Little House on the Prairie Review: Netflix’s Adaptation is Too Sweet, Too Safe, and Too Simplistic

Netflix’s adaptation of Little House on the Prairie wants everyone to get along and understand one another with little tension, which is dramatically unconvincing, especially in the early episodes. There is very little nuance when it comes to fear, mistrust, cultural misunderstanding, or the slow work of building respect, which, frankly, still may not be enough when one side is stealing the other’s land. This softens the frontier danger, where CGI is used in a way that is hardly believable, into something “easy” to understand.

The result of the new Little House on the Prairie is too family-friendly, yet emotionally dishonest and often implausible.

The story follows Charles Ingalls (The Artful Dodger’s Luke Bracey), who, for reasons no one seems to understand, moves his family to Independence, Kansas, in search of a plot of land where they can build a home. His wife, Caroline (Palm Royale’s Crosby Fitzgerald), is pregnant with their third child. They have two young daughters: Mary (PAW Patrol’s Skywalker Hughes) and, of course, Laura (Lessons in Chemistry’s Alice Halsey), who always seems to find trouble.

What is Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie about?

When they arrive, the family nearly drowns while trying to cross a river. They meet Dr. George Tann (New Amsterdam’s Jacko Sims) and the town drunk, Mr. Edwards (Batwoman’s Warren Christie, giving the series its most interesting performance), whom everyone gives grace because he is a good man. Laura immediately befriends a young girl around her own age, Good Eagle, a member of the Osage, whose people have rights to the land Charles wants to build on.

Her father, Mitchell (Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Meegwun Fairbrother), and mother, White Sun (Peter Pan & Wendy’s Alyssa Wapanatâhk), are suspicious of the Ingalls. Yet they are not nearly as suspicious as others in their community, which points to one of the series’ biggest problems: it does not examine this conflict with enough truth. That holds the adaptation back from being not just great, but even plausible.

The main issue viewers may have with Netflix’s new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie should not just be that it is as boring as a trek across the Great Plains with no electronics. I still do not know how they kept the kids in line. The bigger problem is that it tries to adapt the classic television series instead of the source material. The original series fabricated characters in the name of comic relief and ended up as a story-of-the-week on the Great Plains, creating weekly tragedies with the Prairie as a backdrop.

Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie Review

The source material, Little House, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, is viewed through the lens of a young woman in a desolate, dangerous part of America amid political upheaval. The character of Mr. Edwards, who does not exist but is made famous in the television series, is given prominent space on the streamer—specifically, the issue of living in Independence, Kansas, and among indigenous culture on Osage land.

The books describe extreme isolation, and raising a family in such dangerous conditions is ripe with storytelling opportunities that the original adaptation never dealt with seriously. For instance, the Michael Landon series skipped over most of the trip, focusing instead on the family’s arrival in Minnesota. Not to mention, accepting that the book, written by an adolescent, ignores racial prejudices, like when they settle, the book even notes “no people” as if the indigenous culture is not human.

The result is that the Ingalls’ problems feel contrived because they rarely reflect the true cost of choosing to move into a part of the country few people understand, where arrogance can cost you your life. For example, they lose their dog in a river, yet it somehow comes back with little explanation. Fitzgerald’s “Ma” drops a log on her foot in a laughable, seemingly intentional scene. Luke Bracey’s “Pa” is played as naive, often leaving his pregnant wife and children to fend for themselves.

Is Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie worth watching?

The series’ expansion of the source material allows it to avoid tragedy at every turn, because someone is always nearby to help, which would not have been the case. Of course, when dealing with “racism” toward Indigenous cultures, the Ingalls are portrayed as progressive instead of exploring how cultural clashes and communication barriers take time to understand. Here, that understanding is almost instantaneous.

The result is an adaptation meant for families. Still, it comes across as so fake and saccharine that Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie feels like the Full House version of the NBC adaptation, which almost represents toxic positivity. The relationships develop so easily that they feel more modern and convenient than honest. The series wants to commit to kindness, healing, and understanding, while looking at ugly historical events and realities through rose-colored glasses.

A historical whitewashing and sanctified positivity that is not therapeutic, but harmful.

The remake of Little House on the Prairie streams on Netflix starting July 9th! All eight episodes were screened for this review.

Little House on the Prairie Review: Netflix’s Adaptation is Too Sweet, Too Safe, and Too Simplistic