‘ The Ranch’ a hit amid controversy
Two months ago, Netflix did something extremely rare: It released some viewer data about its shows.
The streaming service famously keeps its ratings a secret, so this study — about the most quickly bingewatched shows in the first 24 hours after their release — was revealing.
The fastest “binge-raced” shows were two highly hyped revivals, “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” and “Fuller House.” Next was “Marvel’s The Defenders” and the anime series “The Seven Deadly Sins.”
Fifth on the list was the rural sitcom “The Ranch,” which reunites “That ’70s Show” co-stars Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson, who play brothers.
The comedy ranked higher
on the “binge-racing” list than series such as “Orange Is the New Black,” “Stranger Things” and “House of Cards,” all of which draw ample media and awards attention.
Netflix subscribers who don’t watch “The Ranch” — the second half of the second season began streaming Friday — might recognize the title from its recent controversy: Netflix fired Masterson amid an investigation into multiple rape allegations against the actor, which he denies.
More recently, Netflix fired an executive after he told a woman who approached him in public (he didn’t realize that she was one of Masterson’s alleged victims) that the company’s higherups didn’t believe the accusers.
Four women accused Masterson of rape in the early 2000s, according to HuffPost, which reported that at least three of the women, like Masterson, are Scientologists.
The Los Angeles Police Department started investigating the accusations in the spring after one woman contacted former Scientologist Leah Remini (an outspoken opponent of Scientology who produces an A&E docuseries about the church), who urged her to file a police report.
“Law enforcement investigated these claims more than 15 years ago and determined them to be without merit,” Masterson said in a statement. “I have never been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. In this country, you are presumed innocent until proved guilty. However, in the current climate, it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused. I ... look forward to clearing my name once and for all.”
Networks are just beginning to figure out how to handle such situations in the wake of the flood of sexual-misconduct allegations in the past two months — which have led to many high-profile departures from TV shows.
Masterson is no longer filming, but his character appears in the new second-season episodes. Vox reported that his character might also show up in the third season during previously shot scenes.
Before the headlines about Masterson overtook the show’s search results, the series flew a bit under the radar, especially compared with other Netflix titles.
In “The Ranch,” Kutcher plays a failed semipro football player who, as the show began, returned to Colorado to help brother “Rooster” (Masterson) and father Beau (Sam Elliott) run the family ranch.
The show has an unusual aesthetic: It includes both a laugh track and restrictionfree swearing.
“Netflix’s casually profane multicam sitcom was an odd pleasure in its first season, a curious tonal mix of ‘Roseanne,’ redneck comedy and ‘American Playhouse’ that had surprising depth and texture,” Vanity Fair wrote. “The series felt like a generous, competent acknowledgment of that oft-referenced silent majority, the fly-over real Americans whom us snobby coastal elites ignore all too often.”
The show has become a hit among rural audiences, and Netflix data indicate that viewers in Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana are especially big fans.
That was the goal of setting the show in Colorado, Kutcher said.
“It’s the middle of the ... heartland, and those are the people who probably enjoy these shows the most, yet nobody makes content for them,” the actor told Entertainment Weekly in April 2016.
“It’s conservative. It’s the red states. It’s God and country and ’Merica, and we felt like that was the audience that we could speak to.”