• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 21, 2025

If two upcoming dramas on Netflix seem like copycats of shows seen elsewhere, then that’s OK because it appears to be part of the Netflix development strategy.

One is a drama about a Western ranching dynasty. The other is an emergency-room hospital drama. Sound familiar?

Certainly, the two shows differ in the details from the shows they resemble. But not that much.

In the Western show, titled “Ransom Canyon,” Josh Duhamel (above photo) plays a rugged rancher named Staten Kirkland who lives alone on his sprawling spread in the Texas Hill Country, the Double K Ranch.

If the character is named for Staten Island and the Costco in-house grocery brand, Kirkland, this is not revealed in the Netflix press materials.

“Steadfast and stoic, Staten leads the charge to resist outside forces threatening his way of life and the land he loves,” says Netflix.

Also unspecified is the meaning of the title, “Ransom Canyon.” Either someone gets kidnapped in the show or Ransom Canyon is where the ranch is located. Netflix doesn’t say.

The show “is a romance-fueled family drama and contemporary western saga that charts the intersecting lives of three ranching families, all set against the rugged expanse of Texas Hill Country,” Netflix does say.

Ranching dynasties are nothing new in movies and TV shows, but a recent series of Western sagas on another streamer, Paramount+, has apparently not gone unnoticed at Netflix.

That series is, of course, the “Yellowstone” franchise, which has already spawned two spinoffs with more on the way.

Whether or not Netflix thinks it can strike the same motherlode with “Ransom Canyon” isn’t the point. 

The point is that Netflix commonly comes up with TV shows that seem to be inspired by the successes it perceives in its competition.

Or to put it another way, when Netflix sees a contemporary Western saga drawing attention and viewership on a competing platform, then Netflix is not slow to jump on the bandwagon too.

It’s something like the way restaurants and retail stores cluster near each other, rather than staking out territory far from the competition. 

The theory is, if consumers are looking for a restaurant or a retail store, they are more likely to go where there is a choice of them.

Also starring in “Ransom Canyon” are Minka Kelly, James Brolin and Kate Burton. The show premieres April 17 on Netflix.

Meanwhile, the new Netflix hospital drama, “Pulse,” starts April 3. Judging by descriptions provided by Netflix, this Miami-based emergency room drama has antecedents dating back at least as far as “ER.”

“While the staff of Miami’s busiest Level 1 Trauma Center navigate medical emergencies, young ER doc Danny Simms [Willa Fitzgerald] is unexpectedly promoted to Chief Resident amidst the fallout of her own provocative romantic relationship,” says one of the descriptions.

Wouldn’t you know it? Danny’s relationship is with a colleague who was chief resident until he was suspended and she was given his job. All of this is going on as a hurricane bears down on South Florida. 

The two “must find a way to work together -- even as the bombshell details of a complicated and illicit romance between them begin to spill out,” says the Netflix boilerplate. “For this tight-knit group of doctors, saving their patients’ lives is often less complicated than living their own.” 

That can be said about TV doctors on past and present hospital shows too numerous to count, such as two that premiered recently -- “The Pitt” on Max and “Doc” on Fox, about a doctor with amnesia.

TV is often referred to as a “universe.” It is a big place, spacious enough for another Western ranch drama and a hospital soap opera.