A Taylor Sheridan Favorite Officially Returns With a Wild New Western Series

3 days ago 33

Published Oct 25, 2026, 6:45 PM EDT

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

Taylor Sheridan built his television empire on the back of some modern fictional Western icons, like the Dutton family of Yellowstone fame and Billy Bob Thornton's Tommy Norris in Landman. However, one of his best-reviewed series starred a real historical figure who broke ground in the Old West. Created by Chad Feehan with Sheridan as an executive producer, Lawmen: Bass Reeves followed the rise of the titular Bass Reeves, played by David Oyelowo, as he established himself as one of the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshals west of the Mississippi. It introduced Paramount+ subscribers to the legendary gunslinger's relatively untold story of how he rose from enslavement to lead a legendary career with over 3,000 arrests to his name.

Despite plenty of acclaim as the show became Paramount+'s most-watched global premiere in 2023, there's been no movement on a second season of the Lawmen series in the years since. Even if it were to continue, Reeves would be left behind in favor of exploring another Old West enforcer through an anthology format. Yet, his story is far from over. Not long after Netflix brought Lawmen: Bass Reeves to its catalog, the streamer is about to release a complete reimagining of the legend that's unlike any depiction of the deputy marshal before.

Tuesday, November 3 will mark the arrival of Bass X Machina, leaving less than two weeks until the eight-episode sci-fi Western kicks off. Starring Academy Award nominee Brian Tyree Henry, the latest addition to Netflix's adult animation slate drops Reeves into the middle of a version of the West that's even more dangerous. Instead of being a marshal, this Bass is a bounty hunter with a prosthetic arm, acting as "judge, jury, and executioner" in a steampunk world where it's not just outlaws, but mechanical menaces and supernatural forces wreaking havoc. He's called upon by his government for a special mission to stop the resurrection of the Confederacy, but in every action of justice he takes to make the world safer for his family, he inadvertently risks jeopardizing everyone he aims to protect.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Western Icon Are You Most Like? No Name · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross

Pick your name, your gun, your horse and how you spend a night in town, and we will tell you which legend of the Old West you would have been. Four icons are waiting at the end of this: the stranger who never gives his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawman who never wanted the badge, and the girl nobody has ever talked out of anything.

🚬No Name(Dollars Trilogy)

🃏Doc Holliday(Tombstone)

⭐Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)

🐎Mattie Ross(True Grit)

FIND YOUR ICON →

The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you? In a Western, what people call you is already half the character.

AThey never do find it out, so the stranger will have to do. BA nickname I picked up at a card table and never shook off. CMarshal, and most people say it with a bit of respect. DMy full name, and I will correct anybody who tries to shorten it.

NEXT QUESTION →

What are you carrying? Everything out here is character, right down to what is sitting on your hip.

AOne revolver I have had for years and have never once talked about. BA pistol, a knife and a deck of cards, and the cards do most of the damage. CA shotgun, because it tends to end arguments rather than start them. DMy father's gun, which is far too big for me, and I am carrying it anyway.

NEXT QUESTION →

What are you riding? A hero and their horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.

ASomething plain that nobody in town would look at twice. BWhatever I won last night, which may not be strictly mine yet. CA big steady horse that will not spook when things get loud. DA pony I overpaid for and named myself, and I will hear nothing against him.

NEXT QUESTION →

You have got one evening in town. How does it go? The saloon is where these films quietly tell you who somebody really is.

AOne drink at the far end of the bar with my back to the wall. BAt the card table, holding court, up forty dollars and climbing. CA quick drink, then a walk round town to see that everything is quiet. DUpstairs with the ledger, working out exactly what tomorrow is going to cost.

NEXT QUESTION →

A stranger offers you money for a job that sounds like trouble. Somebody always turns up with a full purse and a bad idea.

AI ask how much, and then I ask for a good deal more than that. BI say yes before he has finished, mostly because it sounds like a story. CI ask him who gets hurt if I turn him down. DI ask for the terms in writing before anybody shakes on anything.

NEXT QUESTION →

Somebody is waiting for you in the street. What does the town see? Two people, an empty road, and everybody else watching from behind the shutters.

ASomebody walking out very slowly who has not said a single word. BSomebody grinning, which everyone watching finds deeply unnerving. CSomebody making one last attempt to talk the other man down. DSomebody far too young to be out there, walking out regardless.

NEXT QUESTION →

What is the one thing you will not do out here? The code is about the only thing west of the river that actually holds.

AExplain myself to somebody who has not earned an explanation. BRide off and leave a friend standing out there on his own. CLet a whole town pay for a fight it had nothing to do with. DLet a grown man tell me I am too young to be standing here.

NEXT QUESTION →

The job is finished. Where does the story leave you? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your icon.

AOn a ridge somewhere, riding away, without saying goodbye to anybody. BSomewhere warm and worn out, having enjoyed very nearly all of it. CHome, with the badge on the table and the whole thing behind me. DOlder, changed by it, and telling this story for the rest of my life.

REVEAL MY ICON →

The Dust Has Settled Your Western Icon Is…

Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble. This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.

The Man With No Name

You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to, because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room without you ever having to mention it.

Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.

Doc Holliday

You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two things were in any tension.

Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it, which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the handful of people you actually care about.
Val Kilmer's performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.

Wyatt Earp

You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most Western reason there has ever been.

Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who is exposed rather than who is to blame.
These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.

Mattie Ross

Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.

Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you turn up exactly when you said you would.
True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen and every adult around her has to catch up.
You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of you.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Who Joins Henry in the Old West of 'Bass X Machina'

If the trailers are any indication, Bass X Machina, like Lawmen, will put the bounty hunter's identity as a family man front and center, acknowledging the weight of his work. Studio Mir, which most recently collaborated with Netflix on Adi Shankar's Devil May Cry adaptation, is handling the animation. Ten-time Grammy nominee Janelle Monáe both sings the opening theme and voices Reeves' wife, Glory, joining Tati Gabrielle, who plays his unlikely companion, Dana Starr, a young, starry-eyed aspiring engineer who joins the fight alongside him. The rest of the cast features Cree Summer as Ahni, Chaske Spencer as Lighthorse, Currie Graham as Rivenbark, and Starletta DuPois as Etta.

Bass X Machina premieres on Netflix on November 3. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on all the biggest titles coming to streaming throughout the year.