Like many fans of the beloved Little House books, as well as the original nine-season TV series (1974–83), I was skeptical when I heard about the Netflix reboot. Would the Laura Ingalls Wilder classic be given an anachronistic makeover in the mold of modern values? Would the new cast live up to the iconic performances of Michael Landon (Pa), Melissa Gilbert (Laura), and others from the original series?
I watched all eight episodes of the Netflix series’s first season, which adapts the third book of Wilder’s semiautobiographical series. I mostly liked the show, which has already been renewed for a second season. Produced by CBS Studios and helmed by showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine, this new Little House is well-made, well-acted, wholesome family entertainment—and generally faithful to the source material.
Yes, some story elements feel a bit like “2026 values superimposed on 1869 American culture” (more on that later). And the series’s quality never rises to such heights that the reboot feels fully justified. But in a content-flooded landscape with tons of TV options for every taste—yet precious little that families can watch and enjoy together—the new Little House is an above-average offering that celebrates family, community, and the resilient frontier spirit of America.
Pro-Family Show for Families to Watch Together
In the first episode, we see the Ingalls family—having left their home in Wisconsin—travel by covered wagon to stake out land for themselves near Independence, Kansas. “Every day and every night was an adventure, and they were happy,” we hear in voiceover, “because they were a family, and they were together.”
Within the first five minutes of the show, Ingalls patriarch Pa/Charles (Australian actor Luke Bracey) is introduced in a way Little House fans will find familiar: as a fiddle-playing frontiersman who rescues his wife and daughters when their wagon nearly tips over forging a river. Later, we see him building his family’s log cabin, helping construct the town’s first church, and rescuing people from various perils. He’s a good man—and good men are hard to find on TV.
The Ingalls women are also strong, and the show (like the books) foregrounds their perspectives. Ma/Caroline (Crosby Fitzgerald) is a loving wife and mother and an industrious pioneer woman—even as her progressive-for-the-era views and more egalitarian marriage won’t make her popular among today’s tradwife influencers. Sisters Laura (Alice Halsey) and Mary (Skywalker Hughes) capture the bonds and tensions of sisterhood and the different expressions of frontier femininity that also mark their characters in the books.
Though devoted Little House fans might find occasional quibbles with this updated portrayal of the Ingalls family, I found the characterizations largely satisfying. The familial love and safety found within their nuclear family—the “little house” on a vast, unfamiliar frontier landscape—comes through. Numerous beautifully shot scenes show the family playing together, singing together, and comforting each other when hard times come.
The familial love and safety found within their nuclear family—the ‘little house’ on a vast, unfamiliar frontier landscape—comes through.
Little House is a refreshing celebration of the goodness of the family unit. It’s also refreshing that there’s nothing content-wise in season 1 that should give families pause. Like the original TV show I grew up watching, this version is entertaining for the whole family.
Need for Neighborliness and Social Bonds
Even as the Ingalls family is the heart of Little House, the story also involves a web of supporting characters who band together with the Ingalls to mutually survive the difficulties of frontier life.
A big theme here—perhaps emphasized more in this version than in previous iterations—is the danger of rugged individualism and the “go it alone” mindset. As much as self-reliance is a trumpeted American virtue and the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” narrative romanticized, the reality on the ground is different. We need help. We flourish not in isolation but in community.
As the town’s African American physician, Dr. Tann (Jocko Sims) tells Pa in episode 1, “It is a myth that men can make it out here alone. It’s a pretty story, nothing more. Find help, any way you can.”
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Perhaps the best way the show captures this is in the character of Edwards (Warren Christie), who befriends the Ingalls and helps Pa build their log cabin. Edwards is a lonely, broken Civil War veteran who battles alcoholism and struggles to cope with the immense loss in his past (including the deaths of his wife and daughters). He needs the Ingalls even more than they need him. At one point he remarks, “I’m at my best when I’m part of a family.”
The way he’s shown grace and grafted into the Ingalls family is one of the more compelling plotlines in the series. One of my favorite scenes (in episode 5) shows Edwards singing the hymn “In the Sweet By and By,” which he used to sing to his girls. His voice falters with emotion, and Ma picks up singing. The moment—like many of the family singing moments that are lovely and frequent in the show—beautifully displays how we hold each other up in friendship and carry each other through hardship.
Is the show’s vision of thick communal bonds somewhat idealistic? Probably. But it’s still inspiring and aspirational to watch the goodness of neighborliness in action—people from vastly different backgrounds caring for one another in small and big ways. We certainly could use more of this in today’s America.
Peaceful Pluralism on the Plains?
Another way the show feels idealistic is how much the core cast represent different racial and cultural backgrounds, living in community (mostly) at peace.
Though racial and class divisions are alluded to, the Ingalls family models a progressive inclusivity and universal kindness to all people. Caroline advocates for Emily (Barrett Doss), an African American shop owner excluded from attendance at the women’s society. Laura befriends an Osage girl, Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts), whose family becomes close to the Ingalls and runs on a sort of parallel track as the series progresses.
As much as self-reliance is a trumpeted American virtue, we flourish not in isolation, but in community.
The Osage family subplot is probably the biggest narrative embellishment and “modernizing” of the original story. It’s not a bad change. The series humanizes the plight of the Osage—the loss of their land as white settlers move in—and makes them central characters where other “frontier America” stories sideline or erase their presence.
I appreciated seeing the “pro-family” theme emphasized not only in the Ingalls family but also in Good Eagle’s family, who are also just trying to survive and keep their kids safe on the harsh frontier. Still, the Ingalls’ friendliness with and advocacy for the Osage feels anachronistic and doesn’t really match the book.
The series casts a progressive vision of religious and cultural pluralism. The Christianity of the white settlers is present, but it’s the Osage characters who are shown to be the most spiritually mature. Good Eagle’s mom (Alyssa Wapanatâhk) is frequently seen praying to Wah’Kon-Tah, the “great spirit,” even as a cross hangs on the wall of her home, suggesting some Christianizing influence.
And while the Ingalls have Bibles in their home, and occasionally sing hymns with Pa fiddling, their faith isn’t shown as the primary anchor in their uncertain moments. Instead, communitarianism is their ballast—the bonds they forge with Osage, immigrants, and fellow settlers who keep them afloat when all seems lost.
In times like this, the Little House reboot feels like a more socially conscious, revisionist history of 19th-century America.
What Independence Means
Despite these issues with anachronism, I admire the buoyant spirit of Little House and its depiction of quintessentially American life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s a hopeful show. “Hope is everything,” Pa says to Laura in the first episode—a line she speaks back to him in the eighth episode as a nice bookend to the season. Life is uncertain and hard on the prairie, but as Caroline says in episode 4, “An uncertain life is full of possibilities.”
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Hope and possibility are part of the American dream. The Ingalls family begins and ends the season in a covered wagon, singing the hymn “There Is a Happy Land,” as they venture from one possibility to another. Their search for a permanent home—a stable and prosperous land—captures both the restless ambition of American mobility and the universal spiritual ache for a promised land of rest and peace.
But the series also emphasizes the importance of family and community. For what’s the point of the dream if you do it alone? To forge a future, blazing uncertain trails, we need each other. And we risk everything for each other. The wide open spaces of the American frontier are beautiful, yes, but pretty lonely unless we pioneer them together.
As Laura says in a “What Independence Means to Me” oratory contest,
Independence is a town named after a way of life. None of us can make it alone here. We need help from each other. . . . Independence isn’t about self-reliance or liberty or freedom or any of those things. It’s a place to come together.
In today’s age of digital isolation and eroding social ties, this is a timely message. True freedom isn’t blazing a trail in whatever lonely direction your heart might lead you. It’s not declaring independence from the webs of family, faith, and culture that form us. Freedom is rather found by making and keeping commitments, living for a purpose and a future beyond ourselves.
The Gospel Coalition