Inconsistencies


I'm just starting watching the complete series, but I watched much of it before so can name a few inconsistencies. I won't get heavily into historical inaccuracies or contradictions with the books or I might never get done. One of the biggest contradictions to the books is there is WAAAAAYYY more crying in the series, in situations in which the real people cried very little if at all. Laura was taught it was babyish to cry and may have even got in trouble for it. (Gotta read the books again.)

At the beginning of Season 1, it is made clear that Laura can't read or write. Her narration states, "If I had a memory book, I'd write (such and such)." A later episode is based around her keeping a memory book when they first arrived in Walnut Grove.

Season 1 makes several references to what was known as Custer's Last Stand, now politically correctly termed the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This took place June 25 and 26, 1876. So fine, Season 1 takes place after that. Only it doesn't, because in 1976 they did a big show celebrating America's Centennial in 1876, so these Season 1 references were to something that hadn't happened yet.

In Season 1, Doc Baker operates on Mrs. Oleson to remove her appendix. Later in the series, in the faith healer episode, the doctor insists a young boy get to a surgeon to have his appendix removed. Why can't Doc Baker perform the operation since he has already successfully done it at least once?

Of course the most famous one was that Albert returned 20 years later as a doctor, but a TV movie implied he died. I haven't seen this movie but understand it doesn't actually show him dying so there's hope.

I know married women were not allowed to teach, and I'm not sure even married men were. Teaching salaries were not enough to support a family, so married people were barred from teaching. There were also rules about being seen while pregnant, though those may have been more strict out east. These rules were broken by Mrs. Simms and Mrs. Garvey teaching and Mrs. Simms leaving class to give birth to a baby.

Two more episodes, two more inconsistencies. In "Survival," Charles says it's been 16 years since the 1862 uprising, implying it is 1878. About a year and a half later it was 1876. Time ran backwards...amazing. In "To See the World," Johnny Johnson ditches school. Later in the episode, he mentions it's July. There isn't school in July. The reason was both that kids were needed on the farm, and that school buildings became intolerably hot in summer. A three month vacation has been a tradition ever since.

As far as research being harder as back then there wasn't Google and all, as a child I was able to grab a World Book without getting out of my chair. I learned things such as: they played baseball, which was invented, but were using gloves, which weren't yet. Albert's pen pal claimed to captain the basketball team. Basketball wasn't invented until 1891 and I'm sure girls' teams started later. Football was also very new then and probably wasn't played on the prairie in the 1870s/1880s in the manner depicted on the show. I often wondered why the makers of a national TV show couldn't afford a set of World Book. These could go on all day and are probably found in every show, though some are more careful than others. (I understand Dr. Quinn was really pretty careful.) I just finished watching Daniel Boone, which was one of the worst offenders. It begins in 1775 and then bounces around in time so much between 1775 and 1807 (in only six years) that you'd think you were watching Quantum Leap. The main thing I kept track of was the music, and hope to list which pieces Daniel Boone could, and could not, have heard in his lifetime. I'm not doing this with Little House because although I recognized most of the fiddle tunes on Daniel Boone, I have recognized very few on Little House. I know Little House does use for instrumental background vintage tunes which weren't written yet back then.

In Season 2, episode 2, the eye doctor tells Mary she must wear her glasses at all times at first, and then only for schoolwork. In episode 3 she is at school without her glasses.

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Season 9, episode 10: Walnut Grove is a place of sudden and inexplicable disappearances. Probably among others, there was Reverend Alden's wife, who was mentioned maybe once after the episode in which they were married and never seen or heard of afterwards. In this one, it is Matthew Rogers, the former "wild boy." In Season 9, episode 7, Isaiah Edwards was given charge of Matthew for an indefinite time. In Season 9, episode 10, Edwards is shown at home. There is no sign Matthew ever was there, and Edwards states he lives alone. Now, it's possible either Edwards or someone else considered a 45ish bachelor unsuitable for raising a young boy, and Matthew was placed with a family with children his own age, but it would be nice if whatever happened were explained and not just treated as if the entire episode never occurred. Matthew seems to have been Chuck Cunninghamed for sure.

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Season 9, episode 11: Some serious retconning going on here. The episode involves getting Reverend Alden, and ONLY Reverend Alden, a house. In Season 6, Episode 6, Reverend Alden was married to Anna Craig, a kindly but lonely widow living in affluent circumstances since the death of her husband Parker. That is, she had a nice house where he would have moved. Even had she died, he would have stayed in the house. The only way he wouldn't get that house is if Anna Craig left him and took the house, or the house was destroyed in some way either resulting in Anna's death, or she died at a separate time. None of these events is ever mentioned or hinted at. Somehow in Season 9, episode 11, Reverend Alden is not married, perhaps never has been married, and must be living in a single room somewhere (of which not that many are available in Walnut Grove) and it's decided to obtain a house for him.

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Season 9, episode 13: Two different night shots show the restaurant windows reading "Nellie's" after the name has been changed to "Caroline's."

Season 9, episode 15: Naturally the depiction of how Little House in the Big Woods was written is almost entirely fictional except that it does use real incidents from the book and does present the book as a collaborative effort. The statement at the end that no one made any changes to the Little House books as Laura finally wrote them is quite wrong. Laura's daughter Rose Wilder Lane was a huge influence in shaping the final versions of the books.

Season 9, episode 16: Matthew inexplicably reappears just as he inexplicably disappeared. He is at least working with Isaiah Edwards, if not living with him. There is another night shot of the restaurant windows reading "Nellie's."

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Season 9, episode 17: Charles and Albert borrow Isaiah Edwards's house. Again, there is no sign of Matthew or indication that he has ever been there. Edwards goes alone to stay elsewhere.

Season 9, episode 18: The year of birth for Almanzo and Laura's son, Baby Boy Wilder, is given correctly as 1889, but the dates are incorrect. The dates on his marker read August 12-August 24, 1889. The correct dates should be July 11-August 7, 1889. It's odd that the show got this wrong while it got Laura's brother's dates right. Neither baby has a marker with dates in real life.

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Season 9, episode 20: Isaiah Edwards speaks of Matthew as living in his home, and the house contains a second bed, undoubtedly Matthew's. There is no explanation of where Matthew was in previous episodes after meeting Edwards but when Edwards was living alone.

Baby Rose setting fire to the house is based on a real life incident, at least if you take Rose's word for it. She was three years old on August 23, 1889 when the house caught fire, shortly before the time portrayed in the show. In the show, the baby boy died on August 24, at which time the fire had not occurred yet, and in episode 20 the children are in school, so it is probably already September. The baby playing Rose appears to be about a year old so about two years younger than Rose in real life. In real life, Rose claimed to have accidentally set fire to the house while helpfully trying to put more wood in the stove. How the fire actually started has never been proven. In real life, Laura, not Blanche, saved Rose, and there was no Jenny to douse the flames. Laura and Rose escaped and the house burned to the ground.

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Season 9, episode 22: Matthew, Isaiah Edwards's disappearing and reappearing foster child, definitely lives with him in this episode.

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Even though the followup movies have their own pages and I am posting these thoughts there, I will include them here as well.

Things which don't make sense in Little House: Look Back to Yesterday:

Laura calling Albert "big brother." Laura was the older child and at this age they are almost the same height--it's not like he towers over her. Albert also calls Laura "big sister" so perhaps they are some sort of pet nicknames.

Albert is diagnosed with an unspecified and untreatable blood disease and given a short time to live. This makes no sense as closing narration in Season 9, episode 17 states that twenty years later Albert returned to Walnut Grove as "Doctor Albert Ingalls." I maintain that he was misdiagnosed. He later recovered and returned as a doctor. That's my story, I'm sticking to it, I will die on this hill.

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Things which don't make sense in Little House: Bless All the Dear Children:

In the opening narration, Pa Ingalls states that these events took place over the winter of '96. That is not only plain wrong, it is absolutely insane. In Little House on the Prairie, Season 9, episode 20, the house fire took place in 1889, around September, at which time Baby Rose appeared to be about a year old. (She should in fact have been nearly three, but that's another matter.) In Bless All the Dear Children, Rose appears about two years old. No one else has aged more than a year either. If Rose was, say, a year old in 1889, she should have been eight years old in 1896! Everyone else should have been correspondingly older as well. This is almost criminally WRONG! This movie should have been set around Christmas 1890!

It is almost Christmas in Minnesota, yet there is no snow, everyone is wearing light summer clothing, and no one even puts on a coat except in the night scenes. The night scenes have loud noises made by crickets or similar insects which would not be active in winter.

Laura's recitation from the book of Luke is nice, but Linus did it better in A Charlie Brown Christmas. There are probably other things but there are some major points. Sorry I can't say better about this movie.

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