Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone is an ultra-popular, record-breaking show — but his latest Paramount series, Special Ops: Lioness, isn’t as flawless.
- Taylor Sheridan’s latest series, Special Ops: Lioness, is receiving mixed reviews and falls short of the success of his other projects, such as Yellowstone and its spinoffs.
- While some viewers find Lioness captivating and engaging, it is also criticized for being derivative and falling into genre tropes.
Whether Special Ops: Lioness is a good show or not, Taylor Sheridan’s latest series continues a rather worrying trend. The creator of the ultra-popular series Yellowstone and its spinoffs, 1883 and 1923, Sheridan is perhaps most-celebrated for breathing new life into traditional network dramas, especially during the age of streaming. While the Yellowstone franchise is a generation-spanning neo-Western about a family of ranchers, Special Ops: Lioness is a spy thriller that features big-name stars like Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, and Morgan Freeman.
With Sheridan serving as showrunner, the Paramount Plus original serves up the kind of domestic drama the Yellowstone co-creator is synonymous with, though Special Ops: Lioness also incorporates some espionage action of varying plausibility. However, this apparent recipe for success isn’t as well-received as Sheridan’s other projects. Not only is this disappointing news for viewers seeking Sheridan’s take on a spy thriller, but it also underscores a pattern that’s been forming when it comes to the Sheridan-verse.
Why Special Ops: Lioness’s Reviews Are So Mixed (& How It Compares To Yellowstone)
On Rotten Tomatoes, Sheridan’s Yellowstone holds an aggregate critical score of 84% across its five seasons. While Yellowstone season 1 doesn’t shine — it has a discouraging 56% — the other seasons boast impressive scores, with Yellowstone season 3 holding steady at 100%. Even the show’s spin-offs retain impressive ratings: the prequel series 1883, which stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, has a solid 89%, while 1923
A departure from Sheridan’s Western fare, Special Ops: Lioness holds a significantly lower score than any Yellowstone universe show. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus is a disappointing 57%, though the audience rating is 74%. The show itself reflects these mixed reviews. At times, it’s a captivating character study or an engaging slow-burn thriller. However, at other times Lioness is a derivative, meat-and-potatoes genre series that paints morality as black-and-white and falls victim to the genre’s worst tropes. Even so, mastermind creator Taylor Sheridan’s Lioness beat Yellowstone‘s Paramount Plus record, becoming the streamer’s most-watched global premiere.
Special Ops: Lioness Continues Taylor Sheridan’s Bad Rotten Tomatoes Trend Outside Yellowstone
