The Hawk, the Will Ferrell golf comedy, only got a couple of days on top of Netflix’s top 10 list. The show has now been replaced by season 2 of Ransom Canyon, the romance drama which is not the cowboy shoot-em-up that the title may imply.
Ransom Canyon has debuted at #1 on Netflix, a powerful performance for the show that stars Minka Kelly and Josh Duhamel. It weaves a tale of romance and rival ranching families that may sound like echoes of Yellowstone in concept, but not in practice, if you’ve seen the series at all. My wife is currently watching it behind me as I write this. It is…something.
Perhaps I am a snooty critic like those on Rotten Tomatoes (uh, well, I actually am a snooty critic on Rotten Tomatoes), but that class of reviewers has remained unconvinced about the show to date, which is also true for season 2 so far. Ransom Canyon season 1 had a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, but so far, season 2 has dropped to a 40%. A comparable series like Sweet Magnolias scores better, a 78% for that series. Though a show like My Life with the Walter Boys has a 56%.
Fans like Ransom Canyon more than critics, hence its high debut viewership. It has a 72% audience score, at least for season 1, where figures are not yet in for season 2, as barely anyone has binged all of it yet.
It feels like Josh Duhamel has made a living almost entirely out of playing romantic leads or action heroes the last 20 years, the former more than the latter, and it’s served him well. This is the longest he’s ever been in a TV show since his very long stint in All My Children, the famed soap opera. Can’t do better than being the #1 show on Netflix.
Minka Kelly, meanwhile, is someone etched in the brains of people my age for her role on Friday Night Lights, but she’s done plenty since then. Besides Ransom Canyon and FNL, one of her longest-running TV roles was actually in Titans, the non-DCEU, non-DCU series where she played Dove opposite future Reacher Alan Ritchson’s Hawk in a superhero turn.
Now fans wait around to see if, like series such as Virgin River and Sweet Magnolias, Ransom Canyon will get picked up for season 3, and potentially beyond. It took two months for Ransom Canyon season 1 to get the season 2 greenlight. The show was not pre-renewed for season 3, though reportedly a writers’ room is starting to come up with ideas. The high-performance, low-cost show has a much better chance than most to be renewed, so I wouldn’t be too concerned if I were a fan.
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