'The Madison' review: Michelle Pfeiffer costars with a Montana river

WHAT IT'S ABOUT New York billionaire Preston Clyburn (Kurt Russell) and his brother Paul ("Lost's" Matthew Fox — in a rare TV role) get together every year to fly fish near Paul's cabin in remote Montana, on the nearby Madison River (this was filmed on the real Madison, which rises in Yellowstone National Park to the south). But when a family tragedy strikes, Preston's wife Stacy (Michelle Pfeiffer), her adult daughters, Abigail (Beau Garrett), sister Paige (Elle Chapman) and her husband Russell (Patrick J. Adams) leave New York City for Montana to deal with it. Stacy, a self-described "city mouse," is not particularly fond of the Great Outdoors, but just a few hours near those mountains, and under that sky, begins to change her. It helps that neighbors like rancher Cade Harris (Kevin Zegers) and the local constabulary, Van Davis (Ben Schnetzer) are so attentive.

This short-run series from Taylor Sheridan has no ties to the "Yellowstone" universe.

MY SAY "The Madison" is about a grieving family, and how the land — or this land in particular — can bind its wounds. Land doesn't usually do that, except this land on this show does. A quick glance (or, in "The Madison," a few long, lingering ones) explains how:

A river runs through the particular stretch below Paul and Preston's cabin, braiding islands and shoals on its way north. The valley beyond is framed by sky and mountains — big sky, big mountains, or the Gravellys to the west, the more dramatic Madison range to the east. Not a human in sight, except a couple of brothers casting their rods.

This is the sort of idyll that comes to mind when you close your eyes and think "Montana," or better yet, "Yellowstone," Sheridan's monster hit that otherwise bears no resemblance to this somber, moody — at times beautiful, at others leaden — six-parter.

Along with Pfeiffer (who's quite good too), land is the big star here, and fans of "Yellowstone" know exactly why. This land, after all, is about heritage, legacy, identity and survival. It's the last bulwark against modern American life, or at least against invading Californians. To be out here — under this sky and by this river, and those mountains — is to be free. There's purity in these wide-open spaces, room to think, room to heal.

If all this sounds hopelessly hokey — and there are stretches in "The Madison" where it irredeemably is — then you'll want to do something else with your Saturday night. Otherwise, there's beauty here, some nice performances  and a welcome pivot away from the mayhem of "Yellowstone." Sheridan dedicates the pilot to Robert Redford whom he first recruited to play the role of John Dutton on "Yellowstone" (before the network inexplicably demanded another lead, and Kevin Costner stepped in). That dedication feels heartfelt. 

"The Madison" lands with a thud when it heads back to the city by another river (the Hudson) to a Manhattan no Manhattanite would recognize, viewed through a keyhole into a world the One Percent comfortably occupy. This is by intention — recall Dutton's battles against New York-based developers, or the time he called Montana "the rich man's plaything, New York's novelty, California's tool."

New Yorkers are the carpetbaggers who would despoil Madison and Montana. But "The Madison" is about a family of One Percent New Yorkers who realize why that must never happen. Nice message. Nice show too, if you can bear the melodrama.

BOTTOM LINE The Madison River is the star, and she (it?) does not squander her close-up.