FIRST, THERE WAS THE GOOD NEWS. MULTIHYPHENATE TAYLOR SHERIDAN WROTE THE FIRST script for 1883, a proposed prequel to his phenomenally popular Paramount Network drama Yellowstone, then submitted it to the brass at Viacom/CBS — and almost immediately got the green light to start producing a series for the streaming service Paramount Plus.
Naturally, Sheridan was greatly pleased, and promised to start filming in early 2022, after he completed work on 2021 episodes of Yellowstone and another Paramount Plus project, The Mayor of Kingstown. That’s when he got the bad news. It was April 2021 — and Viacom/CBS wanted 1883 ready to start airing by the following December.
Talk about crunch time.
At the December gala premiere of the first two 1883 episodes at Wynn Las Vegas, Sheridan recalled the sometimes, ahem, spirited back-and-forth he had with Viacom/CBS executive Keyes Hill-Edgar after being given the series order. And unlike many of the foul-mouthed characters on his series, who routinely launch fusillades of F-bombs at each other, he discreetly substituted a less objectionable word for a more familiar one when reporting the exec’s throw-down: “Look, we are betting the house on this, and we are trucked if you don’t do it. We’re paying you a lot of trucking money, so you trucking figure it out!”
“Here, there can be no mistakes. Because here doesn’t care. The
