Ransom Canyon review: Netflix’s ‘Yellowstone meets Virgin River series’ is just as addictive

Cowboy, take me away. With Yellowstone over and Virgin River Season 7 a long way away, Netflix has come galloping to the rescue with new drama Ransom Canyon – and boy, is it just as delicious.

It turns out that no iteration of the Virgin River format is a bad one. Hallmark has tried to bring an edgier vibe to its content with The Way Home, and it’s worked. Sullivan’s Crossing and the in-development Thunder Point are adapting Robyn Carr’s other stories to great effect. Basically, it would be incredibly hard to mess this kind of comfort drama up. Now, there’s Ransom Canyon.

This is where Yellowstone fans need to hear a hard truth – while Netflix has marked Ransom Canyon as a Yellowstone-Virgin River crossover, this isn’t a Dutton family blowout, not by a long shot. There are no sudden trips to the train station, no real sense of historical legacy, and no actual grit behind the horse. Instead, there’s occasional bullriding, a cow stuck in a bog, and a lot of soap opera.

This is all to say Ransom Canyon is a drama that fits into the former rather than the latter, and that’s a really good move. Demand for cozy binge aside, our time in a fictional part of Texas knows what it truly is: a sticky love triangle tinged with traumatic family scandal. Looking for any actual social context or meaning here is a waste of time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and Netflix has focused on complicated relationships to guarantee another telly success.

What is Ransom Canyon about?

The new TV show takes place in the fictional town of the same name, on the desert plains of Texas. Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel) is a man with a tragic history, losing both his wife many years before the show starts. His son is then killed in a car crash, with Staten convinced another vehicle was involved in ramming him off the road.

A year later, there are still no answers. On-off love interest Quinn (Minka Kelly) is fed up waiting for him, turning her attentions to Staten’s arch enemy Davis (his brother-in-law) instead. Davis is intent on getting Staten to sell his ranch so corporate companies can buy up the land to “invest” in the Canyon.

Meanwhile, hitchhiker Yancy (Jack Schumacher) is the new bad boy in town, and he’s got a huge secret he’s not telling new landlord Cap (James Brolin). Ellie (Marianly Tejada) has her eye on him while working at Quinn’s up-and-coming bar, while Davis’ son Reid (Andrew Liner) is intent on making social outcast Lucas’ (Gareth Wareing) life awful, especially because they both like Lauren (Lizzy Greene).

Ransom Canyon is Virgin River in a cowboy hat – and that’s good

Netflix

There’s a saying that the best way of getting out of your own head is to get yourself involved in someone else’s drama (though I feel like I’ve just made that up). In terms of consuming content as a distraction, this is a foolproof strategy. Why are shows like Virgin River the ones that become a streaming service‘s longest-running program? Because viewers can mindlessly invest in satisfying dynamics, all in a pretty-as-a-picture setting.

If we’re being honest, Ransom Canyon essentially rips off every Virgin River detail going, but that’s possibly an observation that lies with Carr and Thomas instead. Netflix is just working with what it’s got, and that’s a treasure trove of characters and plots people want to hoover up. Standoffish Staten is a man with a lifetime of trauma written all over his face, though he keeps the details firmly under his hat. It’s a combination that makes us want to untangle him just as much as Quinn does.

As far as will-they-wont-they romances go, this one has exceptional chemistry. Both rough around the edges and incredibly intimate, their right person, wrong time approach to one another could go on for years – which is exactly what both fans and Netflix want. We should know from Mel and Jack that a simple happy ever after is never going to happen, no matter what a season finale tells us.

Netflix

It’s not actually our main characters who are the stars of the show, but rather new kid on the block Yancy. If you can look past the incredulous name (though there’s a reason behind this, as you’ll learn) this bad boy with a delicate past is the most satisfying storyline of the bunch. We’re drip-fed information about him throughout the season, resulting in a reveal nobody sees coming… especially his Ransom love interest, Ellie.

If we’re lucky enough to get a second season (I’d put good money on this happening), Yancy’s character development will be the most exciting thread to pick back up. No matter how long the show goes on for, though, there’s a lot of other factors at play where we’re being spoiled for choice. The canyon itself is jaw-dropping, able to switch from a rugged ranch to a middle-America main street in the blink of an eye. Our cast of supporting characters is quietly developing their own personalities and complexities in the background too, with the Reid-Lucas-Lauren trio ready to take over from the older generation in future episodes.

As for the writing, direction, and everything else technical that comes with making a TV show, it’s exactly where you’d expect to be. Sure, Ransom Canyon isn’t a production designed to inspire or ever blow your mind, but that’s not its function it exists for. Regardless, it’s a satisfying story well told, and there’s not much more anyone can ask for.

Dexerto Review Score: 4/5 – Very Good

I often use my mum as a gauge to determine how well TV shows like this will do, and I can happily confirm Ransom Canyon has the Keeley seal of approval. It doesn’t take more than an episode to fully invest in the town’s characters, and the storylines glide through our brains like a hot stick of butter.

It’s still not quite up to Virgin River muster, but given enough time and resources, Netflix has easily found its next investment – and honestly, so has every self-respecting binge watcher.

Ransom Canyon is streaming on Netflix now. For more, check out shows to watch like Virgin River, new TV shows streaming this month, the best TV shows of the year so far, and anticipated 2025 releases you cannot miss.

For more information on how we score TV shows and movies, check out our scoring guidelines here.