Ransom Canyon

Ransom Canyon represents the best of what TV has to offer in so many ways. There's solid acting across the board, it looks beautiful, and most importantly, it allows the audience to blissfully escape into another world for an hour at a time.

There is no reason on Earth not to enjoy this well-made, nicely acted, soapy, soap-bubble show, whose 10 episodes have been laid out whole for you to binge. Come for the messy lives, the promise of love, the old-fashioned values.

“Ransom Canyon” doesn’t offer anything viewers haven’t seen or experienced on television (or between the pages of a romance novel). However, this is what makes it such a delightful watch.

No one is going to mistake Ransom Canyon for prestige television. But it’s certainly a soapy, guilty pleasure, anchored by performances from Duhamel and Kelly that make you want to see both of their characters get what they want, which is each other.

It is featureless and formulaic, happy to borrow just a fraction of your attention while you mostly focus on other things. This is not entirely a net negative, or at least not for everyone; background shows can have their place in an omnivorous TV diet. But it can, the longer and more closely you try to watch it, make for a stultifying experience.

There may be enough romance novel enthusiasts to keep “Ransom Canyon” afloat — I can’t claim to be one — but it’s hard to see anyone else flocking to these hills. After rushing to set its narrative stakes in the first 30 minutes, it forgoes urgency. The love triangles muddle the skullduggery, and vice versa.

"Canyon" doesn't have an authentic bone in its 10-episode first season. It's all forced and uncomfortable; you could style a drinking game every time a character awkwardly says "the great state of Texas."