They didn't let Martha be the Martha that everybody wanted to see. If they could have shown Martha the way they show the participants -- to their vast disadvantage -- people would have loved it.
The idea of taking this very modern 21st century story of tender love between two cowboys and putting it into the time period of an old Western opens up the floodgates for telling jokes. Comedians can't resist because we all know what a cowboy movie is and this challenges it.
It is one of the few shows on American television, especially after you get past those first couple of weeks, where really little kids love it, grandma loves it. It's got the kind of wide appeal we used to see all the time on network TV that we very seldom see anymore.