Taylor Sheridan's Landman Couldn't Have Been Made By Anyone Else

2 hours ago 10

Mark Collie sitting down and looking up and off to the side in Landman season 2 episode 10

Published Apr 17, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Nick Bythrow is a Lead Writer for ScreenRant. He has been writing for the site since September 2022. He graduated from Hampshire College in 2022, where he triple majored in Journalism, Communications, and Media Studies. When he's not writing about TV and movies for ScreenRant and his blog, Frayed Branches, Nick is penning speculative fiction and poetry on Amazon. He lives outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Taylor Sheridan's 20-part neo-Western TV show sounds like it'd be boring, but the creator's approach proves it couldn't have been made by anybody else. Sheridan is best known for his Yellowstone TV shows, the popular Western franchise following the Dutton family and their generational history on the family's namesake ranch. It also includes sequel series Marshals and the upcoming Dutton Ranch.

But Sheridan's TV empire spreads far beyond the reaches of one franchise. He's also the creative mind behind a plethroa of shows on Paramount+, all of which have proven popular. This includes Tulsa King, Lioness, and The Madison, as well as the almost-finished Mayor of Kingstown and upcoming Tulsa King spinoff Frisco King. But one show stands out among the rest.

This would be Landman, Sheridan's TV series starring Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris, a landman for oil company M-Tex. The series focuses on Tommy's attempts to keep peace in the company's oil fields in West Texas, going up against everything from legal issues to criminal groups. He does so while holding together his fractured yet loving family.

Reviews for Landman have been mostly positive, with critics praising the cast, the approach to the story, and the grounded, realistic events that unfold. It's also become a top performer on Paramount+, with Landman season 3 getting renewed just weeks after season 2 began. But, without Sheridan at the helm, the series may not have been as successful as it is.

Landman's Premise Sounds Dull On Paper, But Taylor Sheridan Made It A Huge Hit

Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy smiling in Landman

At a glance, Landman doesn't have a very compelling premise. The idea of a show about the oil industry conjures images of business suits and legal conjecture, all of which would be a hard sell to anyone seeking an exciting TV show to watch. It would also signify a series that doesn't always focus on its characters, rather the industry it's bringing to the small screen.

Luckily, Sheridan manages to circumvent these problems by focusing on Landman's many characters more than any other attribute of the series. The show is carried by Thornton's Tommy, his wife, Angela (Ali Larter), and their kids, Ainsley (Michelle Rudolph) and Cooper (Jacob Lofland). Although the oil industry is the core of the story, so too is the Norris family.

Sheridan's approach makes the series feel less like a show about the oil industry, and more like a show that includes the oil industry in it. The biggest focus is on the Norris family and how the changes at M-Tex, from Tommy's problems to his position, impact them. It also gives his family members plenty to do, clarifying Landman is far from just an oil show.

Landman Is The Most Taylor Sheridan-y Of Taylor Sheridan's TV Shows

Even among the many TV shows Taylor Sheridan has created, Landman sticks out for having some of the most notable elements of his writing front-and-center. The biggest of these is a focus on characters, with Tommy and his family being the driving force behind their stories. This includes non-oil plotlines, too, like Ainsley adjusting to her new college.

In fact, what Landman does well is blend the higher focus of Tommy's work at M-Tex with the smaller, yet still compelling, storylines of everyone around him. This includes him weaving into events like Cooper's attempt to start his own oil business. It makes everything feel interconnected, even when some storylines aren't as direct, like the arrival of Tommy's father in season 2.

Tommy looking serious in Landman season 1 episode 9

If You Miss Taylor Sheridan's Landman, Watch This Great Netflix Western Series With 86% On Rotten Tomatoes

Taylor Sheridan's Landman is an impressive Western series, and audiences will love this Netflix Western that has a very similar tone and characters.

Sheridan also has a knack for always keeping events exciting. Nothing stays quiet for too long in Landman, be it a family scuffle or Tommy getting kidnapped by the cartel. There's never a dull moment in the neo-Western, which continually pushes forward with multifaceted stories about business, love, family, friendship, and, overall, the human condition at its apex.

Couple this with a no-nonsense Western focus, and Landman has everything it needs to remain a success for years to come. The show is one of Taylor Sheridan's best, offering plenty of drama and intriguing characters that turn a series about the oil industry into one about family and what it means to truly be alive.