'Texas Ranch House' from PBS

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Hi

I just got done watching 'Texas Ranch House' by PBS.

The best summation was by the 'girl of all chores'. She said that 'we were supposed to bring 21st century values' ... as part of the summary of the show.

One simply can't due this ... there were rules of the day ... sexist? surely! no longer appropriate? of course .... but they worked in their day and would be just as unworkable as our mores worked for 1867 ... and just as our ways did not work in 1867, their ways would not work now ....

This is not carved in stone: the thought would be to get a discussion going .....

TTFN,

[Bugscuffle]

Quite frankly, the quote that you posted is a little hard to follow. I do not want to get into a discussion on the grammatical errors or what appears to be portion of a sentence that contradicts itself. Yes I agree that the mores of 1867 would not work today. However I do not agree that the mores of today would not have worked then. Just to be sure that we are talking about the same thing, I am talking about MORES, not MORALS. Although mores have a great effect on legislation and the things that we consider to be “acceptable” in society, not all of the mores or “accepted behaviors” that were common in 1867 would be, or more correctly are, accepted today. And, no, they didn’t work for them in 1867. I worked for SOME of them, but what about the Native American or the African American? Did it work for them? Today we don’t countenance gunfights in the streets, even if they do exist in some inner-city neighborhoods; these occurrences are not acceptable in modern society. Other non acceptable behaviors, such as segregation, are not acceptable today, but were not only acceptable, laws were written to support and enforce some of these mores. So, yes I think that our mores would have done them well in 1867 and no, I am not anxious to get back to the way they did it “back in the day”. Not all of it anyway. I like it that women can vote and hold office. I like integrated schools. There are so many wrongs from that era that we have corrected. The treatment of Native Americans, the treatment of Women, child labor laws, mandatory education for children are all improvements on society. So, yes it would have been better for them to have had our mores.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Hi,

I am sorry if I was hard to read ... I had just seen the series in it's entirety, and I think that many of the problems that they had was because they tried to use 21st century mores to problems that arose out of the 18th century problems ... and they just didn't seem to work. I agree about segregation, about the treatment of Indians ...

Just don't know what to say ... that is why I opened this discussion ... just could not wrap my head around it and come up with a good ..... way out of it ....

BTW ... I am guessing that you watched the series when it was new ...

TTFN,

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[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I saw the entire series of ".......House" when they first came out.  Ranch House was a disapointment , I think to many especially the producers. Who wouldn't be dissapointed, even outraged, at the mess left after the crew left after the "Fandango"

The fellow selected to be the "rancher" was a manager when a LEADER was required!  He failed now, and he woulda bin dead meat then

[Russ McCrae]

He and his family treated the hands like crap, then are shocked when they told them to take that job and shove it. House was a mess, record books were a nightmare. I'm surprised they can even surivie in this era much less the 1800's.

The show had merit and I think if the right folks were on the show it would of been interesting. Instead you had city folk that were waaaay out they're league.

[The Elderly Kid]

To be fair, plenty of people went out west to settle in the 1800s and failed miserably and often fatally. Not everyone had the qualities and personality traits it took to make a life on the frontier.

[Durango Flinthart]

 Did you ever wonder about all the "Reality Shows" on TV today? In the grand scheme of things they are a lot cheaper to produce than a scripted program. The Colonial - 1880's House series was PBS's sojourn into the reality format. I feel the idea was sound in theory, but the execution was lacking. The producers purposely picked folks to create friction and then on top of that they had a NO firearms policy.  This may have worked on some of the other "House" programs, but "Texas Ranch House" lets get real, no waddie worth his salt would have been"Bustin' Brush" in South Texas looking for strays unheeled! The Comanches would have taken more than their horses. Just MHO.  

Watch your topknot,

 Durango

  AKA
  Wayne Aldridge
 Producer/ Director WNIN-TV PBS  

[JimBob]

Hi

I just got done watching 'Texas Ranch House' by PBS.

The best summation was by the 'girl of all chores'. She said that 'we were supposed to bring 21st century values' ... as part of the summary of the show.

I watched that show and most of the others.I thought the idea was to see if a 21st century person with all the knowledge and conveniences they had and were used to, would have been able to make it in a 19th century world,not make the 19th century over into a replica of the 21st century world.The "girl of all chores" did not like her job and wanted to go ride horses instead of play the role she was assigned,that was her goal and purpose and it was very evident from the start.In the 19th century she would have been told to shut her mouth and get back to doing what you were told.The ranch owner and his wife and daughters were about the same in attitude.All those people would have probably died of dysentery in the 19th century with their 21st century attitudes.The "ranch owners" moral values and attitude would have found him with no help and all his cattle rustled off with his attitude.

I noticed in many of those shows the women just could not adapt to the fact that women had no say outside of running the house and raising kids.Sexist,yes,that's just the way things were then,live with it.You are there to play a part not advance women's lib.Most of those people IMHO had some romantic notion of what life was like back then.And it sure wasn't day after day of drudgery and work just to make it.

[Don Nix]

When Ranch House was casting, my son in law and I  applied. they said they were looking for folks with the necessary skills to live on a remote texas ranch.That was no step for a stepper so we applied. I thought that it would be fun and even offered to use our own wagon and team.Found out real quick that they didnt want cowboys,they wanted folks who wanted to play cowboys.

[JimBob]

@ Durango,the no firearms to me was where those shows fell apart.In many of those scenarios if you didn't have some kind of firearm you were A-going to starve to death,sustenance hunting was a fact of life and B-you were going to be killed by hostiles or wild animals  or by any number of ways or things only preventable by being able to shoot it.People moving west had guns,may have been only a surplus smoothbores Civil War musket ball and shot gun for hunting but they would have had something.Too many settler pictures of the period showing them with guns to think otherwise.

[Russ McCrae]

I for one would sure like to take along Samuel Colt when I went to "negotiate" with the indians for the hand back. I bet was thinking the same thing everyone else when the rancher rode up to save him...

Well, I'm screwed 

[Delmonico]

I tried to watch one of those "house" shows, it lasted less than 5 minutes, I felt my IQ lowering as I sat there. 

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Delmonico,

I sat the whole thing out, but more because I had already paid for the CDs ... I kept thinking that PBS usually delivered quality, and that was what it would become ...

I guess that I should be pleased that this is the one stinker that I have ever encountered with PBS .... sigh ....


TTFN,