grieves her husband, Preston (Kurt Russell) – is built entirely around Preston’s shadow. Despite his character dying, Russell appears via flashback in every episode, playing a rugged dad who loved to fish.
A dad show doesn’t always need to center on a character who is a father, and its audience doesn’t need to only include Gen X and boomer men — although, both of those qualities help.
It’s more nebulous than that, and Sheridan has nailed the formula.
Mathews explained that this type of show has an element of “wish fulfillment” from the audience, because when the average person watches a show like “Yellowstone” he can imagine that he is “cool and tough like Kevin Costner.”
Shows in this category are typically about men who “take care of business,” he explained. They encounter problems that they fix, “whether with their minds, or with their fists or with guns – whatever tools they have available to them.”
Sheridan characters love solving problems, giving monologues reflecting on the good old days, and ruminating on the knowledge they’ve accumulated about life, nature, and human foibles.
Outside of Sheridan’s purview, Prime Video’s “Reacher” (starring Alan Ritchson) is another example of a peak show in the genre, and that character doesn’t have kids.
“If anyone’s wondering who’s watching ‘Reacher,’ it’s my dad,” one person posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Millennials and Gen Z women can enjoy dad shows, too, but another key quality is that the main character must be above 30 — and ideally above 40.
Sheridan’s shows are essentially the opposite of HBO’s “Euphoria,” which has Gen Z’s biggest stars – Zendaya, 29, Jacob Elordi, 28, and Sydney Sweeney, 28.
You wouldn’t catch Sheridan featuring actors like that as his stars. Sure, his shows include younger cast members here and there, like “Landman’s” Michelle Randolph, 28, but she plays a side character. She’s the problem child that the show’s leading man, Billy Bob Thornton, has to deal with.
The stars of the Sheridan universe have often been famous since the ‘80s – “Yellowstone” had Costner, 71, “Dutton Ranch” has Annette Bening, 67, and Ed Harris, 75, “Landman,” has Thornton, 70, “Tulsa King” has Stallone, 79.
Grimes, 42, (who stars on the “Yellowstone” spinoff “Marshals”) is Sheridan’s youngest current leading man, and he’s still on the other side of 40.
Sheridan also seems committed to providing some “eye candy for older guys,” Mathews noted.
This quality isn’t essential to dad shows, but it also rounds them out. His leading ladies include Reilly, 48, Pfeiffer, 68, and Ali Larter, 50.
The character at the center of a dad show “needs to have some life experience,” said Mathews. Simply, they need to have “seen some stuff.”
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