Netflix is presenting a new version of Little House on the Prairie, a story from our nation's early frontier history, based on the popular series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
When Wilder started writing the book series in the early 1930s, it was as a fond salute to her own childhood memories. Wilder was born shortly after the Civil War, in 1867, in the very log cabin she describes in her first book, Little House in the Big Woods. That book, and her later ones, detailed the joys, the difficulties and the hard work involved in pioneer life — as seen, and told, from the perspective of a precocious young girl.
Wilder loved her Ma and Pa, and her siblings, but she observed them all carefully, and perceptively. She was to Little House on the Prairie what John-Boy was to The Waltons, another nostalgic family TV series set during an earlier time — in that case, the Depression.
The characters of both John-Boy and Laura displayed a gift for writing early on, and narrated their family's stories. When Michael Landon, after spending years as Little Joe on Bonanza, brought Little House on the Prairie to NBC in the 1970s, casting himself as the patriarch, Pa Ingalls. But the storytelling, as in the books, belonged to little Laura — played, in that series, by a young Melissa Gilbert.
That Little House series was very popular, and ran from 1974 to 1983. Especially in the early episodes, it was faithful to the original books and characters. When an Osage Indian chief came by the Ingalls cabin, Pa invited him in for a sit and a smoke. Ma was frightened, as was Laura's elder sister, but Laura was charmed, and sympathetic to his tribe's plight.
The new incarnation of Little House on the Prairie is created for TV by Rebecca Sonnenshine. Her writing credits include The Housemaid and episodes of the TV series The Boys and The Vampire Diaries. She and the show's other writers, as well as the directors, take some liberties with their new version. They introduce an entire family of Osage characters, for example, to present another set of family dynamics. One thing they don't mess with, though, is Laura as the central voice. She's played here by Alice Halsey, whom you may remember as the brilliant daughter on Lessons in Chemistry. And her performance is the show's very best.
Warren Christie is another standout. He plays John Edwards, a Civil War veteran, and sometimes drunken loner, who agrees to help the Ingalls build their log cabin before winter sets in. Pa likes him, but Ma fears him as much as she does the Osage, and sends him away. The argument that ensues is intense — but as filmed, there's something off about it. Like many other scenes in this new Little House on the Prairie, it's shot by hand-held cameras, in extreme close-up, and calls too much attention to itself. Also, some of the dramatic plot points that worked so well in the books, and in the NBC series, are less effective here, because they're not established or presented as well.
The familiar title of Little House on the Prairie may bring lots of viewers to this new version, but I can't say it really resonates, except for the performances of Halsey as Laura and Christie as Edwards. But I will say that the entire original series of Little House on the Prairie is available to stream on Peacock — and when I dove back in there to refresh my memory, that series really did resonate.
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