Texas Ranch House
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Movie Reviews of Texas Ranch House
Movie Review: Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
I have thoroughly enjoyed PBS' prior "Houses" and have learned a lot about the times and customs. However, I wonder, after this one, how PBS vets their participants. It's always interesting to watch the dynamics between people, however, the only dynamics I could see here were so many negatives...lots of bitching, whining, bickering. Doesn't PBS tell their participants what its' going to be like? I'm getting tired of whining and cheating. It's interesting to me that of these types of series, Frontier House had two families who, at least, tried to live the life as authentically as possible. I wish I had rented this on Netflix first. I would not have spent the money to have it in my permanent collection.Movie Review: haha
Summary: 2 Stars
As a general rule, this House series is quite boring and uneventful, except the last episode, which is brilliant. I think choosing the Cooke family was an AWFUL decision. They are not only ignorant, but REALLY annoying! If you're interested in the House programs, I would definitely reccommend Frontier and Manor.Movie Review: Shame on PBS!
Summary: 1 Stars
Unfortunately PBS has made the decision to bend the "House" series more towards what they might perceive as the mainstream interest and has created a "Reality" show more reminiscent of "Survivor" or any soap opera than of the other "House" series. The result: you have to spend hours watching the working out of a pecking order to find the occasional gem of educational value.
None of the people involved show true will to experience life in 1867, but are following their own interest. The Rancher is a weakling wimp, caught up between his dominating wife and the cowboys. He never keeps his promises and he does not full-heartedly participate in the essential activities, such as the cattle drive or retrieving stolen horses from the (well casted, for change) comanche tribe. His wife rules the ranch, but never admits to it. She has some evil power-thing going and encourages her puppet husband to be offensive to pretty much everybody. The daughters make friends with the animals rather than using them for food while the cowboys are starving. The cowboys are jealously defending their territory (the horsebacks) when the maid dares to take a horse out for a ride. They are more fun-oriented than interested in doing a professional job, which is understandable, but should not be the point of this show.
The Ranch starts out in a very good position: a great piece of property and very motivated ranch hands, a very well maintained garden and good livestock are provided. When the ranchers lose part of their cowboy workforce and the boss shows unable and unwilling to jump in, a replacement magically appears. When they try to sell the cattle they've rounded up they get an unrealisticly good deal on the "less in demand" mother cow/calf pairs from a far too nice (but also well casted) cattle broker. However, personal bickering escalates over time and the ranch community breaks in half two days before the final assessment of the Ranch after 2.5 months. The assessment itself, while being far too rosy from my non-expert point of view, shows that bringing 21st century attitudes into an 1867 setting leads to a desastrous outcome.
Is this entertaining? Well, if you enjoy "Survivor" and other shows where people are very confrontational, then you might be entertained by this... I was not.
Is this educational? Hardly. There are some bits in here, mainly about the "Lords of the Plains" (the Comanche), the "Buffalo Soldiers" in the Army, and the layers of clothes that women were wearing. You'll also hear for about 238 times, how "dangerous" the world and especially the cowboy work was back then. So, if you are not aware of this, that point gets driven pretty well.
Of course, as with all the "Survivor" clones you can learn a lot about how people fight out their vain personal conflicts, but I'd personally rather watch something else.
On the up side, you learn a lot of things NOT to do, like:
1.) Break your word over and over again and nobody will respect you.
2.) Pile manure directly outside your front door and your house will be a heaven for swarms of flies.
3.) Try to attract more viewers by dumbing down the House series and you will most certainly offend your most loyal viewers.
This series is only useful for demonstrating that there was no room for the wimpy, self-absorbed attitudes dominating our modern world in 1867. Duh!!! Who would have thought?!
Shame on PBS: worst casting, worst cast-preparation, worst editing etc...
Movie Review: Is ludicrous a big enough word?
Summary: 1 Stars
Having enjoyed several of the "house" series on PBS, I was excited to see that the Big Bend country of Texas would get its place, especially as I lived in the Big Bend country a few years. Unfortunately, the participants in the show were apparently not willing to accept the premise that they were living on a cattle ranch in 1860s Texas. Instead, here comes a whining feminist as the Rancher's Wife, with her spoiled daughters and a husband unwilling (unable?) to live out the role of Ranch Owner. The first couple of episodes established the pecking order pretty quickly, and the later episodes confirmed it all. If anyone, anyone at all, thinks that ranch life in 19th century Texas, or anywhere else, for that matter, were run as a sort of touchy/feely democratic, let's get consensus manner as this, they have another think coming. There were jobs to be done in that day, people either accepted their jobs or went elsewhere. There were no "heart to heart" talks with the Ranch owner, to see whether hurt feelings could be assuaged. You did your job or out you went. The problem with the series is that they transported 2006 interaction strategies into an 1867 setting, and it became almost humorous to watch it play out. Especially irritating and unbelievable was the whining wife. After the evening party, the cowboy crew left on their drive to market, and the dirty dishes from the party were left sitting on the outside tables for days. The excrement from various animals was left on the yard outside the house. Then came complaints about the horde of flies that surrounded and invaded the house. Simply unbelievable. Maybe PBS can do better next time, but as an afficionado of the Texas Big Bend country, I was sorely disappointed in this one.Movie Review: An Unpleasant Waste of Time
Summary: 1 Stars
Sweeping Western Vistas...Cowboys...Cattle Drives...Native Americans...Harsh Conditions! It would be difficult to make a tedious, nearly unwatchable series out of these ingredients, but PBS proves that it's not impossible. Public TV has made a cottage industry of historical reality shows, most quite good, but there's little to like here. Aside from some educational and even moving interludes with the aforementioned Indians and the black soldiers of the U.S. Army, the series quickly devolves into petty personal bickering and general boredom. That's part of the point, of course; as the show constantly reminds us, cowboy life is seriously over-romanticized.
Maybe so, but this show's participants could use some allure, and that's the major problem. From the feckless ranch owner to his formidable but clueless wife to the alternately engaging and irritating ranch hands, none of the characters here provide much reason to endure their continual squabbling. While this may indeed be reality, there's no reason to spend much time watching it.