You Are Not Prepared for How Much Territory Is Australian Yellowstone

The Australian Western is a genre with a rich history. The first full-length narrative feature film ever made, 1906's The Story of the Kelly Gang, was an Australian Western. Aussie Westerns share many themes with American Westerns, as the Australian Outback and the American West have a lot in common, like conflict between settlers and Indigenous people, a ranching industry, and a dangerous but beautiful natural environment. Australian Westerns have often drawn stylistic influence from their Hollywood-produced counterparts, but rarely as directly as Territory, a new Netflix series that is obviously trying to be the Australian equivalent of Yellowstone. Territory borrows so much from Taylor Sheridan's neo-Western megahit that it's practically an homage. If it took any more, it might constitute copyright infringement. 

If you're a fan of Yellowstone, I unfortunately cannot recommend Territory as something else you might enjoy. But I can recommend watching it as a fascinating vision of what Yellowstone would look like in a different country, and as a potential blueprint for a new phase of Netflix's quest for global domination.

Territory is an ensemble family drama about the Lawsons, who control Marianne Station, the largest cattle station — the Australian term for ranch — in the world. In the pilot, it's described as the size of Belgium, which means it's even bigger than Yellowstone's Dutton Ranch, which is only the size of Rhode Island. Patriarch Colin Lawson (Robert Taylor, best known for Longmire, one of TV's shows most like Yellowstone), a real mean bastard, has two sons, Daniel (Jake Ryan), who runs the station, and Graham (Michael Dorman, star of Joe Pickett, another show like Yellowstone), an alcoholic screwup whom he treats with contempt. Graham is married to Emily (Anna Torv), an ambitious and highly competent manager whom Colin doesn't like because she's an outsider and a woman. Graham and Emily have a daughter named Susie (Philippa Northeast), who has dropped out of college to come work on the station. Graham also has a son from his first marriage named Marshall (Sam Corlett), who turned his back on the family and has fallen in with some small-time crooks but returns after Daniel dies from falling off his horse and getting mauled by dingoes (seriously). Daniel's death plunges the family into a succession crisis. Sensing weakness, enemies swoop in to try to take their land, including rival ranchers, local gangsters, mining company executives, and Aboriginal community leaders. From there, the series follows the Lawsons as they fight outside threats and each other for control of their legacy. 

This will all sound very familiar to Yellowstone fans, but the similarities go beyond general premises and themes and into specifics. The character analogues are very close — Colin is a hard and uncompromising patriarch like John Dutton (Kevin Costner), though he's meaner than John is; Graham is constantly seeking and never receiving his father's approval, like Jamie (Wes Bentley); Marshall is a long-haired prodigal son, like Kayce (Luke Grimes). There's no one exactly like Rip (Cole Hauser) and Beth (Kelly Reilly), but Emily has some similarities with Rip in that she married into the family and is great at managing day-to-day operations, though she does something to Graham that Rip would never do to Beth. The death of the son who's most involved with the business happens in the pilot of both shows. And both pilots involve Indigenous people claiming ownership of cattle and the white rancher disputing it. The costumes are similar — Western wear that often has the ranch's logo emblazoned on it — as is the sense of rural peril (if there were dingoes in Montana, someone on Yellowstone would surely get killed by them). The score has sweeping strings that sound like Yellowstone's, and the jargon-heavy, profane, declarative dialogue sounds like Yellowstone's, too. Taylor Sheridan wouldn't use a mixed metaphor like "We're top of the food chain because we keep the lights on for the entire world," but he would use that sentiment. 

Territory of course has many differences from Yellowstone, too; the plot diverges substantially from where Yellowstone goes in Episode 2, it's more straightforward and less philosophical than Yellowstone, and if anything, the family dynamics are even more dysfunctional. The deeper into Territory you go, the less it feels like Yellowstone. But that pilot is like watching Yellowstone in a dream.

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I wouldn't use the word "shameless" to describe Territory's pulling from Yellowstone, because that implies that the producers should be ashamed, which they shouldn't be. It's smart business to attempt a regional "our version" of a hit show from elsewhere. And the Australian specifics are the most interesting part of Territory. Like on Yellowstone, many of the most enjoyable scenes on Territory are the moments when the narrative pauses to just observe cowboys doing cowboy stuff, and they do things differently Down Under. The jargon is different — "muster" instead of "roundup," "mob" instead of "herd," etc. — and they ride ATVs and Mad Max cars instead of horses. It's filmed in the Northern Territory and South Australia, which are some of the most isolated places on Earth, so it's impressive and unusual to watch something filmed there. For American viewers, Territory is a cool way to learn about a corner of the world that's more similar to America than you might realize. It's a great example of how Netflix offers the opportunity to discover international television with an intentionality that other streaming services don't provide.

Netflix has been experimenting with different types of regional variations of its scripted shows for years — Spanish superhit Money Heist got a Korean adaptation, for example, and it feels like every country has its own version of a Netflix-signature supernatural teen drama — but Territory feels like something new for the service. As far as I can tell, it's the first time Netflix has done a brazen international knockoff of someone else's hit show. There's no Brazilian Game of Thrones or Norwegian Suits, but there is now an Australian Yellowstone. This is notable because Netflix is not in business with Taylor Sheridan, and has not produced an American soapy, high-end neo-Western family drama of its own (though it does have two traditional Western shows in the works, Peter Berg's American Primeval and Kurt Sutter's The Abandons). Netflix's global reach means it can outsource its mildly disreputable experiments to far-flung outposts of its empire and see if they catch on. Maybe if Territory works, we'll see more Yellowstone-esque shows from all over the world. Would you watch Piedra Amarilla about Argentinian gauchos, or a spaghetti Western Pietra Gialla? However they decide to do it, the neo-Western family drama is a Hollywood genre that's ripe for further picking, domestically and abroad. In the meantime, if you want to watch Yellowstone on Netflix, Territory is as close as you're going to get. 

Territory is now streaming on Netflix.