Before ‘Yellowstone,’ This Free-to-Stream 8-Season Western Was Already Doing Family Drama Better

Before ‘Yellowstone,’ This Free-to-Stream 8-Season Western Was Already Doing Family Drama Better Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) holding each other by the fence on Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2Image via Paramount Network By  Kelcie Mattson Published 47 minutes ago Kelcie Mattson is a Senior Features author at Collider. Based in the Midwest, she also contributes Lists, reviews, and television recaps. A lifelong fan of niche sci-fi, epic fantasy, Final Girl horror, elaborate action, and witty detective fiction, becoming a pop culture devotee was inevitable once the Disney Renaissance, Turner Classic Movies, BBC period dramas, and her local library piqued her imagination. Rarely seen without a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, Kelcie explores media history (especially older, foreign, and independent films) as much as possible. In her spare time, she enjoys RPG video games, amateur photography, and attending fan conventions with her Trekkie family. Sign in to your Collider account Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

The widespread success of Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone marked a resurrection for the small-screen Western, even though the genre never truly died. For audiences who are anxiously awaiting new episodes of the franchise's multiple ongoing spin-offs, a separate character-driven, family-centric Western saga — a 24-year-old one spanning eight seasons, no less — offers a variety of familiar comforts, albeit from a refreshingly different perspective. Created by Posie Graeme-Evans and Caroline Stanton, McLeod's Daughters is a landmark Australian classic with multiple award nominations and a devoted international following. Perhaps best of all, the full tale is now free to stream on Plex for U.S. audiences.

What Is 'McLeod's Daughters' About?

Claire and Tess McLeod smiling in McLeod's DaughtersImage via Nine Network

After Jack McLeod passes away from a heart attack, his titular daughters Claire (Lisa Chappell) and Tess (Bridie Carter) inherit half of his cattle station. Isolated deep within Southern Australia, Claire and Tess are the first McLeod women to own Drover's Run in generations. The siblings don't enjoy an auspicious start in any regard, however. For one, Jack's divorce from his second wife, Tess' mother, means the half-sisters have spent the last two decades physically and emotionally distant. Tess, a city girl through and through, wants nothing more than to claim her share of the inheritance money and race back to her comfortable life in Melbourne. Claire, having cut her teeth on the tough demeanor born-and-raised country life requires, convinces her baby sister to instead preserve and oversee their family's legacy together.

But first, the sisters need enough money to maintain the expansive property, let alone turn a profit. Enter three other local women: Meg Fountain (Sonia Todd), Drover’s Run's long-term housekeeper, her daughter Jodi (Rachael Carpani), who also happens to be Meg's secret love child from her extramarital affair with Jack, and Becky Howard (Jessica Napier), a pained young woman who desperately needs a safe and supportive community.

'McLeod's Daughters' Offers a Refreshingly Woman-Centric Perspective on Family, Ranch Life, and Rural Communities

McLeod's Daughters' main appeal — and its primary improvement over Yellowstone — lies in watching modern, empowered women simultaneously transform Drover's Run into a functioning ranch, carve out a place for themselves within the male-dominated industry (which honors the vital, unsung contributions of real women in rural farming communities), and create a shared home. As Claire and Tess tentatively repair their estrangement, all five women forge lifelong, selfless bonds of friendship and sisterhood, both literal and metaphorical. They uplift their wins, commiserate on their losses, and overcome internal conflict through a foundation of steadfast respect, communication, empathy, vulnerability, growth, and laughter. Ultimately, these women are survivors of abuse, grief, loss, and illness. As they strive to balance their personal and professional lives, they harness the freedom and the courage to chase their dreams — achieving the best, most passionate happy endings that their shared experiences can afford. Above all else, feminine resilience defines McLeod's Daughters' story.

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As for exterior adversity — tending to the crops, defending livestock from natural predators, financial devastation, ruinous weather — the Drover's Run crew protects one another through perseverance and determination. The Outback setting is a rough-and-tumble environment compared to comfortable city living, and therefore nothing to take lightly. Yet its aesthetics — horse-riding, cattle-wrangling, wide-brimmed hats, breathtaking panoramic shots highlighting Australia's natural beauty — will strike a chord with established Western fans and convey a sense of immersive adventure, risks aside.

'McLeod's Daughters' Beats 'Yellowstone' to the Punch as a Familial Western Melodrama

Certainly, McLeod's Daughters contains other life-or-death dramatic stakes; the series is technically a soap opera, and that isn't an insult. An argument can be made that Yellowstone, with all those cold-blooded murders, contentious feuds, impassioned betrayals, and politically slanted focuses on land ownership, counts as an overwrought family melodrama wrapped in primetime television trappings. McLeod's Daughters has many of the same flavorful hallmarks: criminals, kidnappers, betrayers, extortion schemes, perilous escapes from outlandish scenarios, and genuine heartbreak. Not to mention, those eight seasons house more than their fair share of sultry, slow-burning romances, sexy rebounds, the tragic ones that got away, and the triumph of true love.

That said, the series places just as high a value on depicting authentically complex and fleshed-out relationships, as well as the benefits of a small, complicated, yet tight-knit rural community that's portrayed with affection, not regressive clichés. As the series' 200-plus episodes unfold, the original core cast expands into an ensemble piece populated by Drover's Run neighbors, employees, business associates, and greedy enemies, all of whom mature until they enjoy as much long-term payoff as they do splendid chemistry. By and large, McLeod's Daughters avoids losing focus or unraveling its momentum during that generous runtime — a cursed fate that often befalls long-running dramas.

In its heyday, McLeod's Daughters was one of Australia's most popular dramas. Today, it remains an enduring cultural touchstone, a cult classic, and a beloved staple for audiences to discover through Plex. Yellowstone fans craving a new-to-them drama that treads in recognizable territory are in for an irresistible binge-watch that's fully worth the time investment.

McLeod's Daughters

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