At first glance, Ransom Canyon, Netflix’s splashy new series about three “ranching dynasties” fighting against outside forces to hold on to their land and their Texan way of life, may seem a tad familiar. After all, there’s an entire extended universe of popular shows revolving around another ranching family, created by none other than Taylor Sheridan, arguably one of the most successful TV impresarios around these days. Multiple outlets have already held up Ransom Canyon against Yellowstone—the Daily Mail calls the former a “knockoff”—and for good enough reason: It’s an easy comparison.

The comparison between Netflix’s Ransom Canyon and Paramount’s Yellowstone has been a hot topic since Ransom Canyon debuted on April 17, 2025, often framed as Netflix trying to replicate Yellowstone’s success. However, digging into the two shows reveals that the comparison, while understandable on the surface, doesn’t fully hold up—and the differences highlight distinct storytelling goals that challenge the “knockoff” narrative.

Both shows are neo-Westerns centered on ranching families fighting to protect their land. Ransom Canyon, set in the Texas Hill Country, follows Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel), a grieving rancher, and Quinn O’Grady (Minka Kelly), a pianist, as they navigate love, loss, and external threats to their way of life. Yellowstone, set in Montana, focuses on the Dutton family, led by John Dutton (Kevin Costner), battling developers, political forces, and internal family drama to preserve their massive ranch. The shared trope of land disputes—ranchers versus big-city capitalists—is a Western genre staple, not a unique overlap. In fact, Ransom Canyon is based on Jodi Thomas’s 2015 book series, predating Yellowstone’s 2018 premiere, which undermines the idea that it’s a direct copycat.

Jack Schumacher, an actor who plays the mysterious drifter Yancy Grey on Ransom Canyon—which debuted in the No. 1 spot on the streamer’s TV charts—has been doing interviews addressing the analogy. “Those Yellowstone shows are incredible—I don’t know anyone who does not like them, myself included,” he said in one. “But Ransom Canyon is its own world, its own universe. … I think if you’re a fan of Yellowstone, you’re absolutely going to be a fan of Ransom, too—and you’ll enjoy the differences!” To another outlet, Schumacher said, “The female gaze is more present here, which you don’t get in the vast majority of westerns.”

There are a few funny things about the persistent comparisons between these two shows, the first being that the similarities between Ransom and Yellowstone are pretty thin, although I don’t blame anyone for trying to grab a bit of Sheridan’s shine by association. Each story features a main character who’s a rancher trying to save his land—which, naturally, has been in the family for generations—from big-city capitalists who want to extract its value. But this is a trope almost as old as the genre of the Western, and a fundamental American story. Chronology shows that the overlap in plot between the two shows is coincidental, at best: Yellowstone first aired in 2018, while Ransom Canyon is based on a 2015 book by Jodi Thomas. (The book is one in a series of eight, plus two prequels. Plenty of room for future seasons, if Netflix wants to follow the path it’s trod with the other show Ransom Canyon resembles, the streamer’s popular contemporary small-town romance adaptation Virgin River.)

There’s also the fact that, in Yellowstone, which favors grim stories about men who fight the world with few allies save their family, sex is present, but is rarely indulged in strictly for pleasure. (If it is, it may eventually bring you to an elaborately plotted, gothically awful doom.) Emotional catharsis, in a Taylor Sheridan show, comes instead via the perfect politics rant, with characters played by Harrison Ford or Helen Mirren or Billy Bob Thornton using the full force of their movie-star charisma to deliver paragraphs on how bad and wrong the modern world/cities/liberals are.

No, people who like Yellowstone will absolutely not want to watch Ransom Canyon, a show in which West Texas rancher Staten Kirkland, played by Josh Duhamel, risks being removed as his ranch’s trustee by investing in solar power, just because he thinks it’s right. The character has some of Yellowstone patriarch John Dutton’s traits—he’s a loyal curmudgeon who rarely texts and hates his nephew’s “modern” music, but will always show up to fix your tractor—but he can be budged, by the right person with the right argument. Maybe that, itself, is “the female gaze.”

I’m probably taking a quote from an actor on a press junket too seriously. Schumacher likely meant “this show has many handsome men in it, and they are often shirtless”—which is a valid face-value use of the term “female gaze,” and is certainly true. But the difference between these two modern Westerns runs way deeper than that. This show is only sort of interested in the struggle to keep Ransom Canyon free from Austin Water & Power, or the other nonromantic plots, like Staten trying to figure out who killed his son in a drunk driving accident. (No offense to Randall Kirkland, who certainly died too young, but this mystery did not grab me.) Viewers, especially people who liked Virgin River, will instead watch Ransom Canyon for its three romances unfolding simultaneously: the A plot, in which Staten and Quinn (Minka Kelly, back in Texas!) work out their longtime mutual crush; the B plot, for the thirtysomethings, with an emergent connection between Yancy Grey and beautiful local Ellie (Marianly Tejada); and the C plot, for the high-school set, in which poor-kid-with-a-heart-of-gold Lucas (Garrett Wareing) and cheerleader Lauren (Lizzy Greene) pursue a romance forbidden by her sheriff father.

Only in romance do these kinds of small human miscommunications have such outsize plot impact. I predict Ransom Canyon, which is full of beautiful people and filmed in a beautiful place, will do very well with viewers who are used to these tricks of the romance trade, and poorly with any deep-down Yellowstone fans who just really like thinking about reporters and tech bros taking rides to the train station. But that’s all right—the Western genre is deep and wide, like Ransom Canyon itself. Plenty of room for all of the genders and all of their gazes.