Showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine also tells TheWrap about reckoning with the problematic parts from the books
Note: This story contains spoilers from “Little House on the Prairie” Season 1.
Since news of Netflix’s “Little House on the Prairie” reboot surfaced, the TV adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved book series fielded commentary from a number of conservatives — including Megyn Kelly, who warned Netflix, “if you wokeify ‘Little House on the Prairie’ I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.”
Those comments haven’t fazed showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine, who notes the term “woke” has been a “victim of semantic drift” and now stands as a “catch-all for things people don’t like.”
“The standard definition of ‘woke,’ as it had been for many years, was to be aware of social justice and inequality — I think that is a good thing,” Sonnenshine told TheWrap. “Any show that I would ever do would have those feelings, because I believe that those are important human qualities that we should all aspire to.”
But to Sonnenshine, her portrayal of Dr. George Tan (Jocko Sims), a Black doctor who was the Ingalls’ closest neighbor in Independence, isn’t all that boundary-pushing, with the showrunner explaining it’s well-documented that Dr. Tan was well-respected and treated both white and Black settlers as well as Osage and Cherokee tribes. “It’s interesting to me that that’s so far-fetched for people … it was a more egalitarian place than I think people maybe realize,” Sonnenshine said.
“We’ve seen it portrayed the other way, and I don’t see any reason to put that back out into the world, because I’m not even sure it’s accurate,” Sonnenshine continued, noting there was some “guesswork” involved with figuring out the temperature of Kansas when it came to racial prejudice beyond Ingalls Wilder’s books and other literature from the time.
“Kansas was a contested state for a while … it was a very interesting place, and the Ingalls were moving there very shortly after the Civil War,” Sonnenshine said. “I thought he would be a great character to explore some of these ideas through.”
That’s not to say that Sonnenshine crafted 1870s Kansas as an utopia; both Dr. Tan and Emily (Barrett Doss) face some racism, especially from neighborhood know-it-all Jemma James (Mary Holland).
Sonnenshine also expanded the role of the Osage, who aren’t “fleshed out” characters in the original series nor in the books, which saw the Ingalls “looking in from the outside at people they didn’t understand, people they feared, people they had no real close contact with.”
It was part of Sonnenshine’s pitch to craft an Osage family living alongside the Ingalls that would give a voice to the perspective of the Osage as settlers moved onto their land via the Homestead Act of 1862, during which the government aimed to move indigenous tribes onto reservations while allocating the land to settlers.
“It’s 2026 — it’s time to reckon with some of the things that are in the books that have been problematic for people,” Sonnenshine said. “I don’t want people to throw away these books … They’re amazing books. It’s OK to reckon with them a little bit and also tell a really good story about people being able to change … changing your mind is a good thing.”
That change of heart can be seen directly through Caroline Ingalls (Crosby Fitzgerald), who is somewhat skeptical of the Osage when the family first arrives in Independence, while Charles is much more friendly and optimistic. Those are qualities Sonnenshine noted are true to the book, “but what we allowed [the characters] to do was change.”
The caveats of the Homestead Act were part of what Sonnenshine wanted to spotlight within the “myth of America” that the government fostered in the mission to encourage people to move West, as was the ideal of American individualism that encouraged the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality found in Ingalls Wilder’s books, which made the individual surviving nature a central theme.
But Sonnenshine doesn’t think that individualism cuts it for the dangers of pioneer life, nor does she think Ingalls Wilder did. “She was writing during the Great Depression, and she wanted to give people hope that they could pull themselves out of this, so there was a little bit of an agenda there in terms of how you present a life that you are living, [a] fictionalized version,” Sonnenshine said. “The truth lies somewhere in between.”
Sonnenshine explained that while the books see the Ingalls as quite isolated, that element was fictionalized, with the family instead living quite close to Independence. That shift opened up the adaptation from the Ingalls solely to those “presented as minor characters” within the book that through research, Sonnenshine discovered “played a larger role in the Ingalls’ life.”
It was Sonnenshine’s pitch to open up the world laid out by the books, but another part of her take on the series is the reason that some of Season 1’s supporting characters won’t be around next season. “Little House” Season 2 will follow the Ingalls to their next adventure in Walnut Grove, Minnesota — where the original series took place.
“A part of my pitch was that we were going to follow the the ebbs and flows of the books, and they are fairly nomadic for quite some time,” Sonnenshine said. “I missed that from the original show, which was an amazing show and everyone loved it, and it was very special. But it didn’t have the opportunity just because of the realities of television, and it didn’t have the opportunity to do this. And we do now.”
Even though the show will embrace a new locale, Sonnenshine said she’s “always going to look for a way to bring those characters back.” “I hope that it runs for a long time so that we get the opportunity to organically do it,” she said, noting that Dr. Tan is buried in Independence, Kansas, and the Osage did not move to Minnesota. “We’re trying to be faithful to to historical truth and still look for ways to keep our characters alive, however we can.”
As for when Season 2 might hit Netflix, Sonnenshine said the team is “trying very hard” to bring the show back annually with production already underway.
Sonnenshine revealed that iconic show characters including Nellie Oleson, her mother and Mrs. Beadle are being reexamined with the “same spirit” and “deeper complexities.” “The actors are incredible, and everybody is just getting along famously out here,” she said.
In an ideal world, Sonnenshine would “love to do all the books and then look beyond.” “She had a fascinating life,” Sonnenshine said. “When I think about Laura Ingalls Wilder, it’s kind of amazing that someone lived through times that started in covered wagons and no electricity, and lasted all the way into airplanes and the atomic bomb.”
“Little House on the Prairie” Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.
