I have no idea what Netflix is doing with Little House on the Prairie

It’s been 90 years since Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved children’s series, Little House on the Prairie, was first published, and 43 years since the wildly popular TV adaptation.

Now, Netflix is putting a 21st-century spin on this thorny 19th-century tale of the American Frontier, in which the Ingalls family arrive in Kansas to create the idyllic country home of their dreams, aka illegally settle on Osage land.

This semi-autobiographical story, based on the author’s childhood memories, has remained a staple of children’s literature for decades, with generations connecting to its universal themes of life, love and loss.

It’s also a book that includes sentiments such as ‘the only good Indian is a dead Indian’, refuses to acknowledge the local Indigenous community as ‘people’, and our protagonist, Charles Ingalls himself says: ‘When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on.’

As is the Achilles heel of many of the great works of American literature from this era, the streaming giant has been forced to reckon with our central family – the characters we’re meant to be rooting for – having the sensibilities of early American settlers.

Taking up the mantle from Michael Landon, Aussie actor Luke Bracey plays the family patriarch, Charles, joined by Crosby Fitzgerald as wife Caroline, as well as Alice Halsey and Skywalker Hughes as daughters Laura and Mary. 

Now I’m a lover of period dramas, even those set in North America. Recent adaptations such as Anne with an E, The Gilded Age and Dickinson have all won me over in one way or another with their characters, storyline and setting. All of them grapple with the bigotry of the time while offering a forward-thinking take.

The new Little House on the Prairie attempts to do the same, with mixed success, and ultimately leaves me with the existential question: What are we trying to do here?

In the first episode, the Ingalls arrive in Kansas, running away from their troubles back home in Wisconsin, to build a new life in the ramshackle town of Independence, which doesn’t even have a post office yet.

The series serves as a time capsule for the attitudes of this period, and this should be preserved, but it makes navigating a compelling modern adaptation for a new generation of children to fall in love with a complete minefield.

There’s a nice enough chemistry between the family (even if I did have the disconcerting feeling that I was watching 21st-century people cosplaying at times), and all four put on a solid performance, including the youngest Laura, who is the fiery heart of the whole show.

The two stars for this review, however, are almost entirely dedicated to the storyline involving the Mitchell family and the Osage – one created especially for this new adaptation. In the original book series and TV show, the Osage very much operate as furniture, collateral damage, almost entirely stereotyped.

This time around, the producers make a real effort to correct this, casting the Mitchell family – William (Meegwun Fairbrother), White Sun (Alyssa Wapanatâhk) and Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts) – as a direct parallel to the Ingalls.

Fairbrother has shared the immense research that went into honouring Osage culture – especially its language – for the show, and it shines through. I was nearly brought to tears at the end of one episode, when the negotiations around the land treaty reached a climax.

‘Leaving this land means we leave our ancestors, our history, and a part of ourselves behind,’ Little Puma (Xander Cole) poignantly declares.

Especially during a time when we’re seeing the brutal consequences of the Great American Project as it celebrates its 250th anniversary under the rule of President Trump, there’s something eerily unsettling about the show’s attempt to make us sympathise with the Ingalls despite the horrors it’s making an extra effort to portray. 

As Caroline tells Charles at one point: ‘I like who we are here. We came here to be the best versions of ourselves, and we did that.’ Yet, I can’t invest myself in her words without hearing the haunting cries of the Osage as they sang their people’s mourning song.

It’s a brush that mars every picturesque landscape, heartwarming sequence of friendship and display of hard-earned victory.

Even though the Ingalls are portrayed as allies to the Osage (through Laura’s friendship with Good Eagle and Charles standing up for them during negotiations), this is not a salve. Instead, they become bystanders to a historic atrocity. 

The show invites us to see the full picture, as it should, but then can’t handle the weight of it. It also means the tonal shifts are all over the place, oscillating between a tense political drama about the future of the land and having wholesome Christmas episodes blanketed in snow.

By committing to meaningful representation, Netflix has undermined the very characters we should be getting behind, and I can’t help but feel that if they wanted to try this version of Little House on the Prairie, then they should have taken it all the way.

We already have one iconic, dark, and largely faithful interpretation of the series from the ’70s. So, why not use the books as inspiration to focus entirely on the Osage, with the Ingalls as side characters? Or create an entirely new show in and of itself.

Throughout watching, I couldn’t help but feel: You can’t have your cake and eat it. 

There’s no easy answer when it comes to handling modern adaptations of problematic period texts.

No doubt, bringing a fleshed-out and nuanced approach that amplifies marginalised voices historically is vital, but it means accepting the fact that the heroes of our childhood might actually be the villains. 

Little House on the Prairie is available to stream on Netflix now.