YMMV / The Ranch (2016)

• Base-Breaking Character: To viewers, Beau is either the best thing about the show, or the worst.
• Broken Base:
  • The laugh track. Some viewers hate it and feel that it's annoying, other viewers like it because it makes the show feel more like a classic sitcom from the 1980s and 1990s. The laugh track does become more subdued after the first few episodes.
  • Whether the show's Cerebus Syndrome in part 6 was a good thing or not. Some prefer that the show became more serious with a bigger focus on drama, while others feel that it became a completely different show with the stories feeling out of place.
• Catharsis Factor: For many viewers, Colt Calling the Old Man Out, angrily pointing out to Beau that for all his complaining about what screw-ups Rooster and Colt are, Beau himself is a terrible father. It was long overdue, and deeply satisfying to see Colt finally stand up for himself.
• Critical Dissonance: Although the show has received mixed reviews from critics, it has been more warmly received by viewers, with an average audience score of 78% compared to an average critical score of 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. Less than a month after it premiered, it was picked up for a second season.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Dale, the ornery, cantankerous, hard-of-hearing old veterinarian.
  • Beer Pong Billy, the incompetent yet lovable police officer.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Ironic considering the set-up, as Heather was rather clearly an obstacle for Abby and Colt. Fans generally like Heather more than Abby, as she was unassuming and even sweet while Abby spent more time bitching at Colt than actually having chemistry with him. Mitigated later in the season, as Abby got more screentime and her relationship with Colt started swinging more towards genuine affection for the other.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • An in-universe example during Christmas Mass. As a ploy to talk to Rooster alone, Colt suggests lighting a candle for Grandma Bennett. Who died in a fire.
  • The joke about Rooster "hitting on a girl holding a giant Stop sign" is a lot more uncomfortable after the rape accusations against Danny Masterson.
• He Really Can Act:
  • No one's doubting Ashton Kutcher's skill in comedy, but he really nailed it in the scene where Colt and Heather discuss Heather's miscarriage.
  • Both Ashton Kutcher and Debra Winger were downright phenomenal in the scene were Colt finds out that Rooster is dead.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: in Punk'd, Ashton routinely referred to himself as "The Farmhand" while pranking pro-wrestlers. Come this show, he becomes a farmhand.
• Jerkass Woobie: In Season 1 episode 18 Rooster tells Beau that he's been offered a job as foreman of the old McConnell ranch and he's decided to take it. Beau looks absolutely crushed by Roosters announcement, then gets up and walks out of the room without saying a single word.
• Moral Event Horizon: Nick certainly crossed this when, after forcing Rooster at gunpoint to leave town, he threatens his family if Rooster says anything.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The allegations against Danny Masterson resurfacing a month before Part 4 starts streaming took a lot from the show's buzz. It then got even worse when one of his accusers got Netflix executive Andy Yeatman to state outright that the company didn't believe them, without knowing who she was. This got so much bad press that the company quickly put out a statement saying Yeatman was talking out of turn on a subject he had nothing to do with, and fired Masterson. Yeatman himself was fired shortly afterwards.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: When Mary takes the blame for murdering Nick to save her daughter from prison, fully intentioning to go to jail for the rest of her life without batting an eye.
• The Scrappy: Mary becomes this after she becomes addicted to opioids. Although her behavior as an addict may be a case of Truth in Television, the fact that she keeps screwing over her friends and family members in order to feed her addiction has caused even the most forgiving viewers to lose all patience with her and want to see her written out of the show. It also doesn't help that Mary's sleazy ex-husband may have murdered Rooster.
• Spiritual Successor: Kutcher and Masterson immediately bring to mind That '70s Show, but in a more general sense it is also a show that is about reflecting on simpler times and simpler places, 70's show does it literally while this show is subversive about the idea.
• Squick: Colt and Rooster inseminate ten cows. This isn't so bad, until they eat lunch without washing their hands.
• Tear Jerker: The opening episodes of Part 6, which deal with the Bennetts coping with Rooster’s disappearance & presumed death. To hammer it home, the laugh track stops halfway through the second episode & doesn’t return until the final few minutes of the third episode.
  • Colt breaking down when finding out Rooster is dead is utterly heartbreaking and shows Ashton Kutcher's dramatic acting chops.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Many fans of the show have felt that the more recent batches of episodes have gotten so dark and depressing that the show is no longer enjoyable to watch. The turning point seems to have been Rooster's apparent death, as the show seems to have gotten much more dramatic following that.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Although it seems like the show's writers intend for the viewers to root for Colt and Abby, a lot of viewers have found Heather to be both more interesting and more sympathetic than Abby.
  • This may be the reason Heather essentially disappears from the show in season four, appearing only for a single scene and otherwise barely being mentioned; if she was still in the picture, sharing a difficult experience with Colt and helping him through it, it would be nearly impossible for the audience to believe Colt would continue to stay with borderline abusive and miserable Abby, and it would turn back into a relationship drama instead of the drama of Colt being Strangled by the Red String.

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