Little House: The Last Farewell

"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.

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series is that it features the cast of the show's final season, by which time many of the better characters had been replaced by blander carbon-copies.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.

I love Little House On The Prairie so much. I cried when they blew up all the main buildings. I think it would have been great if they left all the buildings up so people could actually visit "Walnut Grove". I would have loved to see what it was like practically growing up there. I think it would have been so much fun to make that kind of a television show. I still watch it everyday on TBS even though I've seen every single episode. =)

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.

Lassiter a land developer marches into walnut grove taking ownership of walnut grove no respect he has his men inckuding himself beat almonzo up infront of his daughter whos just a toddler clearly no respect what kind of person does that i mean I'm sure we've had fights but infront of toddlers i mean like really seriously i was disappointed that a show that ran for 9 seasons had to end like this. The show is based on laura ingalls wilders books walnut grove was destroyed but in real life the town still exists and theres a museum called the laura ingalls wilder museum.