The Michelle Pfeiffer series that will make you want to leave the city

BarcelonaAt a time when part of society feels it lives more in the online world than in the real world, a series that invites us to move away from worldly luxuries and return to the essence of things is almost aspirational. This is, in a way, the idea behind The Madison, a new series starring Michelle Pfeiffer, who in 2026 will have a very television-focused year as she also has another fictional series in her portfolio, Margot has money problems (AppleTV). In The Madison the actress plays a New Yorker who, following a family tragedy, moves with her daughters and granddaughters to the mountains and plains of Montana, a rural state that has nothing to do with her usual, completely urban environment. The series, which premieres this Friday on SkyShowtime, is the new television project of Taylor Sheridan, the Midas king of American television and responsible for the modernization of the western.

Stacy Clyburn's family is not only urban but also upper class. The standard of living they have and the education they have received makes it inconceivable for all of them not to live with the utmost comfort. In The Madison, Sheridan constructs a rather basic narrative in which city life represents everything that is wrong with the world, while returning to nature is the way to live a more connected and empathetic existence. The first episode of the six in the first season is an explicit homage to Robert Redford's film A River Runs Through It, set in Montana and centered on two brothers who share a passion for fly fishing taught to them by their father.

Throughout her career, Pfeiffer has had some roles on television, but it is a medium in which she has not been particularly prolific, even though her husband, David. E. Kelly, is a renowned series creator (he is responsible, among others, for Ally McBeal or Big Little Lies). In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she assures that The Madison came to her when she had long wished to return to television. However, the project was not exactly as she expected: when Sheridan contacted her, he had not yet written the story, and in fact, the script was not ready until four weeks before filming began.

Besides Pfeiffer, the other known face of the series is Kurt Russell, who plays the protagonist's husband. Despite having lived a good part of his life in the city, the man is a lover of Montana and has been insisting for years that the family visit his cabin, a request that no one pays attention to.

Who is Taylor Sheridan?

Despite Pfeiffer's initial reservations, Sheridan convinced the actress to participate in the series after inviting her to visit his ranch in Texas. The television creator is a true expert in recruiting big names from cinema for his series, which in many cases are interconnected. His first major television success was Yellowstone, very popular in the United States. Starring Kevin Costner, it narrated the Dutton family's war to defend their lands and their ranch, the largest in the country. Willing to continue exploiting the formula, Sheridan signed two spin-off series, 1883 and 1923, the latter starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. Many other series have followed, not all linked to the universe of Yellowstone, but in many cases set in Montana.

Sheridan is often identified as one of the creators of conservative America, a label he has rejected on several occasions. In 2022, in an interview with The Atlantic regarding Yellowstone, he stated that comments about the supposed conservatism of his series made him laugh. "The series [Yellowstone] talks about the displacement of Native Americans and how Native American women were treated, and corporate greed, gentrification of the West, and land appropriation. Is that a Republican series?", he asked. However, in The Madison there is a certain ridicule of progressive (or woke) vocabulary, used mainly by the protagonist's granddaughters.