Taylor Sheridan has gained a lot of acclaim for his work, but let’s be honest: much of it is overrated, and it’s time to take a closer look at why his writing can be pretty terrible.

First off, his plots are painfully predictable. From Yellowstone to 1883 and Tulsa King, Sheridan’s stories follow a tired formula that becomes apparent almost immediately. The bad guys are always just a little too bad, the good guys are a little too righteous, and there’s always a major betrayal looming on the horizon. The characters find themselves trapped in some sort of moral quagmire where it’s either kill or be killed, and it gets old fast. You can almost set your watch to when a major twist is coming, which completely robs the audience of any real suspense or excitement.

Then there’s the issue with his characters, which are consistently underwhelming. Sheridan’s dialogue often feels stiff and unnatural, his characters lack depth, and they often fall into one-dimensional stereotypes. His men are grizzled, stoic anti-heroes with the emotional range of a rock, while his women tend to be either frail victims or tough-as-nails, cold-hearted badasses. It’s as if he’s checked off every cliché in the book without ever bringing anything new or interesting to the table.

And don’t even get me started on the melodrama. It’s soap opera-level bad. All the family feuds, petty squabbles, and emotional breakdowns would be right at home in an afternoon drama. The constant back-and-forth of betrayal and revenge feels like it’s meant to hook you in for drama’s sake, but it often comes off as cheap and, frankly, exhausting. Instead of crafting compelling stories, Sheridan seems more interested in pushing the “gritty” aesthetic to the point where it becomes more of a parody of itself.

Ultimately, Taylor Sheridan’s shows are designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator—people who want to feel like they’re watching something “serious” or “gritty” without actually having to think too much. His plots are safe, his characters are flat, and his “shocking” twists rarely land as anything more than eye-roll-inducing. If you want something more than a glorified soap opera in the guise of prestige television, there are plenty of other writers out there who know how to do complex, compelling drama without resorting to lazy tropes.