Yellowstone: How a 1883 season 2 misunderstanding led to the creation of 1923

Last Updated on December 30, 2022

Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone has grown considerably since its debut, but it became a proper franchise with the arrival of its first spinoff — 1883. The Yellowstone prequel series starred Sam Elliot, Tim McGraw, and Faith Hill and told the story of how the Duttons came to own the land that would eventually become the Yellowstone Ranch. Taylor Sheridan had the whole ten-episode series mapped out from the beginning and knew that it would only last a single season, but apparently Paramount didn’t get the memo.

While speaking with Deadline, Taylor Sheridan revealed that Paramount had expected a second season of 1883… despite the fate of many of the characters in the prequel. “I know they read the scripts, but they don’t read scripts, so when they read the last episode of 1883, I don’t think they digested what had just happened, even though I made it quite clear from the very beginning,” Sheridan explained. “The story I heard is Bob Bakish watched it and said, ‘wait a minute, she dies! They all die? What do we do in season two?’ I said, there is no season two. They’re like, there better be a fu*king season two because we already picked it up. I’m sitting here going, guys everyone is dead.”

It was from the ashes of the second season of 1883 that the concept for the next Yellowstone prequel series was born. “I said I’ll come up with another peek into the window and I sat there and tried to look at it. I studied Montana’s history and the history of the world,” Sheridan said. “It’s the one great thing about the Dutton family; you can skip generations and put them in all these unique situations, and it has nothing to do with Yellowstone, nothing to do with 1883 and yet it’s tethered completely to them, but they’re all standalones. That’s what I find so intriguing about it.” 1923 stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as Jacob and Cara Dutton, the heads of the Yellowstone ranch. The series introduces a new generation of the Dutton family and explore the early 20th century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition, and the Great Depression all plague the Mountain West and the Duttons who call it home. The debut of 1923 set a ratings record at Paramount+, surpassing the debuts of Taylor Sheridan’s other series, Mayor of Kingstown and Tulsa King, as well as 1883. You can check out a review of 1923 from our own Chris Bumbray right here.

Do you think 1883 should have continued with a second season or was it best for the Yellowstone prequel to wrap it up?