The show has a lot of good and a lot of bad going for it. I would say it's a product of the "Golden Era" television - it's got the care and talent that makes it clearly stand out as a well-put-together piece of media.

All of its issues fall with its massively inconsistent writing:

• the pacing is completely out of wack. Some seasons lead to nothing, some seasons ignore the conflict until they easily solve the issue in the end

• the characters are so dramatic with how they speak it gets compared to a soap opera, and for good reason, you want to make a scene more compelling? Why not have someone tell another character to kill themselves

• the Dutton's will face a season of battering from the antagonist to have Rip or Kayce go kill them in 30 seconds

• Beth despite being written like a psychopathic idiot, always ends up on top, even when she's literally telling people what she's going to do

• one of the more compelling characters, Jamie is supposed to be this genius lawyer who is feared for his savant level knowledge of the law, but is constantly being a bumbling idiot

• Jimmy takes up a lot of the storyline but adds nothing, ironically is one of the more interesting parts of the story as he's a bit more grounded

• Monica starts off being the voice of reason in season 1 to being a complete idiot

• Taylor Sheridan subjects us to Travis way too often in the later seasons

EDIT: That made it seem like the show is worse than it is. Everything else is great in the show: acting, character dynamics, setting, directing, and while the pacing, logic, and dialogue are hit-or-miss the storylines presented are very compelling.

I see SoA getting brought up a lot, and I think that's kind of the inverse of Yellowstone - it feels like a pre-golden era tv show - bogged down by cable tv shlockyness, it had strong pacing and storytelling to prop it up