They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and in the first few minutes of Little House on the Prairie, which you can watch above, viewers get a front-row seat to the starting strides of a whole new adventure.
Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie — the series from showrunner and executive producer Rebecca Sonnenshine — reimagines Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved semi-autobiographical novels for a new generation, drawing on Wilder’s frontier tales published in the 1930s. Part family saga, part survival epic, and part origin story of the American West, the series follows Laura Ingalls, played by Alice Halsey (Lessons in Chemistry), a bright and spirited young girl whose perspective illuminates both the challenges and possibilities of frontier life.
“This show really is so much about the persistence of hope and what it can bring to your life and how it can enhance your life,” says Sonnenshine. “Keeping that hope alive, even when circumstances seem a little hopeless, is such an important part of our family and such an important part of the whole spirit of Little House.”
Through Laura’s eyes, Episode 1 introduces her loving but complicated family: her optimistic father, Charles (Pa), played by Luke Bracey (Elvis, Hacksaw Ridge, Little Fires Everywhere); her practical, steadfast mother, Caroline (Ma), played by Crosby Fitzgerald (Crime 101, Palm Royale); and her older sister, Mary, played by Skywalker Hughes (I, Object), whose rule-following nature often clashes with Laura’s independent streak. As the family sets off toward an uncertain future, the premiere makes clear that Little House on the Prairie is as much about the relationships that sustain the Ingalls family as it is about the frontier around them.
“Laura and Mary are these little girls who know how to survive everything, from storms to grasshopper plagues to wolves,” says executive producer Joy Gorman Wettels. “It felt like it was time to remind the world of the resilience of children and the magic and the wonder of what they can do.”
Episode 1 opens with Laura’s narration, looking back on the journey that changed her and her family’s lives forever. The Ingalls family, she explains, left the big woods of Wisconsin because Pa believed it was growing too crowded and wanted a fresh start. Day after day, their wagon rolled westward across unfamiliar terrain. Each night, they made camp somewhere new until they arrived on a vast prairie of waving grass and an endless sky stretching to the horizon. Armed with a flier promising free land in the West, the Ingalls sing and skip their way across the prairie.
But before the family can settle into their new beginning, they face a stark reminder of the dangers of life on the frontier. As the Ingalls attempt to ford a river, one of their horses loses its footing, sending the covered wagon lurching dangerously off balance. Charles plunges into the rushing water to steady the team, while Jack, the family’s loyal dog, leaps in after him and is quickly swept up by the current. For a tense moment, disaster seems inevitable: the wagon tilts precariously, Caroline clings to the driver’s seat, and the river threatens to carry everything away. But through quick thinking and determination, Charles regains control of the horses and rights the wagon, allowing the family to continue their journey — though not without a sobering reminder of how quickly the wilderness can turn against them.
“Something I hope people can take away: maintaining a sense of hope about the future is really additive to your life,” says Sonnenshine. “That’s how we use it in the first episode — to set us on a path of understanding what the show is about and what it has to offer.”
But what about Jack? As the camera pulls away from the rushing river, it becomes clear that the beloved pet’s fate remains unknown. Sonnenshine says preserving that emotional cliffhanger was important to her adaptation, even as the series made a small change to Jack’s journey. “Jack is such a beloved member of their family,” she says. “One change we made from the book is that Pa would never allow Jack to ride in the wagon, even when they were crossing the river. I felt like Pa should let him ride in the wagon, and that was a little change that we made.”
Watch Little House on the Prairie to find out what happens to Jack and the rest of the Ingalls family when the series premieres July 9 on Netflix.
