Yellowstone continues to rank among the biggest TV shows available to stream at the moment, thanks to the long-awaited debut of the second half of Season 5 — which, it’s worth noting, is also proving to be the lowest-rated among fans of the hit neo-Western.
On the other hand, critics love it. I mean, really love it. At least compared to fans. Just look at the huge split in these Rotten Tomatoes scores — an 82% from critics and a truly abysmal 40% from fans for the current season. Yikes. Then again, the show was kind of always like that, only it was fans who were raving about it in the beginning and critics who turned up their noses at first at what they dismissed as a Red State Game of Thrones. Too soapy, too of-the-people to rank among the big, important TV shows of the moment.
Well, we all know what happened next.
Just take a look at this week’s latest ranking from Reelgood of the top TV shows of the week. For the second week in a row, Yellowstone is the biggest show of all — even with the abrupt death and departure of star Kevin Costner’s character from the show last week.
Here’s Reelgood’s latest ranking of the hottest TV shows (for the 7-day period that ended on Nov. 20):
- Yellowstone (The Paramount Network)
- The Day of the Jackal (Peacock)
- Cross (Prime Video)
- Landman (Paramount+)
- Silo (Apple TV+)
- Dune: Prophecy (HBO/Max)
- Say Nothing (FX/Hulu)
- Lioness (Paramount+)
- The Penguin (HBO/Max)
- The Diplomat (Netflix)
It must be stressed again, however, that the new season of Paramount’s hit show is being shredded online by legions of fans. The complaints include everything from the fifth season’s pace to political plotlines, reduced screen time for Costner, and an increasing tendency toward soapiness — in the form of, for example, overly dramatic family spats and exaggerated villains. “I would use the analogy of a football team,” actor Ian Bohen, who plays the Dutton’s hired ranch worker Ryan, told Us Weekly at the CMA Awards in recent days regarding Costner’s departure.
“If your quarterback gets hurt and he has to come out of the game, you have to play. So you gotta figure out another way to run the ball or throw the ball or just do different things because you can’t quit. So that’s what happened. We lost our quarterback and we still have to play the game.”
Luckily, there’s plenty more content available to stream this week that viewers aren’t trashing or feel has lost its mojo. Along those lines, Reelgood monitors 20 million viewing decisions each month across every streaming platform in the US, from Apple TV+ to Max, Peacock, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Prime Video, and Paramount+. That makes its ranking always an interesting snapshot, to say the least, given that it encompasses so many platforms and thus offers an indication of what’s hot from across the streaming world.
Besides Yellowstone, other hit series dominating the ranking this week include Peacock’s new spy drama The Day of the Jackal, which just got renewed for a second season (check out our interview with star Eddie Redmayne here). And speaking of Yellowstone: Its creator is also behind two other TV shows for Paramount+ that are likewise crushing it on streaming this week — the newly debuted Landman, and Lioness.