Apple TV’s ‘Yellowstone’ Replacement Passes Major Streaming Milestone Despite Shock Cancellation

Apple doesn’t usually cancel high-profile dramas after a single season, but that’s exactly what it did recently with The Last Frontier, which debuted just last year. The neo-Western crime drama seemed to be one of the many recent projects that were designed to capitalize on the success of Taylor Sheridan‘s work. The Last Frontier earned mixed reviews and even topped Apple’s charts for several weeks following its debut in October. Somewhat surprisingly, the show continues to be among the streamer’s most-watched titles even after being axed. In fact, it passed a major milestone recently. According to FlixPatrol, The Last Frontier has spent over 100 days on Apple’s domestic viewership charts, where it jostled for space against several of the streamer’s hits.

This past week, Apple’s viewership charts were topped by the Idris Elba-led thriller Hijack, which was followed by Vince Gilligan‘s critically acclaimed sci-fi drama Pluribus, and the third season of the spy drama Tehran. Unlike each of those shows, which have earned consistently solid reviews, The Last Frontier is sitting at a 46% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator website’s consensus reads, “Squandering a crackerjack premise, The Last Frontier stretches on for too long to sustain momentum while also leaving its potential largely unexplored.” In his review, Collider’s Jeff Ewing wrote, “There has to be something special to set a project like this apart, and The Last Frontier finds it thanks to a memorable setting and a surprising set of twists.”

Jason Clarke Has Established His Towering Screen Presence

The show was headlined by Jason Clarke, who played a U.S. Marshal stationed in Alaska when a government plane crash results in the escape of a high-value CIA asset. Clarke has been a part of several major projects in the last decade, most notably Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, Matt Reeves‘ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty, and the ill-fated Terminator Genisys. He was joined in The Last Frontier by Haley Bennett, Dominic Cooper, Alfre Woodard, and Johnny Knoxville in an against-type role. Meanwhile, fans of Sheridan’s work can look forward to his two new Yellowstone spin-offs, The Madison and Marshals, or they can revisit his icy neo-Western Wind River, starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen.