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Taylor Sheridan‘s Paramount+ original series “1923,” starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, premiered this weeked. To watch the first episode, you can sign up for a Paramount+ account, with plans starting at $7.99/month.
The western series is a prequel to the Sheridan’s wildly successful “Yellowstone,” and portrays the realities of surviving in the wilderness — including the political and social atmosphere of the time period. According to the official logline, the “Yellowstone” prequel series follows “a new generation of Duttons led by patriarch Jacob (Ford) and matriarch Cara (Mirren),” and “explores the early 20th century, when pandemics, historic drought and the end of Prohibition all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home.”
Other cast members include Brandon Sklenar, Julia Schlaepfer, Jerome Flynn, Darren Mann, Brian Geraghty, Aminah Nieves and Michelle Randolph.
At the show’s premiere last week, Variety spoke about the themes of racism and systemic abuse with cast members, who said that Sheridan explores actual historical experiences in the plot.
“He’s willing to talk openly and honestly about real things and things that really happened to Indigenous people,” Dougie Hall said on the carpet. “He sheds light on a lot of that because I think in order to heal from stuff in the past, we need to acknowledge that it happened.”
In his review of the spin-off series, TV critic Joshua Halston writes that it “keeps a lot of plates spinning, consistent with Sheridan’s plot-forward style.”
“And who knows,” he continues, “maybe the show will falter despite its impressive cast. But the nice thing about Sheridan’s new business model is that if you don’t dig this particular flavor of “Yellowstone,” perhaps you’ll enjoy one of the next five.”
Stream “1923” below: