Texas Ranch House
PBS
May 1-4, 8-10 p.m.

Cowboys are sexy. Heritage — not as much. But in the new PBS reality series Texas Ranch House, the sultry glories of cowboying are eschewed for a more sober celebration of American cultural roots. The show, which airs tonight, is the newest installment in what has become, for PBS, a cottage industry (no pun intended). Following on the coattails of 1900 House, Manor House, Colonial House and Frontier House, Texas Ranch House is another historical reenactment-cum-real person drama wrapped up in a scholastic burrito. And while it offers nothing new — besides a different setting and cast — it's still a welcome respite from most of reality TV.

PBS-brand reality TV differs from the programs propagated by commercial and cable channels for obvious reasons. While VH1's Celebreality is an exercise in shock value and scandal, PBS's "House" shows tend to downplay every situation that could possibly titillate. In the first American-based installment, Frontier House, entire families were sent to Montana, and back to 1883, to experience the "blizzards, hunger, scorching sun, forest fires" of "life on the American Frontier." Each family was a made up of a coherent unit of mature, educated adults and watching them impersonate desperate early settlers of the American plains was like watching a textbook-friendly version of American history happen right before your eyes. People struggled, sure; people toiled. But there were no screaming tantrums, no "your momma" insults — and no sex.

Texas Ranch House continues in the tradition of sanitized — and yes, educational — reality fare. There are things to be learned about cowboys, after all, and PBS intends to teach them. The fact that when viewers think "cowboy" they might think sweaty, broad shouldered, independent men with gruff voices and wide brimmed hats, drinking whiskey and slinging guns really doesn't matter. In fact, according to the PBS website:

It is something of a myth that all cowboys carried guns, and in fact guns were banned from most early ranches because they terrified cattle and could cause stampedes. Our show is about living the life of real 1867 cowboys and ranchers, not movie gunslingers.

It is reality TV based, strangely, on actual reality. Or a realistic setting, at least. Consequently, the show is mostly devoid of the swagger and strut of the Western, and more filled with the hopeless groping of the confused, sun-burned contemporary American dressed up like a cowboy and living "on the range." And what makes reality TV worth while if not for hopeless groping? The show does place seven scruffy young men (the cowboys) on an isolated 10,000 acre ranch retrofitted to 1867 (i.e. with no modern diversions) with four teenage/twenty-something girls (the ranch owner's daughters and maid).

Texas Ranch House, however, avoids the trashy pitfalls of most reality shows and focuses, instead, on the hardships of living on a 19th-century ranch — hardships especially potent for pampered modern Americans. While the subjects bumble around, trying to fit 20th-century dreams and expectations into the 19th-century setting, a detached narrator offers facts and figures about the history of ranching. It's an odd mix of realities: the stars are "real" people, the setting is "realistically" 1867, but the drama is in watching the "real" modern clash with the "real" past. Facts about cowboying are served up like a fresh side salad. The main dish is the same tasty, but rubbery, chicken served in all reality TV meals: watching the displaced cast act out in strange and unpredictable ways, and empathizing with them.

In the way of most reality programming, there is much to find ridiculous in the actions of those on screen. Yet, while it is all sedate compared to the antics of Flava Flav, it's also guilt-free. Watching Texas Ranch House is educational. And that, somehow, feels sexy.

— Joey Rubin (joey at flakmag dot com)