Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly say the runaway success of Netflix’s Western romance Ransom Canyon caught even its stars off guard, with Kelly crediting the show’s old-fashioned, cowboy-flavoured escapism for its appeal in an increasingly chaotic news cycle.
The series, created by April Blair and based on Jodi Thomas’s novels, follows Duhamel’s Staten Kirkland, a widowed rancher fighting to protect his family’s Double K Ranch, and Kelly’s Quinn O’Grady, a concert pianist returning to Texas after years away in New York.
When the show unexpectedly shot to the top of Netflix’s rankings following its debut, Kelly admits she was suspicious of the numbers at start.
“When it was, like, the No. 1 streaming show, I was like, ‘Does Netflix position us at No. 1 to boost us so that people watch us? Are we really?'” she told Yahoo.
Kelly believes the show’s pull lies in offering viewers a gentler alternative to an often overwhelming news cycle.
“Life is really hard and complicated, and there’s a lot of really scary stuff going on,” she said.
“There’s something about escaping into the sort of simplicity and the
innocence of getting back down to the simple things that really matter, which is home and relationship and family.”
The show arrives amid a broader cultural wave of Western influence spreading well beyond television and into music and fashion.
Ransom Canyon‘s ensemble has also drawn attention for reasons beyond the writing, with its cast of leading men, including Eoin Macken, Jack Schumacher, Garrett Wareing and Andrew Liner, generating plenty of online buzz of their own.
Series creator April Blair has described Duhamel’s Staten as “the wounded, grizzled cowboy who isn’t necessarily always in touch with his emotions,” adding that the actor “brings a warmth and a sense of humour to him… there’s always a little Tad Hamilton in there somewhere.”
Season two of Ransom Canyon, which picks up six months after Quinn’s departure for New York, is now streaming on Netflix.
