Little House on the Prairie was iconic in the 70s and 80s. Chronicling life on the American frontier and based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved books about her childhood and her pioneer family, it mesmerised a generation. There was a happy family, who also had disagreements; domestic duties like getting water from the creek (scenes we loved to watch but would hate in real life); and endless danger and jeopardy coming in all directions: rabies, floods and a lack of antibiotics, as well as bad people roaming around.
Fans loved heroine Laura (played by Melissa Gilbert), hated her goody goody sister Mary, recognised Nellie as the original frenemy, and could see that Pa looked as though he had wandered in from a 1970s cop show (but was actually Michael Landon, Little Joe from Bonanza).
Now, Netflix is bringing it back. And there has been a drastic change: old Laura wore a floppy cotton sun bonnet, while new Laura has a Stetson-style cowboy hat, hanging down her back on stampede strings. It’s an enticing, tomboyish new look – but what about the other “updates”?
Netflix has promised a “transformed adaptation” (i.e. “we don’t have to stick to the original stories”.) The cast is much more inclusive, and the treatment of Native Americans –featured positively in the original, but with thinly drawn characters and background plots – has changed significantly so that they have their own story, that does not shy away from how badly they were treated.
The original books have a secret history: Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her memoirs, big on community and everyone looking after each other. Her daughter Rose shaped the writing and got the work published – but she wanted to emphasise self-reliance and individual responsibility, which deviated from her mother’s intention. This remake is committed to Wilder’s original plan, and stressing the importance of community, and helping each other: “None of us can make it alone here, we need help from each other”.
Laura’s mum is no trad wife (Photo: Eric Zachanowich/Netflix)When it was first broadcast in the UK (originally on BBC One, then moving to after-school slots on ITV), Little House on the Prairie was marketed as a children’s programme. In the US, however, it was primetime drama for families. Rewatching it now, it’s surprising how many adult themes are covered and how dark some of it was: plague, deaths, addiction, and a major character going blind.
For juvenile viewers, Laura was a real person to identify with, one with faults and failures – she pushes her “friend” Nellie down a hill into the creek, she steals and breaks a music box, she is mean to her grandpa. Then she learns her lesson, says sorry, and does something else naughty next time. This was a rare combination in TV drama at the time, and made her hugely popular with her similar-aged fans.
The series always made clear that Laura’s (mostly) happy but penniless family was everything: schoolmate Nellie, meanwhile, had whatever she wanted, but it didn’t make her happy. In the new series there is no Nellie yet (coming next season apparently); instead, Laura’s best friend is a Native American girl named Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts).
Netflix’s version is also for grown-ups – alcoholism, illness and other jeopardy all feature. And, the nice bits: people helping each other, falling in love, resolving issues. The problem is that while the casting and some storylines have been honed to show the right attitudes, the character depth does not quite match up – it is too obvious who the “good” and “bad” people are, and the new friend Good Eagle is as bland as could be. She and Laura are boringly mutually adoring, while the hugely entertaining interactions with Nellie in the old days were, as one friend of mine says, “pure class”. We might expect a more complex character in a modern series, but old Laura wins it here.
On the plus side, Laura’s Ma was always a strong woman – entertaining but difficult – and is even more feisty in the new show. Tradwives may be all the rage, but you won’t find one in the Ingalls’ log cabin.
Laura’s best friend has been replaced with Good Eagle, right (Photo: Eric Zachanowich/Netflix)It is as high-spec a production as you would expect from Netflix, and the scenery is gorgeous – prairies, mountains and forests, mostly shot in Canada rather than the Kansas of the story. But the plots don’t live up to the very best of modern storytelling, compared, for example, with two recent films with similar settings. Sinners (in a small town, 50 years later) and The Testament of Ann Lee (in a community 100 years earlier) both show shades of meaning in people’s lives and actions, and how virtues and vices are shared around.
Little House is a bit too neat: the town’s most upright woman excludes Black people and hoards medicine, while those viewed as lower class and unrespectable turn out to be much kinder. Ma Ingalls learns she can speak out, others find out that talking about your feelings and telling the truth are “best”.
Each episode has a lesson to be learned in an old-fashioned way. But the moralising doesn’t spoil it – it is beautifully-acted and there are impressive set pieces, such as the town’s Founder’s Day and the raising of the church. Let yourself be pulled in, and if you can park your post-modern criticisms you’ll be enthralled by the world they have created.
And if you ever ran down a hill pretending to be Laura in the opening credits, then you’ll love it. Laura had me at the cowboy hat.
‘The Little House on the Prairie’ is streaming on Netflix
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