A family at war with itself, a fierce succession battle, and jockeying for power over a sprawling cattle station — if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it sounds like Netflix has taken a page from the success of Paramount’s Yellowstone for one of its newest series. And while Territory, which hits the streaming giant later this month (on Oct. 24), obviously won’t have Kevin Costner on hand to play a grizzled family patriarch or Taylor Sheridan to lend his writing chops — the new show does have at least one secret weapon that I can see.
That would be Robert Taylor, the Australia-born actor who looked straight out of central casting for his role as a Wyoming lawman in Longmire. In Territory, he’s the John Dutton-esque Colin Lawson, owner of the largest cattle ranch in the world. It occupies an Australian Outbreak spread that Lawson rules with an iron fist as an empire unto itself.
In other words, this is not the Australia of babes and Bondi Beach. Territory, from creators Timothy Lee and Ben Davies, is set in (and was likewise filmed in) wild, desolate country that’s barely inhabited. To sort of put the show into perspective, consider the fact that Australia is roughly equivalent in size to the lower 48 US states, with a third of the population. Also, there are some property owners in the outback territory that have land holdings bigger than some countries.
“When Marianne Station is left without a clear successor,” Netflix explains about the cattle station at the heart of the six-episode Territory, “generational clashes threaten to tear the Lawson family apart. Sensing this once-great dynasty is in decline, the outback’s most powerful factions — rival cattle barons, desert gangsters, Indigenous elders, and billionaire miners — move in for the kill. With billions of dollars at stake, everyone wants a piece of the pie.”
After the death of Daniel Lawson, heir to the family’s cattle empire, Colin is forced to look for a new successor. His daughter-in-law is one choice, but Lawson unfortunately considers her a gold-digger, while her husband — who’s also Colin’s last surviving son — is an alcoholic. Meanwhile, vultures including a dangerous cattle baron and a scheming billionaire are circling.
All of which is to say, this neo-Western is basically Succession meets Bloodline meets Yellowstone, with a dynamite cast that also includes Anna Torv, who gives a bravura performance as Lawson’s daughter-in-law Emily.
Davies said in a promotional interview with Netflix that during a pandemic-era beach walk with Gibson, the two “got excited about the prospect of doing a big-scale, high-stakes action drama set on a cattle station; in a part of the country you don’t often see on-screen. It was a complete contrast as we were surrounded by the Bondi crowd, people moving past us in their active wear, wet suits, carrying their surfboards, while Rob and I were dreaming up stories about people in jeans, boots, and flannel shirts in the Top End.”
