Little House: The Last Farewell

This show aired on TV on February 6 1984 starring Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls Wilder, Dean Butler as Almanzo Wilder and Richard Bull as Nels Olesen. Little House: The Last Farewell was the third and last TV movie based on the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, though it was telecast out of sequence, shown before the second film. Charles Ingalls and his wife Karen leave in another town far away from Walnut Grove. So Charles gets a vacation and the only place that Charles and Karen wants to go back to is Walnut Grove. So the two get on a train and then takes a stage coach that's drops them of in front of the Wilders house three hours early. So Melissa who's overwhelm with emotions after seeing her mom for the first time in 5 years. Out of nowhere a vaster shows up at the Sunday church service and makes an announcement that sets off a chain of reactions that no one dream of. This was the third of three "Little House" telemovie sequels, and the last story to be filmed, but not the last to be broadcast it debuted during Easter of 1984, while the film made before it, Little House: Bless All the Dear Children in 1984 would air eight months later, in December of that same year. I wasn't a big Little House on the Praire fan but this movie made for TV. Caught my eye. I love the action and drama and it kept you on the edge of you seat. Based on that, I give this movie 8 weasel stars, because there was no real leading actress.

The reason that Michael Landon blew up Walnut Grove was that he was ordered to destroy the sets when the final movie was filmed. He brilliantly incorporated it to be in a movie. Only two buildings was sparred. One was the church cause it would upset the Christian community and would be in extreme poor taste. Second was the Ingalls house cause it was iconic.

"Little House On The Prairie" was one of those rare shows that actually had a final episode for it's original run. Perhaps Michael Landon's long relationship with NBC had something to do with that. The plot is simple. A evil miner takes advantage of the law and buys Walnut Grove forcing the people of the town to take action. James Karen plays the bad guy "Nathan Lassiter" to perfection. At the time Karen did a lot of commercials on television, and after playing "Lassiter" sponsors were afraid to use him as their spokesman. Luckily for us he would go on to find more work in film and television. Michael Landon's writing and direction on this final show was wonderful. He was always able to get a lot out of his actors. Dabbs Greer, who plays "Rev. Alden" should have won the Emmy. His performance is both moving and touching. No doubt Michael Landon had something to do with that. How sad shows like this aren't made anymore.

I would much rather see this type of movie and/or show on TV anytime than some of the weird, grotesque things that are on now. What is this world coming to with all the zombies and vampires, etc. and wacky, idiot, reality TV that we have to see now? Why can't we have nice wholesome shows like they were back then? Why shouldn't they have blown up the buildings? I think that it was only fair that the townspeople took with them what they brought. The "landowner" should not be able to get that for free, too. He was only showing how very greedy he was and how unreasonable he could be. If he had been a "real" human being, he would have tried to negotiate with the townspeople to try to be fair.

The main problem with this TV-movie finale of the "Little House on the Prairie" series is that it features the cast of the show's final season, by which time many of the better characters had been replaced by blander carbon-copies. So, you get the Carters instead of the Ingalls (with a few exceptions), Nancy Oleson instead of Nellie, Miss Plum instead of Miss Beadle, etc. The return of original series stars Michael Landon and Karen Grassle helps, but where's Mary, Adam, Albert, and Carrie? And, worst of all, Katherine MacGregor, who played town villianness Harriet Oleson, is nowhere to been seen. The Oleson family was the saving grace of "Little House", helping to cut through all the treacle, and the two most important Olesons, Harriet and Nellie, aren't in this movie. The story doesn't help, either. Couldn't they come up with a more uplifting plot than the destruction of the entire town?

Unless you're a die-hard fan, skip this one (as well as the other two sequel TV movies), and seek out the original pilot movie instead.