During the pandemic lock-down crisis of 2020 in the United States, the 1970s TV show "Little House on the Prairie" has become one of the shows that people are streaming online as they seek ways to feel better and spend idle time. A New York Times TV critic called "Little House" a kind of "comfort viewing" and cited several reasons for renewed interest in the show, including a couple of episodes that deal directly with contagious disease and social distancing.
My wife and I have been "bingeing" the show as well, before we were aware it was a mini-trend during the pandemic, and I believe that while the show does represent the simplicity and admirable values that the Times critic reflects on, it is also simply a great artifact of a time when TV itself was simpler. The 1970s weren't a simpler time, after all, and though the frontier age might seem simpler in terms of family values and small-town pluckiness, it was a dangerous and difficult time to be alive. Though death is rare on "Little House," they don't ignore these realities -- though there is of course some glossing over in the form of well-pressed costumes, blow-dried 70s hair, and flattering lighting, to say nothing of the show's humor and neatly packaged plots.
My sister and her significant other have also been bingeing the show from their home in Nevada, and so it has become a cross-country family affair for us. We watch episodes and text jokes and observations, as well as trivia (mostly this is my doing) on guest actors and other connections. ("The actor playing the big kid in school is the son of the guy who played Hoss on Bonanza," I text her. "Really?" she says, because what else would you say to that?)
My sister is a bit younger than I am, and this show began when I was a very young child and she was not yet born, but it reminds me of a time when TV was something that was "on" in the living room. Either you watched it or you didn't, and often, a family would gather to watch certain shows. I remember watching "Little House" with my family, gathering around on the shag carpet and bean-bag chairs, and I remember my older sister continuing to watch the show on Monday nights in its later years during the 1980s. The show was around almost my entire childhood.
They speak of the recent cable-TV-series boom as representing TV's "golden age," with shows like "The Sopranos" and "Mad Men," but TV as a true medium really peaked in the 1970s with shows like "Little House." The show is incredibly well made, well-lighted and filmed (instead of shot on video tape, a difference in quality that can be easily seen when watching old sitcoms or soap operas). Melissa Gilbert was an astonishingly talented child actress, such that she often makes the other capable child actors on this show seem out of their depth, and Michael Landon was a luminary presence. His quick death in the early 1990s was such a shock in part because he'd always been on TV, starring on an unbroken chain of three successful TV series and countless commercial spots for Kodak.
In spite of the relatively high production values, it's interesting to see how TV production in general was simpler with a show like "Little House," when they really weren't expecting people to watch the show in reruns (sitcoms were more typical rerun fare), and nobody was watching via streaming or videorecordings. Sets and houses are reused in different episodes (there is one house that serves as the dwelling for four or five guest stars before it becomes a school for the blind). Guest actors later become regulars in different roles. Michael Landon, besides being a TV icon and something of a sex symbol, was also an efficient and talented TV director who kept this show running like a machine. The show never seems "cheap," but it was TV made to be TV. Michael Landon himself used to apparently say, "We're not changing the world here."
In spite of this demurring characterization, TV did become more daring and strived to be more relevant in the 1970s, after a couple of decades of shows like "Ozzie and Harriett" and "The Brady Bunch." "Little House" focuses on so-called "family values," but it also deals with touchy issues like child abuse, drug abuse, and alcoholism, and while many TV series had similar storylines, the producers of "Little House" seemed to understand that it's the details that make the difference. No story is really new, as they say.
It's fun to see the parade of character actors in guest spots, as well. As was the common practice in those days, characters appear for episodic storylines and then are never heard from again. It must have been a good time to be a character actor. Some of these very familiar-looking but nameless actors were in 200 or more shows during their careers. Westerns and nighttime dramas helped these working actors stay afloat, in ways that it's hard to imagine the scattered and narrow-casted speciality series doing these days, what with their short seasons (10-12 episodes), long story arcs, and small cast of characters.
TV may have gotten better over the decades, but in some ways, it's not TV at all anymore.
