The Ranch Season 1 Part 1 TV Review

The Ranch (2016-)

Season 1 Part 1
Watch The Ranch on Netflix
Created by:  Jim Patterson, Don Reo
Starring:  Ashton Kutcher, Sam Elliott, Danny Masterson, Debra Winger, Kelli Goss

Plot:
In this Netflix original series, Ashton Kutcher is washed up football player Colt Bennett. He moves back home to help his dad (Sam Elliott) and his brother (Danny Masterson) on the ranch.

Verdict:
This show is the intersection of an R-rated comedy and a '90s sitcom. The laugh track was incredibly annoying in the first episode, but I slowly got used to it. It's never anything more than a bland comedy. It doesn't get better as it goes on, you just get used to it and accept it.
While the show has all the pieces, a man having to give up his dream and move back home and a tough as nails dad, it just doesn't execute. The jokes aren't as funny as the laugh track would have us believe. It's much easier to list what I don't like about the characters than what I do like. Masterson could be replaced with a cardboard cutout and it wouldn't change the story much, if at all. If this were on a network, it would have been canceled after a few episodes.
Skip it. 

Recap
Former football quarterback Colt Bennett didn't make it big in the pros. Despite making a semi-pro team, he declines the offer to help his father and brother on the family ranch. He makes the big sacrifice for his family, though it's not like his football career was going anywhere.

Kutcher's accent isn't very good. I don't know why they didn't just tell him to use his normal accent. The writing isn't bad, but it's overshadowed by the laugh track. It's very much a traditional sitcom which makes it feel outdated at worst and out of place at best. You can see the jokes coming from a mile away. This doesn't make it bad by itself, but with the rest of the problems, it's amplified. You soon realize the show only has two or three joke variations it reuses.

 Sam Elliott play grumpy all the time. Even if an idea is good he rejects it. The show comes back to this later, but it feels like a lame excuse. He has his moments, but most of his jokes are complaining about modern culture, Ronald Reagan, or old age.

Masterson's character is terrible. He's there just to react to or set up the jokes of Elliott and Kutcher.

Colt is self obsessed and arrogant, despite his current situation. His feelings are split between his old high school flame, who has a boyfriend and his new girlfriend who is nearly half his age.

It's not a bad story but it lacks any pretense of nuance or subtlety. Half the time dialog is treading water so it can make the next country music inspired joke.

The episodes are prefaced as part one, but I assume that is just a creative decision to make it sound more interesting than season one.

The season ends with a big cliff hanger between Colt and his high school flame and Sam Elliot and his wife. Sam Elliot finally does something nice for Colt by buying back the championship ring he pawned.