The Madison: Season One - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Madison: Season One



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



AV NIRVANA is member and reader-supported. When you purchase an item using our links, we might earn an affiliate commission.
​

Movie
At this point, Taylor Sheridan has to be the hardest-working film/TV producer in Hollywood at this time, barely having time to sit down and eat dinner before he’s off working on his next project. Right now he’s basically the Andy Lau of the U.S. (Andy Lau has been dubbed the “hardest working actor in Hong Kong” after pumping out so many films his filmography dwarfs many other actors having acted in the same time frame). And while The Madison is set in Montana, like so many of his shows on Paramount+, this one takes a distinctly different tonal shift from his other outings. Cut out a lot of the action, the violence, and the brutal interpersonal drama, and move things towards an intimate story of grief, sadness, and moving on, and you end up with this.

When a horrible tragedy befalls the well-to-do Clyburn clan, matriarch Stacy Clyburn (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her daughters Abigail (Beaut Garrett) and Paige (Elle Chapman), along with their extended family, move from New York City out to rural Montana, where they set up shop and attempt to make a new life for themselves. And frankly, this isn’t your typical Taylor Sheridan show, with intrigue, violence,e and sex. Instead, ad this is an interpersonal drama as the Clyburn family faces their grief in their own way. The best way to describe this mini-series (or season) is one of emotional response, watching a slice-of-life drama unfold as a singular family deals with trauma in their own way, and works out for each one entirely differently.

And it is the case for responsive dramas dealing with pain: the acting is absolutely the focal point of the show, and the lynch pin for how the audience receives the story. And that is one area that Taylor Sheridan has always shined in. His casting choices are top-notch, and with both Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russel playing leads in the show, there is no chance that he chose wrong. I was a bit leery of the show going in, as I trust Sheridan’s modern outlaw westerns and his crime dramas, but something akin to Clint Eastwood’s Bridges of Madison County was something I wasn’t sure how well he’d handle. But thankfully the show is a very solid watch with some minor caveats.

While I described the show as a “human response drama” where the whole family deals with the tragedy in their own way, the real focus of the show is on Stacy Clyburn and Preston Clyburn (Kurt Russell), who is dead in the first episodes. But in typical Sheridan fashion, the death is not made into a huge spectacle. And instead of being a footnote in the show, he is actually one of the most important characters IN the show, as the reason for his death, and just how much of a double life he lived, is told through flashbacks, mementos, pictures, and memories as Stacy remembers her departed husband. All the while learning about his life and just what made him tick, despite having supposedly known him so well. Michelle told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview, “The whole show is about a woman discovering her husband after he’s gone, and discovering that she didn’t know him as well as she thought”.

Again, I wasn’t sure how this would work, but I ended up enjoying The Madison way more than I ever expected. I like dramas, and I like romances, but this felt a little TOO Bridges of Madison County to me, and I went in with a hesitant mind. But the results speak for themselves, with great performances by Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, with some excellent supporting roles from Beau Garrett and Patrick J. Adams. The series isn’t PERFECT, and sometimes dips into melodrama, but overall the season is a great dramatic twist to Sheridan’s usual fare.

​

Rating:

Rated TV-MA by the MPAA




Video:
The 1080p 2-disc set (not bad for 6 episodes, gives the disc room to shine with a nice high bit rate) looks great, with the trademark photography style of Sheridan on full display. The image is high yield, with a great-looking view of the Montana wilderness, as well as the more blue-tinged look given to New York City itself. Fine details range from good to downright amazing when the family is out in Montana, while still maintaining a tight and clean look in the digital production. I don’t see any major (or minor, really) signs of banding or crush, though I do feel the skin tones can look a bit overly bronzed in my opinion. Colors are rich and full, with mahogany rocking chairs, the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser, or the wheat-like grass out in the boonies. Honestly, this is a near-perfect encode and very much a demo disc all the way around.





Audio:
What surprised me the MOST out of the entire package is the use of a Dolby Atmos track for this show. I wasn’t expecting it, but I was most certainly pleasantly surprised. The show is not going to be a wildly active one that makes full use of every angle at every time, but it's more of a nuanced drama and makes good use of the surround and overheads with minor ambient sounds in the wide open spaces. The plane roars overhead with some power, and LFE is used judiciously for the score and musical cues throughout. It’s not an over-the-top active mix, but the use of the object-oriented encoding allows for an airy and very breezy-sounding mix that does everything right, even though it may not be an overly active type.







Extras:
•

Final Score: ​

Fans expecting another Yellowstone or Marshals may be in for a bit of a shock with this one, as they might be expecting a far different type of series, knowing what type of shows Sheridan has put out in the past. But getting past that little bit of “culture shock”, the series is sweet and endearing, giving us a look into a complicated marriage and a complicated life for one family. The Blu-ray release from Paramount is solid, with good video and audio, but sadly zero extras whatsoever. Leaving me to give this a solid thumbs up, and a cautious optimism for the future of the show. Supposedly the series has been given the green light for a 2nd and 3rd season, but I’m just hoping they don’t drive the show into true melodrama as Yellowstone did, and keep the intensity of this first season going.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Fox, Patrick J. Adams, Beau Garrett, Amiah Miller
Created by: Taylor Sheridan
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French
Rated: TV-MA
Runtime: 327 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 6th, 2026

Recommendation: Solid Watch