20-Part Neo-Western With Perfect RT Score Is The Taylor Sheridan Show Taylor Sheridan Never Made

There is a 20-episode neo-Western TV show on Paramount+ with a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and no, it is not a series by Taylor Sheridan. The Taylor Sheridan universe of TV shows threatens to engulf all of the Paramount+ streaming library. He’s up to 13 shows on the platform, and the upcoming Frisco King will make it 14.

Sheridan’s first TV show, Yellowstone, is one of the definitive neo-Westerns of the last 10 years and a pretty great showcase for the tropes that go into making a modern version of the classic Western show. However, the best neo-Western on Paramount+ isn’t even a Taylor Sheridan show.

Joe Pickett is a two-season series based on the character found in C.J. Box’s long-running novel series. Joe Pickett premiered on Spectrum Originals in 2021, but by 2023, it had moved to Paramount+ for season 2. Shortly after season 2 aired, Paramount+ decided to cancel the series.

The series begins with Joe, a game warden, moving his wife, Marybeth (Julianna Guill), and their two children to Saddlestring, Wyoming, where Joe can work as warden of the wilderness that surrounds Yellowstone National Park. Hoping for a nice end to the second-half of his career, Joe ends up running into more issues than he’d planned.

From previous game wardens with their own conspiracies to corrupt politicians and businesses, Joe has much more work cut out for him than making sure fishers catch the right-size trout. It’s a show that sounds like it would be right at home in the Taylor Sheridan universe, but it has a very different feel.

Joe Pickett Is Like A Mashup Of Yellowstone & Landman

Joe Pickett brings together some aspects from two of Sheridan’s biggest shows, Yellowstone and Landman. Like Yellowstone, Joe Pickett is a true neo-Western. There are plenty of characters who feel like they jumped out of the Western TV shows of the 20th-century, updated for the modern world.

There’s also a focus on protection and conservation. In both shows, someone is working against powerful forces threatening to take over the beautiful land of the West. Of course, in Yellowstone, that someone is themselves is a powerful force, and they want the beautiful land of the West all to themselves.

It’s a bit more like Landman. Joe Pickett feels like a small fish in a big pond in the same way that Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris does in Landman, and both are not totally naive to the needs and wants of other parties in the same way that the Dutton family seems to be.

How Joe Pickett Ranks Against Taylor Sheridan’s Actual TV Shows

Joe Pickett (Michael Dorman) squatting down and looking at something.

It can be a bit hard to compare Joe Pickett to Sheridan’s oeuvre of TV shows. His series tend to get planned endings, and Joe Pickett didn’t. Whatever people’s issues with Sheridan’s shows are, they’re rarely that he doesn’t finish what he sets out to do. Yet, Joe Pickett is still better.

It comes down to one thing. The sense of humor in Joe Pickett really helps the series percolate in a way that the Sheridan series don’t. It’s not a breezy show by any means, but there is a surprising amount of humor, good humor. It gives the series a texture that Sheridan’s shows often lack.