Half-Pint is back!
And so, to the delight of families everywhere, is Little House on the Prairie, filled to the brim with sentiment, heart, and the unshakable bonds of family. “Hope is everything. It’s the only thing,” Charles “Pa” Ingalls tells his forlorn but resilient younger daughter Laura, a.k.a. “Half Pint,” to lift her spirits after a rough journey in a covered wagon from Wisconsin to the blue-sky wilds of Kansas (filmed in Canada).
“Don’t give up on us,” he adds, unnecessarily. Giving up isn’t in the Ingalls’ DNA. We’d know that even if we hadn’t grown up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder‘s autobiographical novels.
Sporting a mane of hair that does justice to the memory of Michael Landon (Pa in the beloved 1970s-’80s NBC adaptation), ruggedly handsome Australian actor Luke Bracey is a dream dad whose every scene with Alice Halsey‘s wide-eyed, adventurous Laura is a keeper. He’s also got strong chemistry with Crosby Fitzgerald as Ma, otherwise known as Caroline, a former teacher who struggles with homesickness and the unknown, though she can’t help wondering, “What if this is where we finally become who we were meant to be?”
There’s not a lot of time for self-actualization in an eventful first season (a second is already underway) that challenges the frontier family with all kinds of crises, from a treacherous river crossing before they reach their destination of Independence, Kansas, to various calamities including natural disaster, life-threatening fevers, scary wild animals, scarier vagabonds, and ever-looming financial struggle. Laura and her older and wiser — and frequently annoyed — sister Mary (Skywalker Hughes) even have to contend with a pair of mean-girl twins who live in town with their well-off parents, including judgmental Women’s Society leader Jemma James (Mary Holland, only slightly less puritanical than her character on Ghosts).
This isn’t just the Ingalls’ story. Much of the first season dramatizes the unease and conflict between the newly arrived settlers and the land’s indigenous inhabitants, the Osage. Charles set out for Kansas under the promise of “free land,” only to learn that the government is still negotiating with the tribes. While Pa struggles with this uncertain future, and mama bear Caroline understandably senses danger, Laura only sees adventure and delight in making a new best friend in Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts), daughter of a mixed-blood farmer.
The series also acknowledges the psychological aftereffects of the Civil War, which shattered Charles’ family and haunts their new best friend, John Edwards (Warren Christie giving the show’s standout performance), a widowed loner given to dark moods, a taste for whiskey and a desperate need for family. He clings to the Ingalls like a lifeline, and every time he disappears from the scene, you feel the loss.
Eric Zachanowich/Netflix
But never fear, schmaltz is never too far away. There’s no day that can’t be brightened by Pa breaking out his fiddle for the girls to sing and dance along while Edwards plays the harmonica. Mary’s tentative crush on a shop boy, and the burgeoning romance between shopkeeper Emily (Station 19‘s Barrett Doss) and local Dr. George Tann (New Amsterdam‘s Jocko Sims), provide the requisite “aww” factor. The dialogue can often feel lifted from a quilted sampler: “Dream as big as the sky and then make a plan to get it.” And an episode set during a snowbound Christmas Eve has all the Hallmark hallmarks you could ask for.
If some of the acting is wooden and the characters crafted from cardboard, many will find that a small price to pay for the creature comforts of an American classic revived for a new generation. Little House strikes a chord of nostalgia, not just for pioneer values but for a bygone era of TV when series like this and The Waltons prevailed, airing weekly with 22 or more episodes a season. (With only eight episodes, the Netflix version feels like it’s just getting started when it’s over.)
Those really were the days.
Little House on the Prairie, Series Premiere (eight episodes), Thursday, July 9