The Madison (series): So far, so good

This might not captivate everyone but for me, seeing series or films with such stunning scenery that most people will likely never see with their own eyes is one of the main reasons why I have been enjoying this series so far.

I haven't been watching it long enough to know the true motivation behind the show, but thus far it shows the stark contrast between metropolitan city life and rural country life and how time slows down in the "sticks" while everything is fast-paced and frantic in the cities.

having lived in both scenarios I can tell you that both have their advantages and disadvantages but to see such stunning scenery in Montana really makes me want to go and visit there.

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When I first looked this one up, I thought it seemed quite a bit like Yellowstone and as it turns out it has something to do with that storyline as well although I haven't gotten to that part yet if it is even true.

It is also good to see Michelle Pfeiffer in a starring role again because if she has been active lately, I certainly didn't notice it.

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Michelle plays the role of Stacy Clyburn and her husband Preston (Kurt Russel) are happily married even though they appreciate different things in life. Stacy is a "city mouse" and Preston is a "country mouse." Preston frequently escapes the NYC life to go and visit his younger brother in rural Montana to go fly-fishing and live the quiet life away from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple.

Stacy supports his desire to get away from the city but doesn't ever share in his participation with it. One day she gets a call while at a social dinner that her husband has perished in a small plane accident while returning from an isolated and prestigious fishing spot that can only be accessed by horse or by landing with permission at a makeshift airfield. A storm catches the brothers off-guard and they crash the plane, killing them both.

That doesn't mean that Kurt is not in the series though, He is in quite a lot of it via flashback and Stacy visits the various places that Preston found to be so special and she starts to appreciate that which she previously found to be something she had no interest in.

Even if you don't get embedded in the story, you can kind of appreciate this sort of thing. Anyone that has ever "escaped from New York" (pun definitely intended) can attest to the fact that being somewhere quiet is really nice even if you have to forego thousands of restaurant and entertainment venues that are all kind of the same pretentious crap after a while anyway.

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most of the show that I have seen thus far has been about dealing with the loss of a loved one, but at the same time finding a way to get through that by experiencing something totally different and out of your wheelhouse and that is exactly what Stacy does in what little I have watched already.

Now I am sure that actually living in Montana is a lot different than what is shown in the series but I have to say, after watching a few of these and also the Yellowstone series in its entirety I start to have a feeling like I am living life wrong and would really like to at least have a try at experiencing the life that is portrayed in these series, even if they are a total work of fiction.

I have said it many times before but I will say it again: The scenery alone is reason enough to watch this series.

I don't know if the review-oriented world is just kind of tired of this sort of "country life is better than city life" sort of thing since most of them probably live in cities, but this has a rather unimpressive 6/10 rating overall across the major review sites. I think there is some bias in there for sure, but for me, I quite enjoyed it.

Should I watch it?

Compared to other series that focus on the immense beauty of this part of the world, this one doesn't have near as much action going on in it. There is no war between greedy developers and stoic legacy land-owners or Native American tribal rituals interspersed into the story. This is a story about overcoming grief in an unorthodox way that just happens to have a lot of fantastic scenery in it.

Since the primary focus of this show seems to be to try to pull at your heartstrings over and over again while actually, very little is actually happening, there is a large portion of the potential audience that will actually probably find it quite boring. I enjoyed it so far but will admit that I do find myself looking at my phone on a regular basis and this is normally a good sign (in my world) that there is a large percentage of the potential audience that is going to give up on it entirely due to the perception of inactivity.

Therefore I cannot whole-heartedly recommend this to everyone, even though I really enjoy it myself.

_{the only way to legally stream this at the moment is through a Paramount+ subscription}