Netflix’s Yellowstone Replacement Could Last Forever
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Image courtesy of Everett Collection
Published May 13, 2026, 2:31 PM EDT
Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.
Although Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone is a historically hard show to replace, Netflix’s latest Western drama has one thing that the hit series never boasted. Yellowstone was a massive hit for Paramount. While writer/director Taylor Sheridan’s big-screen efforts have been more mixed, with successes like Wind River and Sicario balanced out by flops like Finestkind and Those Who Wish Me Dead, his Paramount Neo-Western is the streaming service’s biggest hit ever, closely followed by its prequels, 1883 and 1923.
So far, no Neo-Western shows that attempted to borrow from the Yellowstone franchise have been able to replicate its success. However, Netflix’s Western romance Ransom Canyon has one thing that a lot of those earlier shows were all missing. Based on the romance novel series of the same name by author Jodi Thomas, Ransom Canyon has no less than eleven books to adapt in future seasons, meaning the show is unlikely to run out of storylines anytime soon if similar adaptations from Netflix and other streaming services are any indication.
There Are Eleven Books In The Series Netflix’s Ransom Canyon Is Based On
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The Ransom Canyon series began in 2015 with the release of Thomas’s bestselling novel of the same name. This was swiftly followed by Winter’s Camp, an additional novella that forms book 1.5 in the series thanks to its slight 108-page story. Over the next ten years, 2016’s Rustler’s Moon, the same year’s Lone Heart Pass and Sunrise Crossing, 2017’s Wild Horse Springs and Indigo Lake, 2018’s Mistletoe Miracles, and 2019’s Christmas in Winter Valley expanded the world of the series.
Meanwhile, the 2025 prequel Silverleaf Rapids and 2017’s novella spinoff A Christmas Affair brought the number of books in the series up to eleven, with three novellas and eight full-length books. This is only a fraction of Thomas’s literary output, as the prolific romance writer has also penned the nine-book Harmony series, the five-book McLain series, the seven-book Whispering Mountain series, and the ten-book Historical series, among many, many more.
If earlier romance novel adaptations like Netflix’s own Virgin River are anything to go by, this surplus of source material means that Ransom Canyon could outlast Sheridan’s Western epic by quite a stretch. Although Virgin River’s adaptation of Robyn Carr’s titular novel series might not be as famous as Netflix’s Stranger Things franchise, the show quietly became the streaming service’s longest-running original title when Virgin River was renewed for an eighth season in 2026.
Netflix’s Yellowstone Replacement Has One Thing Taylor Sheridan’s Show Was Always Missing
Thus, although Virgin River’s modest small-town romance story might rarely come up in discussions of Netflix’s biggest blockbuster series, the show has undeniably made streaming service history with its consistent popularity. This calls to mind the popularity of the Yellowstone franchise, which never truly won over reviewers but still manages to command a massive audience even years after the original show ended. Like many of Sheridan’s shows, Ransom Canyon and Virgin River don’t necessarily need critical approval to succeed.
That said, readers should not make the mistake of equating one series with the other. Yellowstone is no Deadwood, and the show’s grittiness and moral ambiguity were heavily exaggerated considering how reliably the show sides with and whitewashes the actions of the Duttons. However, even though Yellowstone is hardly a bleak, un-watchably brutal Western in the vein of 2006’s The Proposition or 2015’s Bone Tomahawk, the show was gritty and violent in comparison to Netflix’s Thomas adaption.
One thing that Ransom Canyon has is a lighter, more upbeat tone than Yellowstone, since the series is based on a string of successful romance novels. Admittedly, there is plenty of conflict between the Kirkland family and the other ranching dynasties that hope to gain control of the family’s land. However, the tone of Ransom Canyon is more consistently hopeful than the overbearing cynicism of Yellowstone, and this same light touch is a big part of the reason that Virgin River has quietly amassed a massive global fandom on the streaming service.
Ransom Canyon Season 2 Breaks A Netflix Western Trend
Credit: Netflix
Ransom Canyon season 1 was largely met with critical bemusement when the series arrived on Netflix in April 2025. Earning an average critical rating of 45% from Rotten Tomatoes, the series was dismissed as a dusty Western soap in the vein of Dynasty or Dallas, although the reviewers making these comparisons seemingly failed to note just how popular those shows were in their ‘80s heyday. Predictably enough, Ransom Canyon’s season 2 renewal proved the series had caught the attention of a large audience.
Unlike Godless, The Abandons, and American Primeval, all of which fared better with critics, this Netflix Western show became the streaming service’s first entry in the genre in years to last more than one outing. While American Primeval was always intended to be a self-contained miniseries, this was also initially true of the mega-hit Stranger Things, proving that Netflix isn’t averse to revisiting a successful show for an expanded second outing regardless of its original plans.
Meanwhile, The Abandons starred Sex Education’s Gillian Anderson, Game of Thrones heroine Lena Headey, The Fall’s Aisling Franciosi, and The Haunting of Hill House’s Michiel Huisman, meaning viewers could reasonably guess that the show was a bigger, more expensive undertaking than Ransom Canyon season 1. Ransom Canyon’s biggest stars were Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly, but its comparatively positive Western story clearly resonated more with viewers.
One Netflix Western show is quietly becoming the next Yellowstone, blending the romance of Virgin River with the grit of Sheridan's franchise.
The fact that the Western romance novel adaptation was renewed for a second season is proof that Ransom Canyon could last a long time on Netflix, especially after the success of Virgin River. Thus, while Yellowstone once seemed like a success that could not be repeated by another creator on another streaming service, Ransom Canyon’s source material proves this isn’t necessarily true depending on how long the small-town neo-Western can continue its more upbeat storyline.
Image courtesy of Everett Collection
Custom Image by Yailin Chacon
Credit: Netflix
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