The cavalry to the Yellowstone franchise has arrived on horseback, in the form of spin-off/sequel series Marshals on CBS. Being the fourth television series set in continuity but the first to continue the story from the flagship series by Taylor Sheridan, Marshals has a lot to live up to for its legion of fans. Unfortunately, most are disappointed by the results.
On March 1, Marshals premiered on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. The show sees several familiar faces from Yellowstone, including Luke Grimes, back inside Sheridan’s Montana-sized sandbox. Set after the events of the original show, former Navy SEAL and rancher Kayce Dutton (Grimes) takes up a new gig as a specialized U.S. Marshal patrolling the Treasure State.
As of right now, viewership ratings aren’t in for the series. But critical reception is lukewarm. On Rotten Tomatoes, the consensus of professional critics lands the show at 50 percent. The audience consensus is even worse with a 47% “Popcornmeter,” meaning that even everyday users of Rotten Tomatoes are unenthused by the new series. How did Esquire’s resident Sheridan expert, Josh Rosenberg, feel about Marshals? Well, he didn’t hold back.
On Reddit and X (née Twitter), fans are split over the series. While some Yellowstone faithful are pleased and promise to tune in for more, others are comparing Marshals unfavorably to Yellowstone. On Reddit’s r/YellowstonePN, a thread inviting the subreddit to express their “first thoughts on Marshals” has comments ranging from disappointment that the show feels like a generic network procedural to outright hatred for the series.
“It was about what I expected for network. It’s just formula fiction, like NCIS or CSI but with a Dutton. I’ll watch, but I won’t feel good about it,” wrote u/shannonH73.
“About what I expected. Just another cbs procedural with Yellowstone tacked on to make sure it gets watched. It wasn’t awful but certainly wasn’t good,” wrote u/dwts16.
“Basically SWAT: Montana with a couple characters from Yellowstone. E1 seemed like an episode of the week,” said u/Just_Another_Day_926.
Some commenters thought the show was actually “pretty good,” such as u/Realistic-Lake5897. Under their post, contrarians like u/Prnce_Chrmin said, “I was only a few minutes in and it felt poorly written with (some) cringe and predictable dialogues, and often filmed in a green room not at real locations, and just sloppy and lazy and very small budget.”
In a different thread on r/YellowstonePN, a sarcastic viewer called the show “NCIS: Yellowstone” and said they’ll “go back to waiting on the next season of Landman.” The comments are full of similar feelings, although u/ViperFive1 said that they got what they expected.
“It’s been know for a year that this was going to be a network procedural based Yellowstone universe and not simply more Yellowstone. Tonight was fine unless you were expecting something other than exactly what they were telling us it was going to be,” they wrote.
“The minute it became a Network show, the dye was cast and it was gonna be a cookie cutter bland show to appease the FCC,” said u/AlexTorres96.
“It was horrible,” said u/Amarylliswpg.
On Musk’s Twitter, fans are even saltier over Marshals.
Still, the adage “you can’t please everyone” rings true in the other way. Some Yellowstone faithful haven’t lost hope, and they promise to come back for more.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.esquire.com ’
