You can practically already hear the theme song.
Adapted from the books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie tells the story of Charles and Caroline Ingalls, a family who have set out into the American Frontier to start a new life for their family. As they deal with the struggles of the era, so too do they experience the triumphs of building a home together at a time when everything felt as though it was beginning again.
Developed by Rebecca Sonnenshine, the new Little House on the Prairie somehow manages to feel new, despite the shadow cast upon it by the original classic series. (And the legacy of the original can’t be denied. Running for 9 seasons and over 200 episodes, it’s widely considered one of the best series of all time.) But Little House isn’t entirely a retread of the tales that came before. While many of the characters remain the same, the series definitely feels more current than the last time Michael Landon walked into the wilderness.
Credit has to be given to Netflix for allowing the new series to find its own voice. Rather than simply try to recreate the magic of the series, Sonnenshine sticks more closely to the original books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In doing so, she manages to bring the world to life with a deeper commitment to authenticity.
In short, this isn’t your parents’ vision of the Old West.
There’s a bit of an edge to the programming that feels honest. This is meant to be the moment in history when America is beginning to find itself. As such, the new series leans into the raw brutality of the untamed terrain. Facing rough territory and snarling wolves (!), the Ingalls family strain themselves to carve out a piece of terrain in order to start a home, with all the challenges that come with it. From hard labour to broken bones, we feel the hardship of attempting to start over and build the future.
At the same time though, sensibilities surrounding the colonization of the West have changed greatly in the past 40 years. As such, Little House thankfully looks at the past with some modern lenses. The introduction of Dr. Tann (Jocko Sims), a real African-American doctor who plays an important role in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, allows the series to bring in a character that was conspicuously absent from the original series. (And, frankly, Sims does a wonderful job in the role.)
It’s also worth noting that father Charles Ingalls is also attempting to reconcile the nature of masculinity in the wilderness. Even though Michael Landon’s famed performance always had some nuance to it, newcomer Luke Bracey seems to be learning how to walk the lines between hyper-masculinity and loving sensitivity. There some nuance to the performance that suggests he’s trying to figure out what it means to man in this particular time and place.
But the biggest difference lies in its self-awareness regarding the Indigenous populations. With the inclusion of the Osage population, 2026’s Little House recognizes the problematic nature of the belief that one can simply ‘take their land’ to build a home. As the Ingalls encounter the Osage population, there’s a genuine sense that the way that America colonized the West wasn’t as glorious as is generally perceived. Land isn’t claimed so much as stolen – and those rifts cause problems for the community at large.
Make no mistake. The Ingalls are absolutely the heroes in this series. But that doesn’t mean that the world around them isn’t struggling.
Having said this, while it charts its own course, the new series maintains the same heart and soul as the original. Even in the midst of their struggles, every loving glare suggests that the Ingalls home is going to be the bedrock of the community. As always, Little House is a series about building a home based on love and gratitude, especially in the most difficult of circumstances. It’s not the original series but neither is it trying to be. Instead, this reboot of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novels charts its own course and is better for doing so.
Little House on the Prairie is available on Netflix on July 9th, 2026.
