At the July 2025 Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association conference in Sioux Falls I heard the visionary force and showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine speak about her vision for the show.
I was impressed, when prior to that I’d been rather disinterested.
Rebecca talked about her life-long love of the books, and how as people were hired, they were quizzed about their exposure to the novels. As the episode arcs and scripts were created, staff were asked about favorite details from the books, and these were worked into the episodes.
After listening to Rebecca’s discussion, I was much more intrigued.
Still, I did not follow the progress, didn’t have the release date on my calendar, and wasn’t planning to watch for several months after its release (I tend to have most of my screen-time in the winter, when it isn’t as fun to be outside).
She also warned that there would be changes, because of course aspects to create cohesive storytelling were needed, as well as historical context for the entire Kansas sojourn to put perspective around the Ingalls family.
I was intrigued and interested.
Still, I was not really paying attention to the excitement that grew as the release date (July 9, 2026) approached. I saw the excitement of friends online, but it still had not caught my attention.
Then I got a voicemail from a friend and respected Ingalls-Wilder researcher who gushed about the first episode. He’d expected to dislike it, but found he loved it. I especially remember how he said that watching the river crossing scene took him right back to elementary school when the teacher read the book to the class. With his enthusiasm, I decided I needed to make time to watch the new series.
At this point, I’d seen plenty of reactionary responses online about the show. I’ve also received many inquiries from people in and out of the Ingalls-Wilder world asking my thoughts AND asking questions about whether this part or that is historically accurate. So, here are just a few of my own thoughts.
Some are stuck in comparing the new adaptation to the original NBC series*, and some are picking apart details of the real history of the Ingalls family. There are differences, of course! But from a story-telling perspective, this series is very well done.
I admit to being perplexed by the adamant and often emotional comparisons by viewers of the NBC series—which was only tangentially Ingalls-Wilder related by a few episodes into the first season—to this new one. To me, it is unnecessary. For instance, imagine a wide extended family. The crowd sits around and picks apart the newest child of a couple, comparing it to their first or second child, etc. Each child will have their own talents and weaknesses, and liking the second child does not mean that you dislike the first child. Each can stand upon its own merits as a welcome addition to the fold. That is how the debate feels to me. There is no need to denigrate one in favor of the other. They are independent entities.
The Netflix series is an absolute delight and worth watching for itself.
A few episodes in and after seeing some of the reactions online, I was thinking “this is like an impressionist painting. You can step back and see the wider scene and know exactly what you’re looking at. If you peer too closely at a specific detail, it may go wonky…but as a whole it is beautiful.” And that is part of what I like about the new series.
This is also an adaptation for entertainment purposes, not a documentary on the lives of the Ingalls family, nor was it ever intended to be. The wonky details are part of what creates the whole, and they are thoughtfully added. Kudos to the team who put this all together.
Visually, it is beautiful. The cinematography is gorgeous, and they’ve done a great job making it visually appealing for modern audiences.
Of the various people who have portrayed Charles Ingalls, I think Luke Bracey’s portrayal is the one that captures the “Pa” that I see when reading the books. Others have disagreed because they can only see Michael Landon as Pa. But this Charles is much closer to the book Pa, I think.
And that is something I’ve seen online — people reacting to the version of a character THEY have in their heads.
We each have a different Charles. A different Caroline. A different Mary. A different Laura. That is part of the beauty of storytelling—we each create versions of the characters based on our own experiences.
When some people describe their Laura, I do not recognize that Laura. Or Ma. Or Pa. Or Mary. Others do not see my version of that character. We all have a different iteration, whether it be the book characters or one of the previous filmed iterations. And that is how literature works!
The character Laura… the actor playing her, Alice Halsey, is fantastic. She has the spunk to carry off the Laura from the books with the acting abilities to make her feel real. I’m loving her portrayal and range. Her facial expressions when the family was sick and she realized she had to step up? Very well done.
At first I was a little shaken that Mary, portrayed by Skywalker Hughes, did not have the golden hair of the real Mary, a contrast that spurred some of the jealousies portrayed in the novels. But that feeling disappeared very quickly as the scenes unfolded. Mary is a much more rounded human being here, and I’m liking how the writers are portraying Mary, and how Skywalker is playing this character.
My one minor-problem area is with Caroline, but that only lasted a couple episodes. Initially, I was bothered by the emotional portrayal of a woman who, via her daughter’s accounts and numerous neighbor-and-friend accounts, was so stoic and non-reactionary that she seemed unflappable (aside from a few outbursts during the Hard Winter when the family was at risk of freezing or starving) and thus, frankly, rather boring. She was consistently described as quiet, sweet, soft-spoken, and kind in any historical account I’ve seen.
However, after thinking about it after the second episode, I realized that the Caroline of the novels was a fairly one-dimensional character. She mostly said “Oh, Charles” or gently corrected the girls in some way. She was portrayed as gentle and loving, but very rigid and particular.
The writers had to take that character and turn her into a more rounded human.
They ALSO needed to bring in more historical context for the wider series—how did women respond to setting up a new home in a new place, with new friends, away from family?
I think they’ve utilized the character of Caroline to pull in some of those things, so that the viewer has a sense of that sacrifice while at the same time bringing in the mythologized “rugged frontier woman” aspect. Developing Caroline beyond the book Caroline was a good—and I think—necessary choice.
The Caroline portrayed by Karen Grassle in the NBC version is so well loved that she has rather usurped the real and novel-based Caroline Ingalls, and put a rather high bar for the actor Crosby Fitzgerald to contend with.
That is an unenviable position for anyone to be in, but I think she is doing a good job. She further won me over with her fevered-dream speech about Charles to her sister; many know that Charles is my favorite character, and I do tend to defend him against the presentism that plagues critiques of him a century and a half later.
Which brings me to a couple of “different than history” aspects of the story line which I haven’t quite thought through yet. Knowing that the creator knows the books and real history very well, there are obviously literary/storytelling reasons that these things are included, and I am trusting that the reason will make sense at some point.
In this iteration, it appears that the family was more or less exiled from Pepin, and there is hostility towards Charles. Nothing I have ever seen in the historical record indicates this, and in fact it is the opposite. In real life, Uncle Henry (Ma’s brother) and Aunt Polly (Pa’s sister) also moved with the Charles Ingalls family, first to Missouri, where Henry and Polly returned to Pepin while Charles and company continued to Kansas. The families remained close. Uncle George did come home from the war changed, but it appears that this series is hinting that he drown himself in response to something Charles said, and the family blames him for the death. In reality Uncle George lived a long life, married, etc. So that story line is confusing to me.
I’m also unsure why they had Carrie born at Christmas, when she was an early August baby. With that said, Mary and Laura were very young (4 and 2) when the family was in Kansas, and they are obviously aged up for this new series, so the date of Carrie’s birth is really rather irrelevant. It was merely something I noted when peering too closely at the details of the impressionist painting 😉 Due to the aging-up, we’ll hopefully have the opportunity of seasons progressing through the full set of Little House books, with Laura being about 18 at the end.
Hmm…what else. OH!
There were several scenes that appear to be homages to the NBC series, and I’m sure if I watched the shows again I’d notice more.
My favorite was a scene in episode 1 (I think) where we see Charles silhouetted against a sunset, slightly bent over, playing the fiddle. He was wearing the criss-cross style of suspenders Michael Landon wore, and at first it looked as if Michael Landon himself was there on screen. What a beautiful tribute. 🙂
Mrs. James and her daughters (especially Romanzy) are playing off of the Harriett-Nellie type, and the scene in episode 8 when the speeches are judged reflects “The Richest Man in Walnut Grove,” a viewer favorite from the NBC Season 1, down to the body language and facial expressions of both Mrs. James and Romanzy.
There were several others, but those are the two I can think of off the top of my head.
Oh! And of course the cameo by Allison Arngrim. As a child, I’d found her terrifying as Nellie. But that was absolutely nothing compared to the menacing creature she played in Episode 2. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. The fact that Allison herself is incredibly kind and hilariously funny adds all the more to how horrifying she was in that scene.
(And disclaimer: the cameo by Megan Follows went completely over my head…I’ve never read the books nor seen any of the adaptations of Anne of Green Gables, but I understand many people were very happily excited to see her! A lovely tie-in between related literature).
I’d mentioned that I find the new series visually beautiful. This stands out best for me in the scenes most closely aligned with the novel. The river crossing. The log hurting Ma’s ankle. The prairie fire. Several others. These scenes in particular are beautifully done.
The historical context is also excellently portrayed.
Showing with accuracy the situation of the Osage at that time and place, their clothing, their situation…not as caricatures, but what was really going on. The blue-eyed Osage? By then, the Osage had been interacting with whites (especially French and Spanish) for many decades, even a century or more. Cultural give-and-take was not just white traders dressing in native clothing, but the other way around, too. Considerable consultation and research was involved with the Osage people in creating the representation for the new series, and it is historically accurate, despite what our popular fiction and “winner writes history” versions want us to believe. Having a parallel family was a good way to show the complexity of the issue and how it played out.
I’m glad that they turned Dr. Tann into a more well rounded character, too. He delivered Carrie in real life, and did tend to the sick settlers when fever n’ ague struck (called ‘intermittent fever’ in the fever-dream episode. It was likely malaria).
I very much like the inclusion of the railroad shenanigans (via Mr. James) too. The railroads were very speculative, often necessarily so but often simply greed-based. Some were more notorious than others, but they did tend to lure people out to settle along their lines, sometimes with promises that went well beyond reality. It is an important part of the wider situation in understanding the settlement of the plains, and its inclusion is appropriate.
The season wrapped up beautifully, with the move to Minnesota, and it is interesting that they chose to have Mr. Edwards (a composite character of multiple real-life neighbors of the Ingalls in Kansas) be related to the Oleson’s of Walnut Grove is an intriguing twist (made all the funnier considering how Harriet Oleson and Isaiah Edwards on the NBC series were wonderful sparring partners).
We shall see what they have in mind there or if it was merely a way to allow Mr. Edwards to tag along to Minnesota, as he is a popular character.
I am glad to see that Season 2 has already been picked up, and am looking forward to more.
I’m definitely hopeful that they can continue on to Dakota Territory, as I’d love to see what they do with the Hard Winter of 1880-81. There will also be significant opportunity to delve deeper into the railroad construction portion of the wider story.
Well done, Rebecca Sonnenshine and crew. Looking forward to more :M