A wealthy New York family relocates to the Madison River Valley in southwest Montana after a plane crash takes the family patriarch and his daughter-in-law. Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch trying to hold what’s left of them together; Kurt Russell is the rancher next door. Taylor Sheridan wrote all six episodes himself — and across a dozen reviews, no two critics seem to be watching the same show.
| Michelle Pfeiffer | Stacy Clyburn — the matriarch |
| Kurt Russell | Preston Clyburn — the rancher next door |
| Matthew Fox | Paul Clyburn |
| Patrick J. Adams | Russell McIntosh |
| Beau Garrett | Abigail Reese |
| Elle Chapman | Paige McIntosh |
| Amiah Miller | Bridgette Reese |
| Ben Schnetzer | Van Davis |
| Kevin Zegers | Cade Harris |
A private plane carrying two members of the Clyburn family goes down somewhere over the Rockies. The surviving Clyburns — led by Pfeiffer’s Stacy and Russell’s Preston — decamp from a Manhattan high-rise to the family’s long-held property in the Madison River Valley, the wedge of southwestern Montana that runs along its namesake river and is, off-screen, one of the most famous fly-fishing destinations in the country. Sheridan splits the season between the family’s grief and their collision with the neighbours, ranchers, and outfitters of the valley.
Sheridan has called The Madison his “heart project,” and on the page it shows: it is the first of his major Paramount+ shows to lean almost entirely on interiority, with no oil rigs, no DEA raids, and no immediate succession war. The set-pieces are funeral arrangements, awkward dinners, riverside walks. Pfeiffer carries most of it. The fly-fishing imagery, the dawn light, and the Madison Range itself do the rest.
The split shows up in the numbers: 62% on Rotten Tomatoes, 56 on Metacritic, 74% audience score. Inside that spread, two camps emerge. One sees a mature, restrained grief drama elevated by a marquee performance; the other sees Sheridan, untethered from a writers’ room, producing a meandering rough draft anchored by a casual contempt for the city the Clyburns came from. The dozen reviews collected below run almost the whole length of that spectrum.
Both camps are right about different episodes. The middle two installments — built around Pfeiffer in extended, near-silent grief beats — are the best half-hours of television Sheridan has put on Paramount+, and a corrective to the “just dialogue” charge often leveled at him. The opening and closing episodes are the most uneven hours, with broad New York caricature shoehorned around the better material. The season is renewed twice over before viewers had even finished it, so we will see soon enough whether Sheridan tightens the script or doubles down on the cliché.
A bifurcated, occasionally luminous grief drama. Pfeiffer is the reason to stay; the writing is the reason to argue about it. Worth the six episodes — even though, as multiple critics note, those six episodes feel like four hours of show and two hours of indulgence.
A round-up of a dozen reviews and trade reports from across the spectrum — from glowing to severe. Pull quotes are reproduced as published; links lead to the original publication.
Unfortunately, it’s rather thin on story, relying more on stunning landscape shots and dramatic music than dynamic dialogue and narrative. For now, it all feels much more trite than profound.Variety Aramide Tinubu, TV Review
There are two shows clashing in The Madison and one of them is very good — perhaps the richest and most mature thing Sheridan has ever written for the small screen, thoroughly undermined by the laziest writing he has ever done.The Hollywood Reporter Daniel Fienberg, Chief Television Critic
There’s a meandering, rough draft quality to the show. The last two episodes feel unedited, like no one said, ‘We don’t need all this; just get to the point.’TV Guide Liam Mathews
Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell are terrific in drippy drama The Madison.The A.V. Club Headline review of season one
The fact that The Madison ended up not being related to Yellowstone at all… is actually the best thing about the new Paramount+ series.ScreenRant Feature on the show’s standalone status
The Madison may not be an all-inclusive stay, but it offers a top-tier Michelle Pfeiffer, beautiful East Coast locations, and an expansion of the Taylor Sheridan universe.Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ consensus, Season 1
It’s definitely a slower show with not much action happening, but it allows you to really spend time with and get to know the characters. While it has its funny moments, it’s an emotionally tender show. And like all of Sheridan’s shows, it’s visually stunning.The Daily Campus Sarah Barker
It’s essentially an average melodrama. A soap opera with enough of a budget to hire a talented cinematographer to shoot the gorgeous vistas of Montana. It’s officially the worst show I’ve seen all year.Tom’s Guide (via Yahoo) Malcolm McMillan
The Madison debuted to 8 million viewers globally during its first 10 days — the biggest original series launch yet for a Sheridan show on Paramount+.The Hollywood Reporter James Hibberd, ratings report
It’s the biggest series debut breakout yet — resonating particularly with women aged 35 and older.TV Insider Amanda Bell
The Madison and Marshals both find Sheridan returning to Yellowstone territory — one with restraint and one without.NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour review, March 27 2026
Spectrum at a glance: three clearly positive reviews, four mixed, three negative, and two industry/ratings reports. The 62% Rotten Tomatoes score and 56 Metacritic average sit roughly where a 7-of-12 mostly-positive-to-mixed sample would land.
By debut viewership, The Madison is the largest streaming launch of any Sheridan series — 8 million global views in 10 days, ahead of Yellowstone (5M in its 2018 premiere window), 1883 (4.9M) and 1923 (7.4M), and behind only Landman Season 2 (9.2M) and the CBS-aired Marshals (9.5M). Paramount+ has already greenlit Seasons 2 and 3, in April 2026 — before viewers had finished the first six episodes — making The Madison the first Sheridan series to be pre-renewed two seasons deep on the strength of a debut alone.
Tonally, it is the closest Sheridan has come to writing a grief drama in the mode of 1883’s more contemplative passages, rather than the operatic family-business mode of Yellowstone. Whether that pivot can sustain three seasons is the question every reviewer eventually arrives at.