Few people have achieved the level of success in television that Taylor Sheridan is currently experiencing.
The multi-hyphenate has become a household name thanks to his unique brand of television dramas that have found mass appeal all over the world, and his star continues to rise.
Sheridan has not joined this game recently, having been an actor, writer, and director for many years before the masses were introduced to his work on Yellowstone.
I am one of those people who learned about him from Yellowstone, and since then, I’ve followed his works religiously. There is a certain quality about the stories he tells that you won’t find with many creators.
What I’ve long appreciated most about his work is the ability to be honest. It’s no surprise that his stories tend to appeal to people who lean to the right. Conservatives fawn over everything he makes while liberals take it with a grain of salt or avoid it altogether.
However, he doesn’t just pander to them. He shows them, and anyone on the left who might be watching, the complete picture. The perspectives he offers are the closest to reality I’ve ever seen on TV.
There are many praises one can sing about the shows’ production quality, performances, and entertainment value. But that’s not what we’re here for. There is a problem that many have yet to accept.
Taylor Sheridan Has Nailed Down a Formula
Many people in Hollywood wish that they could find a formula that works. Imagine making a show and having little doubt that it will be a hit? Executives salivate at the prospect of having hits all the time.
The problem with formulas is that they consistently yield the same result, and if there is a flaw in them, then the result is flawed as well. There are plenty of flaws in the Sheridan formula.
And for Sheridan, it’s the fact that all his main characters are the same. It’s older cishet white men who are bent on trying to make the work cater to them despite the painful punches of change.
These characters don’t offer anything different. It dawned on me somewhere in Landman Season 1 that Tommy was just John Dutton transplanted from Montana to Texas.
These characters may seem like heroes and role models to some, but they represent the early stages of people about to become relics. They refuse to evolve.
In the moment, it doesn’t matter that they are all the same. However, it won’t take long for Sheridan’s fans to realize that it’s repetitive and fatiguing.
Even more egregious is Sheridan’s view of women. His female characters can be categorized into two: just like the men, and sex goddesses.
There is significant overlap in these qualities, which allows Sheridan to appear as if he champions strong female characters, obscuring the fact that he mostly exploits them.
A good example is Tommy’s ex-wife and daughter, who are grossly exploited to the point that it becomes their defining personality.
Now, these two have been dealt a better hand in the Sheridanverse because if they were in a show like 1923, they’d have something extra added to their plate.
The brand of sexual and gender-based violence rained on Sheridan’s female character would break anyone. But they are just like the men, so that they can take it!
Diversity is a tale of the past in shows with his name. Sure, he might use a person of color here and there, but that’s only when it serves his narrative.
Who has ever seen a queer character in a Sheridan show?
This Is the Greatest Taylor Sheridan Problem
But all these issues arise from Sheridan’s obsessive desire to be in control of everything.
When one person serves as the writer, director, executive producer, and actor, the project is bound to be affected.
And in Sheridan’s case, he sometimes writes entire seasons of a show alone. He is notorious for lacking writers’ room for his projects, shouldering the burden alone.
Derek Haas tried this recently with Countdown, and it was a colossal failure. It’s just taking longer before it backfires on Sheridan.
Aside from the obvious effects it has on projects, a one-person writing team disrupts the Hollywood ecosystem. It concentrates power and influence in one person, and we have seen time and again what happens when individuals become gods in their industry.
Writing gigs keep many television writers afloat before they get their big break. Sheridan actively affects other people’s futures by robbing them of work opportunities.
Every industry is challenging, and Hollywood is even more so. It doesn’t need someone to make it worse.
But above all, Sheridan, the writer, lacks variety. His writing style is consistent across the board, leading me to coin a phrase for his style: the Sheridan Writing Style.
Not that original, I know. But it gets the point across.
This style of writing is akin to stand-up comedy, where the comedian will spend a little time setting up the punchline.
In Sheridan’s case, characters act as each other’s set-ups.
Imagine this scenario where a father is talking to his son.
Son: Father, will we also die?
Father: Son, we are already dead, we just haven’t realized it yet. We begin dying the moment we are born. But instead of worrying about the inevitable, focus on what you can do in the interim.
Son: Will grandpa die too?
Father: No, son. Your grandpa is a legend. Legends never die!
This kind of writing can sound profound at first, but it often becomes clichéd and juvenile. Now imagine that happening on a large scale across scenes, episodes, seasons, and shows.
It’s not a debate that Sheridan is talented in crafting engaging stories. However, he needs to trust other people to execute his vision, because he might be the one who kills it.
If he did, shows would not be losing steam after the first season.
Over to you! What do you think?
He’s either a favorite or a polarizing figure. Where do you fit on the spectrum of Sheridan’s work?
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The post Landman Is the Prime Example of Why Taylor Sheridan Is Overrated appeared first on TV Fanatic.
