Stream It Or Skip It: ‘1883’ On Paramount+, A ‘Yellowstone’ Prequel That Shows How The Dutton Family Settled In Montana

When we reviewed Yellowstone three years ago, we had no idea it would be the monster hit it would become. The story of the Duttons has been compelling enough to basically attract early-era Walking Dead-sized audiences, so the idea of a prequel about the family seemed like a good idea. 1883 is that prequel, and creator Taylor Sheridan’s knack for casting leads continues with the always-watchable Sam Elliott.

1883: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A voice says, “I remember the first time I saw it. I tried to find words to describe it, but I couldn’t.” Then we see a woman’s face; she’s lying on the ground with smoke billowing around her. She eventually gets up to see that the wagon train is on fire and Native Americans are attacking the caravan. She shoots one of the attackers but gets an arrow in her stomach for her trouble.

The Gist: In a small house on the Texas plains, a sobbing Shea Brennan (Sam Elliott) carries his daughter, who recently died of smallpox, into his bedroom and puts her next to his wife, who also died of the dreaded disease. He then sets his house on fire in an effort to get rid of that plague in his life. He’s contemplating killing himself when his right-hand man Thomas (LaMonica Garrett) tells him that “If I’m diggin’ a hole, I want to do it before the sun gets high.”

While they make their way into their Pinkerton office in Fort Worth, they come across James Dutton (Tim McGraw), who is driving a wagon while fighting off bandits. He manages to get all of them with both his shotgun and a long-range rifle; Brennan is impressed at his shooting skills, but he tells Dutton he got lucky.

Dutton makes his way into Fort Worth, “Hell’s Half-Acre.” The place is more or less lawless, as we see when Dutton catches a pickpocket and a mob grabs the guy and strings him up. He’s there to meet his family so they can journey north and settle in the largely unexplored frontier.

Brennan and Thomas are in their Pinkerton Security office, talking to have an large group of Germans who seek to settle in Oregon. No one speaks English, they have too much gear, can’t ride horses and no guns. Brennan knows that they’ll get killed if they don’t have protection; even though the group pushes back on the added cost, Brennan convinces them to pay and he goes about looking for people to ride with them.

He encounters Dutton in a saloon and tries to convince him that he and his group could benefit from the additional manpower if he signs on to protect the bigger group, but Dutton would rather be on his own.

Dutton’s wife Margaret (Faith Hill) and his family, including oldest daughter Elsa (Isabel May) arrive in town by train. With them is James’ sister Claire (Dawn Olivieri) and her daughter. Elsa wants to drink in every experience, to the point where she runs afoul of her mother for just about everything. But when Dutton is barely able to save Elsa from getting raped by a drunken patron of the brothel downstairs, he realizes that riding with Brennan and helping to protect the Germans may help his family get to a plot of land up north where they could settle.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Well, Yellowstone for one, since Taylor Sheridan created 1883 as a prequel to his massive hit series. But it also has a bit of a Deadwood vibe to it, mostly thanks to the presence of Sam Elliott.

Our Take: We looked back on our review of Yellowstone three years ago and noticed that we said that the show was bad and boring, which is definitely how we felt about that show’s early episodes. 1883 doesn’t suffer from the bad part; Sheridan wrote a smart pilot with some sharply-written dialogue and excellent performances from Elliott, McGraw, Hill and May. But the first episode was also very self-indulgent and slowly-paced, giving viewers many chances to check out during scenes that didn’t drive the story or tell us much about the characters.

Yes, we get it; the show is supposed to be on the scale of good old-fashioned Westerns, with wide shots of the countryside and lingering scenes of people riding horses against stunning backdrops. But the 66-minute pilot still could have shaved ten minutes of that off and we would have still been able to appreciate the show’s scale and scope.

Things perk up whenever Elliott is on screen, mainly because we feel his profound loss, but also his sense of taking up the challenge of getting the Germans to Oregon without getting them all killed. “Just because they won’t survive doesn’t mean we can’t try,” he tells Thomas. He wants this group to have a better life, but knows that most of them won’t make it. That sense of determination and purpose, mixed with the pain we see in Brennan’s eyes, makes him a compelling character.

McGraw does a fine job as Dutton, a man determined to find his piece of the frontier and settle his family down. We were surprised that Hill, who has a few acting credits but we’ve never seen play anyone but herself before, does a good job as the equally strong Margaret, and not just in the scenes where the McGraw and Hill are together — though those scenes show the chemistry the longtime married couple have in real life.

We’re also excited about May, whose Elsa is the one whose voice we hear narrating parts of the episode. The show is mostly seen from her perspective, as she gets excited about the possibilities of exploring beyond the “edge of civilization,” as the voice over says. As we see in the flash-forward scene, she can more than hold her own, and she may end up being the one who really solidifies the Duttons’ presence in Montana.

If Sheridan can tighten the pacing going forward, he does have a compelling story on his hands. We have one other worry, though; how will he show the role of Indigenous people in this story? The flash forward first scene isn’t promising, showing them as the cliched image of bloodthirsty savages instead of people who are defending their land from being invaded and taken by white settlers. In 2021-22 it’s inexcusable to show the story of our westward push without dealing with the issue that the land our ancestors settled in wasn’t their land to take. Our hope is that Sheridan addresses this, and in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s just lip service.

Sex and Skin: Claire has women strip down to examine them for the journey, but that’s it.

Parting Shot: The Duttons meet Brennan and the German settlers by a lake; Elsa floats in the water, and Dutton has a look on his face that he’s ready to make a new life for his family.

Sleeper Star: Oliveri will be a wild card as Claire. She seems to be tougher on Margaret’s kids than Margaret is, but she also may not end up helping the family in the long run.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Dutton gives his condolences to Claire about her husband, she says, “You can’t believe in heaven, then be upset when people go there.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re concerned about the pacing of 1883 and how it depicts Indigenous people, but the story is compelling, and Sam Elliott’s multi-layered lead performance is more than enough to keep us interested.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream 1883 On Paramount+