‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Meets ‘Yellowstone’ in Paramount+’s Official #1 Hit
Taylor Sheridan's espionage thriller Lioness has returned for a third season and become the most-watched title on Paramount+ worldwide, marking another hit in a busy year for the prolific writer-producer. The show, which blends the tension of Zero Dark Thirty with the neo-Western sensibility of Sheridan's Yellowstone, had been on hiatus for two years following its second season in 2024, making its comeback all the more notable for streaming audiences.
The Season 3 premiere, titled "The Spider and the Fly", aired on 2 August and stars Zoe Saldaña alongside Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman. It arrives amid a wider run of Sheridan projects this year, including Yellowstone spin-offs Marshals and The Madison, the returning Dutton Ranch, and the delayed film F.A.S.T., now pushed to May 2027.
- Lioness Season 3 tops Paramount+'s global viewership chart.
- Premiere episode aired 2 August after a two-year hiatus.
- Part of a busy 2026 slate of Taylor Sheridan projects.
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Lioness is an espionage drama created by Taylor Sheridan, the writer behind Yellowstone, and it follows a covert CIA programme that trains women to infiltrate terrorist networks. It first launched a few years ago and built a following for combining tense, military-style storytelling with the character-driven feel of Sheridan's other shows. The cast includes Zoe Saldaña, alongside Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman, and it airs exclusively on the streaming service Paramount+.
Sheridan has become one of television's most prolific creators, with a slate of interlinked Western and crime dramas built around Yellowstone and its various spin-offs, as well as separate projects like Lioness. This has made him a central figure in Paramount+'s strategy, as the service leans heavily on his shows to attract and keep subscribers.
The wider context is the streaming industry's ongoing competition for viewers, where a single hit series returning after time away can significantly boost a platform's subscriber numbers and visibility. Paramount+ has been positioning itself against larger rivals like Netflix and Disney+, so a strong-performing show carries added significance for the company's commercial standing.