Hey, I get it. I felt the same smirk of pretentiousness when I saw how hard the opening credits played on the good ol’ boys American thing. I had that same shuddering cynicism when I heard those first bouts of canned laughter. And the next bouts. And the ones after that. Somebody maybe needed to check the use by dates on those cans before they opened them.

I also had plenty of suspicions over how a post-Two and a Half Men Ashton Kutcher was expected to offer anything in the way of comedy, especially on a show created by a dude who used to showrun in the latter stages of that particular sitcom abomination. But something about the combination of Netflix, Sam Elliott, That 70s Show and country music convinced me, late at night and struggling to sleep, to give it a go.

And it is a show that requires a bit of effort that way. Despite the marketing bombardment, it isn’t a show that’s gonna come to you, it probably isn’t one that’ll meet you in the middle either. I’m gonna assume that one reason so many critics seem to dislike it (to be fair it’s got a solid enough 7.6 on IMDb – though a very mediocre 56% on Metacritic) is that particular trait. It doesn’t look or feel like prestige TV – and it ain’t – so it’s difficult in this so-called golden age of telly to give it much of a chance. Again, you do need to set aside a few pretensions first.

Because I’ll be honest here, I did not care for the first few minutes. Aside from recognising Lukas Nelson’s voice on the theme tune – a slowed down cover of ‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys’, and I later realised the extra voice belonged to Shooter Jennings. Pretty tops song choice and even more poignant to have the sons of Willie and Waylon singing it too, given the generational themes to follow. But then almost two minutes into episode one Ashton Kutcher says some line about playing semi-pro football for the Saskatoon Cold. “It’s like the Miami Heat but, you know, cold”. Sam Elliot found it funnier than I did, but not nearly as funny as the studio audience did. Damn I hated that canned laughter, especially layered over sloppy, contrived jokes.

That’s the measure of a sitcom, really. If the jokes aren’t worthwhile then it all falls apart and I didn’t even giggle at basically anything when I rewatched ep #1. In fact there were more cringing moments than there were funny ones. Like Kutcher delivering a calf and then moaning about the smell left on his arm or the tacky Shania Twain anecdote or finding out about his (separated) parents’, well, beneficial… relationship. Oh, and the barroom pickup, the Obama joke, and the recurring ugg boot thing. Not the best.

But there must have been something in there that resonated because the following day I found myself hitting play on episode two. In that one there’s a scene where Kutcher’s character Colt is at his mother’s bar (they’re all alcoholics, but it’s a sitcom so yeah – at least they acknowledge it) and he runs into his old high school girlfriend Abby, played by Elisha Cuthbert. The two sit down and Abby’s boyfriend Kenny joins them. It’s a conversation full of loaded chatter and veiled intentions played for laughs in the standard fashion and somewhere in those few minutes I realised that I’d accidentally laughed a couple times. Then once or twice more. And then I had the truly odd realisation that I actually kinda liked this show.

Yes, it can be quite stupid and there are a couple of dud episodes in there. Though more than anything what saves this show is the same thing that keeps it grounded: it cares about its characters. In a lot of ways a dumb but handsome Colt and a wisecracking Rooster are just Kelso and Hyde grown up and moved to Colorado, which is cool, it’s a fun dynamic. And Beau Bennett is a grumpy old dude that likes his liquor hard and his day’s work even harder. Maggie Bennett is sweet but uncompromising. All of these characters have their sitcom traits but they don’t get defined by them. Colt’s naivety can be the butt of the joke but he never is. Rooster’s usually got something sharp to say but he cares all the same - he even gets to serve up the odd bit of heartfelt advice. That sympathetic view of its own characters is the key to all of it. They’re allowed to be who they are and that includes their many faults.

About as far into the show as most critics made it

For example, the boys like crap music. The soundtrack drops a bit of Kasey Musgraves and Justin Townes Earle so there are some clever ears on the production staff but Rooster also sings along to Florida Georgia Line on his iPod in one scene - not only a terrible band name but also a terrible band. Bro country – it’s as bad as it gets. But the thing is… they are kinda the target audience for those tunes so of course they’re listening to them, that’s part of their identity, same as watching grid iron on the telly, driving pickup trucks and testicle jokes. The endless array of the latter is frustrating and juvenile but that’s also in keeping with a pair of lads whose emotional growth ended at high school (Colt played football in college but although he was a backup on a national title team, it doesn’t sound like he really let his brain to it). Colt is welcomed back as a hero by many townsfolk despite feeling like a failure himself, he wishes to hell he was 18 again and Rooster, who was left trapped to tend the fields with his father after his brother left, would surely shake on that deal too. They’re teenagers in 30-something bodies – they make dumb jokes.

The next step from there is the quality of acting and it really is good. This cast is full-on stacked. Sam Elliott, Elisha Cuthbert, Debra Winger, the brother from My Name Is Earl… it’s a small cast but in every group scene there are always a couple of different actors that can sell the next joke. In particular Cuthbert and Kutcher have this sort of pining, nostalgic chemistry that makes their scenes together so pleasantly loaded.

And if you don’t think that this is good acting then try and repeat some of these lines yourself and see if they get laughs. When you cram in as many jokes as these types of shows tend to go for then it quickly becomes unnatural if you don’t have the talent on show to pull it off. You don’t have to pretend to like Kutcher as Steve Jobs to admit that he’s a fine comedic actor. He’s done rom-coms, that means he’s funny and people like him. That’s a very good start.

Except that ‘The Ranch’ doesn’t always cram the jokes in. In fact it’s a rare situational comedy that isn’t afraid to have long scenes played entirely for drama. Probably a factor in that is the stretched out run-time, episodes lasting 28-32 minutes rather than the standard TV set of 22-24. That’s bonus time and luckily they aren’t in a hurry to get through it. With that it really can be very poignant in places and those places can catch you off-guard – they don’t always come as the kickers in the final scene. By giving a damn about their characters they can ask you to care about them too, which is where that all blooms from.

For a show with as many nut jokes as this, it’s surprisingly generous to its female characters too. There are some frowning moments but for the most part the worst it gets is the recurring ‘Colt is a girl’ masculinity jabs. That The Ranch doesn’t go down that path where Kutcher can get laid at the click of his finger with zero implications (unless they’re CRAZY!) is an enormous relief after that initial tease. It must be so crappy to be an actress in Hollywood stuck playing chicks who show more skin than sense in single episode appearances.

That was always a big problem on Two and a Half Men. Whenever Charlie Sheen got bored, he was magically able to find some damaged chick with daddy issues to sleep with and she’d inevitably be super hot. They poked fun at how this might happen but it’s not like those chicks ever got to tell their side of the story. It’s not like those actresses ever got to flesh out their characters, their characters were flesh. To ‘The Ranch’s credit they turn this trend on its head by taking Heather (Kelli Goss), the barroom hook-up from E01 and over the course of the ten episodes so far released (there’ll be ten more later in the year) she actually becomes a committed girlfriend. Sort of, but still.

With that though, there is this annoying schoolgirl fetish (particularly in the first few eps) that it would be more comfortable without. Sure, they’re emotionally still in high school so that makes sense in that way but honestly it’s pretty gross. Plus there’s a conservative southern stereotype that Beau is regularly stuck with: government satellites, democrat jokes, those sorts of things. Sam Elliott is far too good of an actor to be bogged down by that, thankfully, so hopefully the writers don’t go getting lazy on us there. At least it hasn’t gotten racist or explicitly homophobic (you could make a case about the uggs though).

Hey man, I never said it was perfect. Far from it, but every critic I see panning it I wonder if they’re watching it was an open mind at all or if they read the cast list, saw the credits, heard the canned laughter and started writing their pieces right there. You might not like it, but then again you might. Honestly, it’s not that bad. In fact it’s almost sorta good.