‘Little House on the Prairie’ Is an Entertaining Trip Back to America’s Hardscrabble Frontier

“Little House on the Prairie” is offering a journey back to a long-gone, hardscrabble America. While viewers are sure to compare it to the TV series 50 years ago and source material, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic novels, the Netflix version is best enjoyed as its own production — one created with genuine affection for the audience and the past they depict.The series covers the events of Wilder’s third novel, “Little House on the Prairie,” published in 1935. The author’s family was lured from Wisconsin to Kansas by the promise of free land. The homesteaders run into reality, hostile native tribes, and disease, all of which they must confront as there’s no going back.Viewers who enjoy the national pastime of the social media age, nitpicking, will tear apart “Little House.” But it’s refreshing that its producer, Rebecca Sonnenshine, explained her creative choices rather than insult fans for questioning them. She told Variety that Wilder’s books were the first she ever read, amounting to her “origin story” as a filmmaker.When a high-profile podcaster, Megyn Kelly, promised on X to “absolutely ruin” the series if it was “wokefied,” Ms. Sonnenshine shrugged. The word “has lost all definition,” she told the Los Angeles Times, and suggested that when Ms. Kelly watched the show, she’d find it “very much in keeping with the spirit of the books.”Ms. Sonnenshine said that the changes she made were out of necessity, not for the sake of shoehorning her own perspectives into the show. For example, the actress playing Laura Ingalls, Alice Halsey, isn’t blonde as the character is in the novels. The producer explained that Ms. Halsey “was the best actress” who auditioned “and I’m not going to dye a kid’s hair.”Ms. Halsey is excellent in the show, her first role. Her TV sister, Skywalker Hughes as Mary Ingalls, holds up the other half of a sibling rivalry that makes for compelling scenes. As fits the period, the daughters are of their time rather than contemporary kids in period clothing. To “sass” is an unforgivable sin and they’re children best seen and not heard.Jocko Sims, Crosby Fitzgerald, and Luke Bracey in ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ Netflix/ Eric ZachanowichAs the family patriarch, Charles “Pa” Ingalls, Luke Bracey, is a throwback to an age when TV depicted fathers as providers and protectors. Judged by these qualities, Mr. Bracey is a worthy heir to the actor who originated the role. Michael Landon was beloved worldwide. Even the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, judged him a moral “father figure.”Caroline “Ma” Ingalls, Crosby Fitzgerald, is a partner to her husband, rather than one of the flawless, uninteresting “girl bosses” that glut today’s entertainment. Her doubts about the move to the wilderness, and an impending birth, strain her marriage to Charles, but they choose to face hardships together.“Little House” expands Wilder’s world, looking at it through young Laura’s eyes during Reconstruction rather than an adult’s cynical perspective in 2026. Some knees jerked upon seeing a black actor, Jackie “Jocko” Sims, portraying Dr. George Tann. But he was a real physician who, as his headstone states, “doctored the Ingalls for malaria in 1870.”Rinker Buck, author of “The Oregon Trail,” told this columnist in a History Author Show interview that “Native American tribes were very, very different” in customs and language. “Initially,” he said, “they received the white Europeans as if they were just another tribe,” and through trade, “they could envision a profitable and a familiar relationship” emerging.With society changing, the Osage who live on the land where the Ingalls stake their claim must adapt to an onrushing future along with the settlers and freedmen. The original inhabitants of the land are shown on screen with the same variety of personalities, virtues, and vices as any group rather than being perfect angels or stock villains.“Little House” is an entertaining trip back to an America resuming its westward expansion after the bloodletting of the Civil War. Like the novels and Landon’s original series, Netflix takes dramatic license in service of telling good stories. Viewers will enjoy following the Ingalls on the resulting adventures, provided they can resist the modern urge to look for nits to pick.

‘Little House on the Prairie’ Is an Entertaining Trip Back to America’s Hardscrabble Frontier

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