Stream It Or Skip It: ‘My Life With The Walter Boys’ On Netflix, Where A Manhattan Teen Goes To Live On A Ranch In Colorado After A Family Tragedy

People in fish-out-of-water romance shows are always reeling after some sort of upsetting life event, like a divorce or a family death. A new Netflix series, though, ups that tragedy quotient for its main character; she ends up losing her entire family and has to move from Manhattan to a ranch in Colorado.

MY LIFE WITH THE WALTER BOYS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes that show we’re in Manhattan, then we see people walking into a spring break charity ball.

The Gist: Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) is in her element at her school, already the party planning chairman as a freshman. During the charity ball that she planned, her uncle Richard (Alex Quijano) unexpectedly shows up and gives her news that completely changes her life: Her parents and sister have all died in an accident.

The next time we see Jackie, she’s arriving in Denver, a few months after the accident; she is going to stay on the Walter ranch with veterinarian Katherine Walter (Sarah Rafferty), her husband George (Marc Blucas) and their blended family, which consists of seven brothers and one sister. It’s certainly a huge change, but it was stipulated in her mother’s will that her college friend Katherine become Jackie’s guardian if anything were to happen to them, in order to give her a stable family life.

As she’s introduced to all of the boys (and girl), there’s chaos throughout the house. Two of the boys stand out: Alex (Ashby Gentry), the nerdy, sensitive Walter boy who immediately takes a liking to Jackie, and Cole (Noah LaLonde) who is full of abs and attitude; he derisively calls Jackie “New York.” Jackie is placed in the room where Katherine used to paint before all the kids came along; she immediately puts up a pennant for her dream college, Princeton.

The next morning, as Jackie meticulously gets ready for her first day at her new school, the Walter boys (and girl) loudly swarm in the kitchen. At school, she’s introduced to Erin (Alisha Newton), Cole’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, who immediately hates her, and the nicer Cole is to Jackie, the more Erin hates her. When a teacher in her homeroom class tries to get her to say why she came to Colorado, Alex intervenes so Jackie doesn’t angrily blurt out that her whole family died. Jackie then finds out from her guidance counselor that this school doesn’t offer nearly as many AP classes as her old school did, which might hurt her application to Princeton.

In chemistry class, she partners up with the talkative Grace (Ellie O’Brien) and the always-in-the-know Skylar (Jaylan Evans). The two of them take Jackie under their wing, as does Kylie (Mya Lowe), who is friends with Alex. When Cole, who is driving his brothers, leave Grace behind at the end of the day, Sky and Grace give her a ride, and what greets Grace when she gets back to the ranch is a whole lot of annoying boy shenanigans.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? My Life With The Walter Boys, created by Melanie Halsall and based on the novel by Ali Novak, reads like a cross between 7th Heaven, Dawson’s Creek and Virgin River.

Our Take: My Life With The Walters is a pretty straightforward fish-out-of-water romance story, complicated a bit by the fact that Jackie is moving in with such a large group of boys. Then again, even as we’re introduced to all of the Walter boys in the first scene where she’s at the family ranch, we know that the only Walter boys who are going to matter, at least at the outset, are Cole and Alex. Once we realized that, we enjoyed the story more.

And, yes, Alex is going to pine for Jackie while Jackie pines for the brooding good looks of “bad boy” Cole. Will Alex get the girl, or will the girl get Cole? We don’t know and we don’t care. All of that is pretty generic romantic drama stuff. But we do like how Rodriguez plays off of both Gentry and LaLonde, who each seem to be carving out their own unique friendships with Jackie despite the noise.

Much of the rest of the first episode plays out like your typical teen-tinged romantic dramadey: The nerdy friends who immediately have chemistry with the new kid; the rival popular girl who seems to be nasty for no particular reason; etc. Jackie is going to learn how to manage in her new environment, even if it means she’ll have to give up her Ralph Lauren sweaters and her dreams of going to Princeton, just to embrace life a little more after suffering such a massive loss.

There are other stories flitting about, like some financial problems on the ranch and Cole’s feelings about not being able to play football anymore (for academic or physical reasons? We’re not sure), but we’re not sure how much play those stories will get when the love triangle aspect is so dominant.

What you’ll get out of the show really depends on how invested you are in Jackie’s story. Rodriguez’s performance helps there, as we can see Jackie’s determination to work through the pain, and we’d love to see more from Raferty as Katherine, whose friendship with Jackie’s mom is the basis of how she became Jackie’s guardian.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Cole leaves a box in front of Jackie’s door, then he and Alex exchange “Heys” and “You OKs?” as they see each other.

Sleeper Star: We liked Ellie O’Brien as Grace, because she seems like the fun hot mess of a friend every TV fish-out-of-water should have.

Most Pilot-y Line: The family snake, which Jackie unfortunately discovers as she’s holding a plate of spaghetti, is called “Rumple,” short for “Rumplesnakeskin.” Get it?

Our Call: STREAM IT. In many ways, My Life With The Walter Boys is typical teen romance fare. But it’s pleasant enough, and Nikki Rodriguez’ lead performance is compelling enough, to keep us watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.