Netflix’s New 7-Part Action Thriller Holds The Key To Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone Future

A seven-season action thriller arriving on Netflix this August holds the key to Taylor Sheridan’s rapidly expanding Yellowstone franchise, in the shape of its two most important figures behind the scenes. The series in question debuted on CBS back in September 2017, and is now available to stream in full on Paramount+, too.

Less than two years after it ended, SEAL Team has provided the key names behind the shows continuing Yellowstone’s legacy for Taylor Sheridan. With Marshals season 2 just around the corner, we have one person to thank more than anyone else for the success of the show’s first season.

Writer and producer Spencer Hudnut scripted SEAL Team’s series finale, and was involved in 112 of its 114 episodes, before moving into the role of creator and showrunner for the first time with Yellowstone’s first spinoff. Meanwhile, SEAL Team creator Benjamin Cavell has been tapped by Sheridan to take over the running of Dutton Ranch.

In both cases, it was their contributions to the long-running military drama on CBS that persuaded the originator of the Yellowstone franchise to install them as his lieutenants, marshaling the shows that are keeping the Dutton name alive. In the coming weeks, Netflix subscribers will be able to see what he saw in both Hudnut and Cavell.

SEAL Team Is Arriving On Netflix This August

Pablo Arellano Spataro / Paramount+

Starring Angel actor David Boreanaz as US Navy SEAL team leader Jason Hayes, SEAL Team will be released on Netflix for the first time on August 18. The show started out on CBS before moving to Paramount+, and hasn’t been available to watch for free on any other major streaming platform before.

SEAL Team follows the exploits of Bravo Team, a squad within the elite SEAL unit United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, within the US Navy. This team is tasked with carrying out special military operations at a moment’s notice, with its soldiers placing themselves in more extreme danger than most other combat personnel are expected to face.

The series doesn’t just depict how highly skilled and expertly trained these soldiers are. It also lets us get to know them as people, and portrays the toll their service takes on the families and friends they leave back at home.

Arguably the most complete dramatic rendering about elite military combat in modern-day warfare ever produced, SEAL Team has its limitations when it comes to imaginative storytelling, but feels just about as authentic as contemporary war dramas can get. The show doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it presents us with a true picture of special ops in the US Armed Forces.

Taylor Sheridan Recruited Both Current Yellowstone Showrunners From SEAL Team

Paramount (via MovieStillsDb)

In some respects, SEAL Team feels like the kind of TV series that Taylor Sheridan himself could have come up with, as it shares visual, tonal, and thematic similarities with his own military-oriented action spy thriller Lioness. Either way, it’s certainly a project he admires, because he’s now hired arguably its two most important figures behind the camera.

It was Rip Wheeler actor Cole Hauser who first suggested to Sheridan that SEAL Team’s creator and head writer Benjamin Cavell be Dutton Ranch’s new showrunner. By that stage, Spencer Hudnut, who produced almost all of SEAL Team’s episodes and wrote 27 of them, had already developed Yellowstone’s first spinoff, Marshals.

Hudnut has written three episodes of this Western crime drama about Kayce Dutton, too. We should also expect Cavell to be leading the writing process for Dutton Ranch season 2, although Taylor Sheridan himself apparently wants to be more directly involved in Rip Wheeler and Beth Dutton’s next chapter this time around.

In any case, the fate of these two spinoff series – and, indeed, of the whole Yellowstone franchise – is now in the hands of the two writer-producers primarily responsible for SEAL Team. Taylor Sheridan fans should be flocking to Netflix this August, to see what awaits their favorite characters in the coming years.

Release Date

2017 – 2024-00-00

Directors

Jason Cabell

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