There are many mysteries and unknowns baked into the narrative of the new Netflix show Ransom Canyon, an adaptation of a series of western romance novels by Jodi Thomas. Will Staten Kirkland and Quinn O’Grady ever get together? Can we trust sexy drifter Yancy Grey? What really happened the night Randall Kirkland died? What exactly does everyone involved think the Texas Hill Country is?
The books were set in a fictional town called Crossroads, apparently a stand-in for the real Ransom Canyon (population 1,159) outside Lubbock. The television show is still set in an imagined Texas town, though this one is called Ransom Canyon and it sits smack dab in the Hill Country. Lord knows the reason for this change, but you can’t blame the creators for choosing the rolling greenery of Central Texas over the area around Lubbock. The series wasn’t filmed in either, though: Production took place in New Mexico, which is a shame, and something that hopefully won’t be so commonplace now that Texas has more competitive tax incentives for filmmakers. I tried to give the show the benefit of the doubt when the series opened with a shot of a canyon whose high points were not cedar-covered hills or limestone cliffs but wind-sculpted mesas. As I made my way through the subsequent episodes, however, I realized the mesas were the least of my problems.
