Reality Range Rovers

When District native Maura Finkelstein applied to be on PBS's latest time-traveling reality show, "Texas Ranch House," she wasn't expecting to end up in the lowest role as a "girl of all work" -- basically, a servant.

"I had no idea what I was going to be doing," said Finkelstein, 26, who grew up in Chevy Chase. "I think I was the only one who didn't know."

The eight-hour production, the latest in the PBS "House" series ("Colonial House," "Frontier House") places the five-member Cooke family of California alongside 10 diverse strangers in a replica of an 1867 Texas ranch, complete with horses, cattle, rattlesnakes and miles of barren desert.

After two weeks of cowboy boot camp, the 15-member group was plunged into the American West -- complete with period tools, technology and clothing --- and told to get the ranch up and running.

As a domestic servant to the ranch family, Finkelstein -- who is now studying anthropology in a PhD program at Stanford University -- initally slept on a hearth in the kitchen and spent her days tending to the household chores.

As the series was filmed outside Alpine, Tex., over two-and-a-half months, the cowboys' cattle-roping, free-riding fantasies clashed with the reality of day-to-day ranch life. But it wasn't the backbreaking work in 110-degree Texas summer heat and seven layers of period dress that challenged Finkelstein the most. Instead, she said, isolation and loneliness were the most frustrating factors.

"It was hard being in this huge expanse of desert and not being able to move through it -- being tied to a house, a fire, a hearth," Finkelstein said. "That was really lonely."

-- Michelle Thomas

TEXAS RANCH HOUSE

Monday through Thursday

8 p.m.

WETA;

9 p.m. MPT