The Ranch — Series Review
by KJ Proulx
Being one of the television shows that was plagued by the fact that one of the cast members was accused during the Me Too scandal, The Ranch was a roller-coaster ride to watch from start to finish. Beginning back in 2016, the first couple of seasons actually made for one of the better Netflix shows out there in my opinion. With a very slim number of great sitcoms these days, this one always stood out to me. Although the show ends on a strong note and makes up for the last two seasons, it was still a rough journey overall. Here’s why The Ranch is worth your time, but only if you’re aware of the behind-the-scenes drama before starting it.
The premise is as simple as this. In Colorado, Colt Bennett returns home to his family ranch to work with his father, who ranches for a living. Returning due to an injury that requires him to quit his dream of becoming a star Football player, he becomes the butt of many jokes throughout the first season. This is a series that keeps it real and simple in terms of how complex the narrative becomes. With that said, this nice, raunchy little sitcom ends up juggling a few too many dour storylines once one of the leads needed to depart.
In the final 10–20 episodes of this series, they needed to write-off Danny Masterson’s character, Rooster, which was absolutely a mistake in my opinion. Seeing as he is still working on projects today and never had to quit acting, they should have just stuck with him. This show took many left turns when writing him out of the show and even though his character’s departure was effective, the show just wasn’t the same for the remaining episodes. Instead of being a straight-up sitcom, it became a family drama, with a few spurts of comedy sprinkled throughout. As I said, it was still decent, as the dramatic aspects of the show were held together by the rest of the cast very nicely, but it just lost some of its flare in the process.
With the negatives aside, this is a series that’s loaded with talent. David Trainer, who directed every episode, has worked on great sitcoms like Boy Meets World and That ’70s Show, so I wasn’t surprised at all when I grew a strong liking for this series. Sam Elliot has never been better, especially when he really dives into this character and becomes emotional in the few seasons. Elisha Cuthbert is also great as Abby and I would love to see her in a new role soon, and of course, Ashton Kutcher is as funny as he always is in shows like this, so his presence from start to finish was fantastic. On top of that, the supporting cast of this show also steals the show at times.
Whether it’s Grady Lee Richmond as Hank sitting in the bar, spending every free moment of his life there, spewing one-liners in the background, or Debra Winger being the very vocal voice of reason in many situations, I just found myself in awe of how many of the secondary characters were outshining the leads on multiple occasions. The Ranch is a series that was never short on talent on-screen, but I feel the writing towards the conclusion felt slightly repetitive in terms of how characters would repeat many of the same types of jokes. Maybe it was just me, but I found the show coming to a close, even without the conclusion that was written.
Overall, this is a series that started off great, had some trouble behind-the-scenes, wrote-off a character, became a drama instead of a comedy, and ultimately worked as a whole, even though it admittedly petered out. In retrospect, I would absolutely say that I thoroughly enjoyed it as a whole, but the first half was much stronger. If you are a fan of both drama and comedy and don’t mind a shift in tone, then you may love the entire series, but I didn’t quite get to that point. The Ranch is very solid for the hurdles that it had to get through, but I can’t help but wish that it stayed a little more consistent when looking back on how it all started.
Rating for Full Series: 3.5/5
Check out the trailer for the first season below:
