With its dark door framing of a cowboy’s silhouette with a sunny mountain range in the distance, the opening shot of the teaser trailer for 1923, the second sister show to Paramount’s ultra-popular series, Yellowstone, immediately recalls the iconic final scene in the John Ford 1956 western classic, The Searchers. It’s a fitting shot to begin with as the brief teaser sets up an epic prohibition-era prequel with a quick montage of action-filled moments that are sure to whet viewer’s appetite’s for the series premiere on December 18, 2022, on Paramount+.

The 30-second spot for the limited series from showrunner Taylor Sheridan, which is billed as “a Yellowstone origin story,” was released during the fifth-season premiere of Yellowstone and heavily highlights the A-list leads Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as Jacob and Cara Dutton, the head of an early 20th-century generation of the Dutton family.

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The 1923 Teaser Trailer Heats Up with Western Action Aplenty

     Paramount+

After the stirring opening shot, we hear a woman’s voice say, “Violence has always haunted this family,” as shots of moving herds of sheep, a cowboy played by Darren Mann on the ground frantically reaching for his gun, soldiers marching to war, and Ford reacting to something off-screen while riding a horse flash by. “It followed us from the Scottish highlands to the slums of Dublin,” the trailer’s narrator continues.

“It followed us here, pray that if it doesn’t fall,” she sinisterly states, “we hunt it down – we seek it,” as more glimpses of boisterous and menacing activity, whether in glaring daylight or scary darkness, bombard with the orchestral accompaniment to culminate in a gunshot that reveals the shows branded title card: “1923: A Yellowstone Origin Story” atop a stained piece of woodgrain.

In Paramount+’s synopsis for the highly anticipated series, the show will explore “the early 20th century, when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition, and the Great Depression all plague the Mountain West, and the Duttons who call it home.” There will be ample time for the Yellowstone prequel series to tackle these weighty eras as 1923 has already been renewed for season 2, with 1923 set to last for two seasons, eight episodes each.

Identified in the teaser as Academy Award winner Helen Mirren and Academy Award nominee Harrison Ford, the two leads, working together for the first time, are given a number of dramatic shots showing them in close-ups or engaged in action. Mirren, who won the Oscar for Peter Morgan’s The Queen (2006), and Ford, who was nominated for Peter Weir’s Witness (1985), look to be the series’ big draws.

The rest of the cast, including Sebastian Roché, Darren Mann, Michelle Randolph, James Badge Dale, Marley Shelton, Brian Geraghty, Aminah Nieves, Julia Schlaepfer, Brandon Sklenar, and Robert Patrick, certainly make up a strong ensemble. Still, no other name matches Ford and Mirren’s star power.

The Fleeting Glimpses of New Characters and Violence

The other draw presented in the teaser is the action depicted in the gunfights and brawls broadcast over the immaculately scenic backdrops. Unidentified in the preview spot but featured throughout is the threat of the rival ranchers, “the sheep men.” We see Ford and Mirren with rifles while engaged with unseen forces. The blood on Cara’s head in a close-up most stirs intrigue in what is going down.

Also, with rifles and engaged in violent activity are the aforementioned images of soldiers going into battle in World War I. A close-up of a soldier, most likely Brandon Sklenar as Spencer Dutton, makes a quick impression as it suggests that the show features foundational flashbacks. This will also strengthen the connection to 1883, as Spencer is the son of James and Margaret Dutton, respectively played by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in the first prequel series.

The teaser also features a few shots of James Badge Dale as John Dutton Sr., the right-hand man of Jacob Dutton. Also unidentified in the preview is John’s wife, Emma Dutton, played by Marley Shelton, and his son Jack, played by Mann, who was previously mentioned as he can be seen in a compromising moment near the start of the sneak peek. Another character who gets fleetingly introduced is Elizabeth Strafford, portrayed by Michelle Randolph, who we see all spruced up and going to a party.

Another thread we get an enticing snippet of involves a beating in a classroom. This glimpse gives us a taste of one of the show’s other narratives involving unspecified student characters at a residential boarding school. The blue-uniformed young woman we can see administering the beatdown on an unseen victim is likely Aminah Nieves as Teonna Rainwater. We’ll have to wait to confirm, as it’s such a quick, busy moment in a trailer full of them.

This brief trailer lives up to its teaser denotation but well serves its purpose of building excitement for 1923. With its two sister prequel series, 1883 and 1923, and another planned spin-off, 6666, Yellowstone fans should rest assured that they’ll have plenty of material that makes up the Yellowstone-verse to keep them busy for a long time.