What the Hell Is This Kevin Costner Yellowstone Nature Show?
Whenever I hear Kevin Costner and Yellowstone used in the same sentence, my desk is on full alert. Usually, the Horizon director is out in the world dissing the final season of the hit Taylor Sheridan show or pretending that he doesn’t care about Sheridan writing his character off the series. But this? I don’t even know where to begin. John Dutton is rolling in his grave, because Costner is back in Yellowstone for a new nature-documentary series.
In the first teaser shown to press for the upcoming Fox Nation project, titled Yellowstone to Yosemite with Kevin Costner, the former Yellowstone actor is seen mumbling to himself while hiking around the picturesque wilderness. “I didn’t set out to change America,” he grumbles, “but that’s what ended up happening.” I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. I thought viewers would watch Costner narrate some shots of snakes fighting or cow herding, but this just looks like an outdoor podcast. Short of opening each episode with “Hey guys, welcome to my channel,” Yellowstone to Yosemite is essentially Costner vlogging in Yellowstone National Park.
According to Fox Nation, the upcoming series is a historical “voyage.” Per the show’s official logline, Costner will explore “the region’s rich Indigenous American legacy, the serendipitous arrival of outsiders in 1850, and how John Muir evolved into a crusader for our wildest places.” That’s not all. Costner will also touch on “how Roosevelt’s intervention culminated in the establishment of a more structured National Park System, the creation of 150 National Forests, 5 National Parks, and the preservation and protection of 230 million acres of precious land.”
The three-part limited series—which premieres 8 February—is a follow-up to his previous project for Fox Nation, titled Yellowstone: One-Fifty. If Yellowstone to Yosemite is anything like his prior series, the Ken Burns–style documentary will blend tales of American history and wildlife with random Costner diatribes.
In the first episode of Yellowstone One-Fifty, Costner bounced from your typical nature-documentary material—like a wolf hunting its prey, or a bear hibernating in the winter—to a personal fireside chat with the viewer. No sweeping, orchestral score. Just the campfire, Costner’s voice, and the soothing sounds of a meandering river. I was instantly reminded of Jeff Bridges’s mindfulness podcast, Sleeping Tapes, in which the actor whispers to you until you fall asleep. Yellowstone to Yosemite feels unintentionally like Costner’s own Sleeping Tapes.
“Sometimes I think about the spirit of the great explorers,” Costner says. “What it takes to be the first to do something, to journey into the unknown…” Yeah, Kevin. Far out.
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