NEW YORK — In an effort to keep up with the arms race of increasingly complex extended media universes, Paramount+ executives announced a slate of new programming for the streaming platform, including Yellowstone 2099, the fourth planned spinoff of the popular long-running western drama series.
“The history of the American West is a goldmine for character driven dramas like Yellowstone, but we can only go back in time so far with the Dutton family lineage before the narratives we can tell become totally un-relatable to modern audiences,” said Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan. “So, instead, the next series will take place in the far-future 77th state of Nueva Montana in 2099. You’ll still enjoy the thrill of the same high-stakes vigilante violence, but without any of the creative boxing-in by modern politics or guilty re-reckoning with manifest destiny. Instead, viewers can look forward to the cyborg cattle-centaur descendent of John Dutton battling mutant Californian gentrifiers. Coming next Summer!”
Fans of the series say they’re excited to see what new twists await the Neo-Duttons, but hoped that the new futuristic reprise would not forget its roots.
“I binged all of the original Yellowstone in a week, so yeah, I’m obviously excited for another spinoff,” said Paramount+ focus group participant Luke Fellows. “I got to sit in a big conference room at Viacom and they showed us a few episodes from ‘99, and while they were pretty good, I still felt like something was missing. Like, even though Beth Dutton’s brain is in a robot piloting an unstoppable killing machine, how does this connect back to the family’s historical conflicts with the Native Americans? I’m pretty sure you can still do a slow burn family drama set against a western backdrop with badass dropships instead of horses, it might just take a few seasons to refine. I’m willing to stick around and find out!”
While the hype around the new spinoff has grown exponentially, television industry veterans have growing concerns about the integrity of quickly-expanding narrative universes,
“It’s been stressful enough with platforms giving series orders to prequel after prequel, especially when we’re already not sure how much more story we can squeeze out of elitist, sociopathic ranchers in bumfuck, USA,” said Yellowstone script assistant Lindsey Jones. “All I remember is some suit came into the writer’s room last week and wrote “CYBERPUNK YELLOWSTONE” on a whiteboard and left. I’ve had to do a lot of googling about cybernetic implants, but hopefully this should buy us some time for a season or three while we cast a reboot of the original Yellowstone to start all over again.”
Following the announcement, Paramount teased plans for another upcoming alternate-timeline series called Yellowstone: What Would Happen?, an animated spin-off show kicking off with a premiere episode in a reality where cattle are the dominant species and people are livestock.
