The TV series Stephen King said he hates himself for liking: “We’d all like to be that guy”
Everyone has at least one TV series they can’t help but love, even when they know it’s effectively nonsense. Stephen King is no different and went so far as to say he kind of hated himself a bit for enjoying as much as he did.
While it’s true that the ongoing ‘Golden Age’ of small-screen storytelling has given rise to many of the greatest shows of all time, with Hollywood’s biggest names flocking to television to give showy performances in awards-laden hits, trash telly hasn’t gone anywhere.
Soap operas will never disappear from the episodic ecosystem, and police procedurals remain all the rage, not to mention the fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero shows that cultivate strong audiences. Not everything has to be prestige TV, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with embracing entertainment.
Familiarity was a big part of what bred King’s self-contempt, though, and it’s easy to see why. For the most part, Taylor Sheridan’s TV empire has largely followed a tried-and-trusted set of tropes, archetypes, and formulas, which the numbers have made clear audiences can’t get enough of.
In a microcosm, the Sheridan formula is largely predictable. He’ll create, produce, largely write, and occasionally direct a show with an episode count of between eight and ten, which features a well-known and most likely Academy Award-nominated movie star in the lead role, where they play a problem-solver of some description in a neo-western full of violence, profanity, betrayals, and political scheming.
The success and popularity of Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone, Jeremy Renner’s Mayor of Kingstown, Sylvester Stallone’s Tulsa King, Harrison Ford’s 1883, and Zoe Saldaña’s Lioness indicates the ‘if it ain’t broke’ mantra is alive and well in Sheridan’s world, with Billy Bob Thornton’s Landman the latest to get in on the act.
King knows fine well that it isn’t breaking new ground, but he simply couldn’t help himself. “I sorta hate myself for liking this,” he admitted. “The spine is all macho-macho man, and like Mayor of Kingstown and Yellowstone, the main character is a fixer who takes no shit. We’d all like to be that guy.”
Thornton notched a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Tommy Norris, the no-nonsense oil company employee who spends his days dealing with the barrage of shit being lobbed in his direction from all corners in a turn so Thornton-esque it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the character was created with him in mind.
Like most Sheridan shows, Landman performed well enough to be renewed for a second season, which leaves King in the position of hating himself a little for liking it but investing enough of his time into the first run to virtually guarantee he’ll be there with bells on whenever the next batch of episodes premieres.
Based on his current status as one of the most powerful names in television, it’s a stretch to suggest that the overwhelming majority of Sheridan’s viewership feels guilty for getting a kick out of his work. They largely do the same things in different settings under marginally different circumstances, but that’s evidently enough.
