Little House on the Prairie

A well-written show with some definite episodes within "genres" (broad comedies, moral choices, adventure, family values, religion). As far as a complete body of work, the seasons best hold together in the first four years, ending with "I'll Be Waving as You Drive Away" (you can believe that the family had faced issues and had to move as they moved previously, in the spirit of the books and the time period)...adding additional cast and bringing back characters afterward added some confusion and some continuity problems that are well documented. The last season of episodes and the last TV movies are often lambasted as not true to style, or by having substitute families, and while this is true to a point, the new characters often were used to tell similar stories.

This show debuted just after my birth, my mother watched it religiously and I was raised watching this show. I have read and re-read all of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and I now own every season available on DVD. Little House On the Prarie is a show that not only showed America what family is all about, it also tackled serious issues every week. I've read all of the negative comments and still can't see why anyone wouldn't love this show. Yes Michael Landon was a big part of the show, but the show was really about Laura and how she grew up, and as she grew up we got to watch a wonderful actress, Melissa Gilbert, grow up too. At 31 I now look back on this show with love and tenderness, remembering special times with my own mother as I watched it as a child. This is truly one of the best family shows that has ever been broadcast on TV. We need shows like this on TV now.

When I was 10 years old, my family was transfered back to the US from Germany where my dad had been stationed with the US Army. Our first night stateside we stayed in an airport motel, and while flipping through the channels to see what was new on American TV (all we had in Germany was afrts), we saw our first Little House Episode. The Sunday School class was outside under the big tree discussing plans for Rev Aldens birthday. I had read the little house books in school, and based solely on the names I jumped up and yelled, "It's Little House, it's little house" Needless to say, it was still on Wednesday nights then, and it became a Wednesday night tradition in our house, then Mondays. Every time I see the episode I think of that first night after a long flight, and all of us in that motel room. Good memories....

When I was five years old my grandmother bought me the Little House book set, and for nearly a year my dad read me a chapter or two a night, until all the books had been read. I still love these books and every fall I re-discover them.

Although I loved the show I can't remember too many similarites between the books and the TV, other than some of the characters. In the books there were no Garveys, no Albert, no James and Cassandra BUT I understand that these characters were added to the show for an interesting cast. I liked the fact that they made Mrs. Oleson like her horrible daughter Nellie, but if you had read the books you would remember that Mrs. Oleson wasn't too bad, although I think she should've knocked some sense into Nellie. :-) Other characters that are left out of the show are Mary Power and Cap Garland (who was one of my favourites from the books). It would've been cool to see Nellie try to worm her way into Almanzo's heart like she did in the books. I don't remember a plot line like that. I do remember some woman that liked Almanzo in the TV show, and Laura humiliated her somehow, I think she didn't sew a dress properly and if fell of the woman? I can't remember clearly. I read in a biography that Willie went blind from a firecracker - that would've made a good story! I still loved the show though. My favourite episodes are when Laura steals the jewel box from Nellie, and she had the nightmares about jail, and when Nellie pretends to be crippled and Laura pushes her down a hill in her wheelchair. I remember the one where Carrie fell in the mine, that one made me cry.

This TV-series is a classic! I love this show. It's great and it's cute...the cast is great and every episode of the series it´s extremely good. Melissa Gilbert is a magnifficent actress, she played her role very well from the start back in 1974 to the end in 1984.