A Slightly Renovated Little House

If you grew up watching the original TV version of Little House on the Prairie, which ran for nine seasons on NBC in the 1970s and early ’80s, you may remember it as a gentle, uplifting drama about an American family attempting to thrive in post-Civil War Minnesota. And it was. But Little House on the Prairie could also go hard when it wanted to. Remember that episode where a young Laura Ingalls (Melissa Gilbert) wrongly thought she had witnessed her neighbor, Mr. Oleson, beheading his wife? I do, because I saw it when I was very young, and it terrified me and every single cell in my teeny-tiny body.

I mention this because four minutes into the new Netflix adaptation of Little House on the Prairie, based on the semi-autobiographical 1935 novel of the same name by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Ingalls family nearly drowns when their covered wagon tips over in a creek, an event that causes their beloved dog, Jack, to get carried off by the current. It’s pretty intense, and it serves as a reminder that both of the original Little Houses often were, too. (This particular incident is pulled straight from the aforementioned children’s book.) It’s also an announcement that this iteration, developed by Rebecca Sonnenshine, who wrote the screenplay for The Housemaid and created the Netflix series Archive 81, will not shy away from portraying moments of high tension.

Most notably, this Little House — Season 1 debuts in full on July 9 — leans much harder into the clashes between white settlers like the Ingalls family, who put down roots in the still-developing Independence, Kansas, and the Osage, who live on the land and may well have it taken away by the U.S. government. The book and the original series make reference to the conflict between the tribe and the newcomers, but Sonnenshine’s Prairie makes it a central narrative pillar of the entire eight-episode first season. Far more than its predecessors, this take on a great Western coming-of-age story makes it clear that even the most well-intentioned American pioneers were also colonizers.

7.5

Little House on the Prairie

Like

• This Little House is faithful to its literary and previous television source material but more nuanced in its portrayal of Native Americans and the conflicts between them and the mostly white settlers taking over Osage land

Dislike

• It skates close to the line of being too cloying and corny but thankfully never crosses over into Hallmark territory

The struggles of rural life in the late 1800s also feel more visceral here. The Ingallses, including sisters Laura (Alice Halsey) and Mary (Skywalker Hughes) — their sister Carrie is not born until late in the season — face constant dangers, including wolves, prairie fires, thieves, debilitating illnesses, and financial hardship. The remoteness of their location and their inability to communicate with anyone unless they take a long, long ride in a carriage or on horseback will be eye-opening for younger viewers who have spent their lives Googling or DoorDash-ing their way out of every minor emergency.

The directors of the eight episodes, all of them women, capture the beauty of the expansive terrain and endless blue skies. But they also zero in on authentic and less pretty details. Flies and gnats buzz around the characters’ heads, and the fingernails of every Ingalls family member are undergirded with dirt and grime, a testament to the chores everyone must do on their makeshift farm.

In addition to the careless way the Osage people are treated, the series also addresses the sly ways in which Black Americans — both the town medic, Dr. Tann (Jocko Sims), and the owner of the general store, Emily Henderson (Barrett Doss), are Black — are ostracized by certain members of the community. It also underlines the ugliness in elitist attitudes, best illustrated by the well-off town busybody Jemma James (Mary Holland) and her equally snotty daughters. If the James ladies sound like stand-ins for the aforementioned Oleson family, that’s because they come across that way.

Yes, I regret to inform Little House fans that its best/worst character, the diabolical Nellie, a mean girl who invented the concept of bratty curls years before Cole Escola was even born, is not featured in this season. The good news is that she will pop up in the second season, which has already been greenlit by Netflix. Also, Alison Arngrim, the actress who played Nellie, makes a cameo appearance in the recently dropped episodes, but this critic will not tell you which one. Just keep your eyes open.

ALSO READ: The complete guide to summer TV

While social issues are front and center, the show is just as concerned with the everyday concerns of the sisters who serve as its primary protagonists. The responsible Mary (played with an appropriate air of self-righteousness by Hughes) and the adventurous, blunt Laura (Halsey, donning her pigtails and slingshot with all the pioneering pluck you would expect) bicker and tease each other, get in trouble and develop crushes. 

In many ways, Laura is the moral compass of the show. Her interest in Osage customs and friendship with a young Osage neighbor named Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts, young Bonnie from Marvel’s Echo) helps shore up a strong relationship between the two families. Her expectations of others are high, and her appreciation of simple joys is almost comically profound. In a Christmas episode, her father, Charles (Luke Bracey, bringing sensitive masculinity and a magnificent head of hair to the role just as Michael Landon did before him) advises his daughters to let their mother rest before they do another jig. “Another jig!” Laura exclaims. “Yes!” This is what kids were like before iPads! They were perfectly happy doing jigs!

As that last bit of dialogue suggests, Little House on the Prairie can be kinda corny. If I had a dollar for every shot of the members of the Ingalls family embracing each while staring off into the middle distance, I’d have, by my best estimate, at least seven or eight bucks. But for the most part its wholesomeness is endearing.

The basic spirit of the OG Little House on the Prairie still runs through this adaptation. Like Wilder’s creation and the NBC series, this story preaches the values of family, hard work, hope, empathy, and generosity, without being overly didactic. It is a celebration of the most fundamental American values, but one that isn’t afraid to acknowledge the ways in which this country has so often fallen short of achieving them. 

Premieres: Thursday, July 9 on Netflix
Who’s in it: Alice Halsey, Luke Bracey, Crosby Fitzgerald, Skywalker Hughes
Who’s behind it: Rebecca Sonnenshine (executive producers)
For fans of: The original Little House books and TV series
Episodes watched: 8 of 8