{"id":2631484,"date":"2026-07-18T06:38:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T10:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/review-of-little-house-on-the-prairie-remake\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T06:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T10:48:16","slug":"review-of-little-house-on-the-prairie-remake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/review-of-little-house-on-the-prairie-remake\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of &#8216;Little House on the Prairie&#8217; remake"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Freview-of-little-house-on-the-prairie-remake%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2631484&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article critiques Netflix\u2019s eight<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/time-bandits-remake-in-the-works-will-not-include-dwarfs-this-time\/\" title=\"New &quot;Time Bandits&quot; Re...ke Excludes Dwarfs This Time\">-episode remake<\/a> of &#8220;Little House on the Prairie,&#8221; arguing that it distorts the original&#8217;s themes and characters. Despite initial fears about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wednesday-october-6th-2021\/\" title=\"Wednesday | October 6th, 2021\">controversial content<\/a>, the show is largely a sanitized and politically correct version that downplays the pioneering spirit and historical tensions present in the books. It features modern, progressive characterizations-such as Caroline Ingalls transforming from a conventional figure to an antiracist, proto-feminist-and alters Native American depictions to be less culturally distinct, promoting a message of racial harmony that sidesteps historical realities. The series simplifies complex issues, replacing rugged individualism with a more idealized, uniform moral universe. the critique concludes that the show offers a watered-down, politically motivated reinterpretation of Wilder\u2019s work, failing to capture the novel&#8217;s sense of danger, tension, and authenticity. The reviewer views it as a lesser, modernized version that sacrifices depth for contemporary social commentary.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"fn-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It turns out that <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/conservatives\/\">conservatives<\/a>\u2019 direst fears about the new <em>Little House on the Prairie<\/em> remake \u2014 Ma is a sex worker! Pa is trans! \u2014 were overblown. Still, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/netflix\/\">Netflix<\/a>\u2019s eight-episode production is strangely unreal, like a two-legged horse or a pitchfork with no tines. A sanded-down work of historical bowdlerization, the show reimagines Manifest Destiny as the westward spread of <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/social-justice\/\">social justice<\/a>. Worse, it\u2019s boring. Watch if you must, but don\u2019t expect any improvement on the Michael Landon original, to say nothing of Laura Ingalls Wilder\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/books\/\">books<\/a>.<\/p>\n<section class=\"explore-more-section\" id=\"wex-recommended-widget\">\n<div class=\"magazine-container single\">\n<h1 class=\"magazine-title mt-2\">Recommended Stories<\/h1>\n<p>             <i class=\"fa-solid fa-play icon\"><\/i>         <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-grid\">\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4653437\/gop-olive-garden-pasta-pass-more-secure-than-elections\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Republicans joke Olive Garden\u2019s Never-Ending Pasta Pass requiring photo ID is more secure than elections<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4653048\/salena-zito-grateful-president-trump-shoutout-summit\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Salena Zito \u2018grateful\u2019 for Trump shoutout, reflects on summit<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4651630\/stephen-a-smith-slams-newsom-gender-affirming-care\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>\u2018Damn socialist\u2019: Stephen A. Smith slams Newsom on gender-affirming care<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The trouble starts in episode one, which sees the Ingalls family departing <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/wisconsin\/\">Wisconsin<\/a>, not in search of wide-open spaces but to escape an extended-family quarrel. This is a neat bit of revisionism, substituting as it does a therapeutic narrative for Charles Ingalls\u2019s (Luke Bracey) right-coded pioneer spirit. Indeed, individualism and the frontier creed get short shrift throughout the series, replaced as often as not by something like their opposite. \u201cIt is a myth that men can make it out here alone,\u201d says George Tann (Jocko Sims), a kindly black doctor whom the family meets upon arriving in <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/kansas\/\">Kansas<\/a>. \u201cIsn\u2019t that why we\u2019re all here?\u201d a neighboring homesteader scoffs. \u201cTo make a new America? Whatever <em>that<\/em> might be.\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-15\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These deviations (or deviancies) might be less bothersome if the show got its leads right. It doesn\u2019t. Though Bracey summons the same rugged gentleness that Landon once brought to the role of Pa, the words coming out of his mouth are too often a deconstructionist\u2019s egalitarian fantasy. \u201cI could say I\u2019m your father and I know best,\u201d Charles tells his oldest daughter, Mary (Skywalker Hughes), \u201cbut I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s true anymore.\u201d Caroline Ingalls (Crosby Fitzgerald), meanwhile, is even more greatly altered than her husband, transformed from a \u201ccanceled\u201d Indian-hater and tradwife to a headstrong antiracist and <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/feminism\/\">proto-feminist<\/a>. <\/p>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pair\u2019s marriage is naturally the site of many of these changes. Unhappy on the prairie, Caroline lets slip that she is considering taking the children and going home to Mother. Charles, having stayed out all night without warning, can \u201cmake [his] own breakfast,\u201d for all his wife cares. It is possible that Caroline and Charles Ingalls \u2014 the actual historical figures who were Laura Ingalls Wilder\u2019s parents \u2014 behaved and spoke this way, but I very much doubt it. What is absolutely certain is that the books\u2019 characters \u201cMa\u201d and \u201cPa\u201d didn\u2019t. Nor would Ma, as Netflix\u2019s Caroline Ingalls does, have stormed out of a women\u2019s society meeting over its refusal to include a black merchant. I applaud that moral stance, but don\u2019t, for an instant, believe it. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\">Alice Halsey in Little House on the Prairie. (Ric Zachanowich\/Netflix)<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/07\/localimages\/LA.TV_.072226.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;658&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Alice Halsey in \u201cLittle House on the Prairie.\u201d (Ric Zachanowich\/Netflix)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The effect of these \u201cupdates\u201d is a general smoothing of <em>Little House on the Prairie<\/em>\u2019s rough edges. Gone is the frisson of watching period men and women enact their own ideals rather than ours. In its place is a Thomas Kinkade painting with the politics of ChatGPT. Consider, for example, the show\u2019s treatment of the Osage Indians on whose land the family has settled. In Wilder\u2019s beloved novels, the Osages are irretrievably \u201cother,\u201d a fact illustrated in one memorable passage by the appearance of Natives wearing (and unbothered by) odorous skunk-skin loincloths. Netflix\u2019s series renders the same scene but puts the young men in Western clothing with Native accoutrements. Of course it does. To do otherwise would make plain that the racial tensions of the past were at least partly due to unbridgeable cultural divides. <\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-16\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-2\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Netflix would prefer to lay the entire blame on white settlers\u2019 <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/racism\/\">racism<\/a>. How else to explain show creator Rebecca Sonnenshine\u2019s decision to surround the Ingalls family with indigenous neighbors whose values and practices are essentially indistinguishable from those of the white pioneers? Having thus sung a few verses of \u201cYou and I Are No Different,\u201d the series moves straight into a chorus of \u201cWhy Can\u2019t We All Get Along?\u201d Well, we could! \u2014 if everyone, including whites, behaved at all times like upstanding Quaker gentlemen. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is presumably some truth to the notion that the real-life Ingalls clan would have met Westernized Natives as well as the \u201csavages\u201d described in Wilder\u2019s novels. Which story to tell is nevertheless a political choice. Read today, the <em>Little House<\/em> books feel like time capsules containing their era\u2019s prejudices and suppositions. Rest assured, however, that Netflix\u2019s show is no less an artifact of our own day. We just can\u2019t see it yet \u2014 or, at least, the people who write, direct, and green-light <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/tv\/\">TV shows<\/a> can\u2019t. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/premium\/4638277\/apple-tv-cape-fear-remake-review\/\">APPLE TV\u2019S \u2018CAPE FEAR\u2019 REMAKE FAILS TO DELIVER <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-17\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-3\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Compounding these errors is a sense that Sonnenshine and company have barely skimmed the novels on which their series is based. Possessed of a likable Pa and a plucky Laura (Alice Halsey), the new show weirdly settles for a CliffsNotes version of its source material with little of the underlying danger, tension, and wonder. Yes, it hits the chapter-name highlights \u2014 \u201cIndians in the House,\u201d \u201cFever \u2018n\u2019 Ague\u201d \u2014 but it fails to grasp what these moments would have felt like for those who actually experienced them. Given this incapacity, it is perhaps no surprise that Sonnenshine adds bland postmodern ingredients (e.g., a PTSD subplot) to her narrative stew. Trauma she understands; hardy self-sufficiency, not so much. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have been here before, of course, most prominently with Netflix\u2019s despicable <em>Anne of Green Gables<\/em> adaptation, <em>Anne with an E<\/em> (2017-19). The new <em>Little House<\/em> series is nowhere near as bad as that travesty, which sacrificed Lucy Maud Montgomery\u2019s vision on the altar of gay rights and gender equality, but it is pretty bad nonetheless. One reads with horror that the TV revisionists have already started on <em>Pride and Prejudice<\/em> and <em>Heidi<\/em>, two works that desperately don\u2019t need the Bold New Take treatment. Will I watch them? Most likely, yes. But only so you don\u2019t have to. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Graham Hillard is the TV critic for the <\/em>Washington Examiner<em> magazine. <\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-25\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-4\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Conservative fears about the Little House remake were exaggerated; Netflix\u2019s version feels unreal and sanitized<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":956,"featured_media":2631485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LA.TV_.072226.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[8245,13875,19272,50916,52130],"class_list":["post-2631484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-adaptation","tag-classic","tag-literature","tag-review-2","tag-television-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LA.TV_.072226.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631484"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2631488,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631484\/revisions\/2631488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2631485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2631484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2631484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2631484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}