Inconsistencies

Season 8, episode 19: As with an earlier episode, a night shot shows the restaurant windows reading "Nellie's" while the next day they read "Caroline's."

Season 8, episode 21: The bandits who rob the bank all have bandanas but not one pulls his over his face. This doesn't seem like something outlaws would do. The script called for it for Albert to recognize which man shot James.

Again, not exactly an error, and the script called for it, but I was really bothered when the bank clerk fired down a crowded street at the robbers. It was as bad as Bert the cop firing down the crowded street in It's a Wonderful Life. Even though it was an alternate bad reality, it's a bad idea in any reality to indiscriminately shoot down a crowded street.

Season 9, episode 1:  This season of Little House on the Prairie is called Little House:  A New Beginning.  Well, for Almanzo's brother Royal and family, it is a REALLY new beginning, in fact, it is a leap to an alternate reality.  Almanzo starts out by saying he hasn't seen Royal in ten years.  This is BLATANTLY untrue!  The current year is stated as 1887.  Almanzo and Laura were only married in 1885, around which time Royal and his wife and two hooligans of sons visited them in Season 7, episode 14, by which time Almanzo and Laura were married.  These boys can't have been grown and on their own by Season 9 as they weren't that old only two years earlier.  They also can't have died as the narration states they both became successful adults.  Their existence also is not mentioned in the Season 9 episode at all.  Instead Royal has a daughter, Jenny, around ten years old, who is by all indications an only child.  Royal's wife stated she was expecting at the end of the episode with the boys, but if so that child would be under two years old, so where did Jenny come from and where did the boys go?  Jenny is Royal's wife's biological child as he states she is so much like her.  This is the biggest unanswered and unreconcilable question in the series. The boys were not Chuck Cunninghamed but they were sure retconned.

Season 9, episode 2:  Before Jenny goes in to see Royal, she is holding a crucifix.  When she enters the room she doesn't have it.  When she hugs Royal, suddenly she has it again.  This makes no sense unless she concealed it in a pocket or something.

This episode features boys and girls swimming together.  The 1880s were still Victorian times, and mixed swimming probably wasn't a thing.

Season 9, episode 5: When she meets Lou Bates, Mrs. Oleson claims she has never seen a little person before. Seems like she was so busy laughing at the fat lady when the circus came to town in Season 6, episode 5 that she missed the little people entirely.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thoughts on Little House:  The Last Farewell:

No date is given, but according to the age of Baby Rose and the other kids, it should be Easter of 1891.  The date of Christmas 1896 in the previous movie was a horrendous error.

Albert wasn't mentioned, dead or alive.  There was no, "Albert loved Walnut Grove, thank God he didn't live to see this."  He could be dead, he could be alive and in medical school.  I maintain the second.

The tears at the end were doubtless quite genuine.  The final scene, with the ruined town, undefeated townsfolk, and the singing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" is so reminiscent of the last scene of Mrs. Miniver (1942) it is almost a copy, of course minus the airplanes flying over.  Doubtless they'd have had them too if they'd been invented yet.  It was just as well Harriet Oleson was in the hospital, as all this would have undoubtedly sent her there anyway.

Of course with the question of Albert lies the ultimate Little House contradiction. The closing narration of "Home Again" in Season 9 states that twenty years later Albert returned to Walnut Grove as "Dr. Albert Ingalls." In Little House: The Last Farewell Walnut Grove is destroyed. Of course there is the possibility that at some point Walnut Grove was resurrected from literally smithereens. Something needs to account for the existence of the real world Walnut Grove (which was actually founded in 1874 and incorporated in 1879, not founded in 1840 by Lars Hanson). Even discounting this, the implied death of Albert in Little House: Look Back to Yesterday has created a troubling paradox in which there is both an existing Walnut Grove in which Albert Ingalls was once a doctor, and no Walnut Grove and an Albert Ingalls who died without entering medical school. This can only be reconciled through the Parallel Universe Theory.

Below are my comments from when you first mentioned the inconsistencies...You are not the only one who has noticed them, as you can read in the comments people have made in the "Episode Reviews" section. Episode Reviews

Rhonda wrote:

You are correct that the list of inconsistencies could go on and on...When you are watching the TV Series with Michael Landon and the rest of the cast, you have to remember that he was previously on Bonanza, and the kind of stories and writing there was used with Little House as well...you HAVE to separate the books from the movies and TV series since they took liberties with most everything there. ML was always into the emotions of people on the shows...Bonanza to Little House referenced again...

If you look closely at things, Michael Landon did not have a beard as most of the pioneer men did...ML LOVED his head of hair and I think the only time we see him with a beard was in the episodes where James got shot, and he took him away to pray for healing...NONE of the married women would be allowed to teach in the schools...it was for single women only...once you were married, your job was the home and your family...and so on...

Rhonda wrote:

I think when the show was made back then, Michael Landon didn't realize how popular it would end up being with people watching the episodes over and over again...and, of course, having the technology we have, we have ways to watch them more than just the reruns, people were able to catch those wrong dates and inconsistencies...I'm sure Michael Landon and the other writers would have made sure to have double and triple their research and made sure there were no mistakes...

Thanks for reading and answering.

And now a word on THE HIGHLY FLEXIBLE TIMELINE OF LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE:

It would have been simple if they had just decided to stick to the episodes taking place 100 years before the airdate, but no. (The Waltons also screwed this up. They started out with 1972 is 1932 but celebrated 1940 twice, and in the reunion movies committed much worse outrages.)

On Little House, for one thing, "Show Laura" (actress born 1964) will always be "older" than "Book Laura" (born 1867). There will always be a three-year age difference, so some things had to be changed. For instance, in "The Lord Is My Shepherd" when baby brother died. Air date was December 18, 1974. Death of baby brother was August 27, 1876. By 1976 Laura would have been too old to behave as she did in "The Lord Is My Shepherd," so baby brother had to die earlier (the use of his actual death date messed up the timeline later).

Here are the years given or implied in the "three steps forward and two steps back" Little House timeline, with air dates:

Season 1, episode 22: 1878 (16 years after 1862). Air date February 26, 1975.
Season 2, episode 13: 1878 (a year after Edison invented the talking machine in 1877). Air date January 14, 1976.
Season 2, episode 20: Unquestionably on and around July 4, 1876. (Move back two years.) Air date March 17, 1976.
Season 2, episode 21: 1874 (12 years after the Battle of Shiloh). (Move back another two years.) Air date March 24, 1976.
Season 4, episode 8: Still 1876. (Stay put in 1876 a long time.) Air date November 7, 1977.
Season 4, episode 10: 1879 (14 years after 1865). (Skip forward three years.) Air date November 21, 1977.
Season 4, episode 14: 1878 or later. An 1878 wine is served. Air date January 9, 1978.
Season 4, episode 20: 1880. (Move forward one year.) Charles Frederick Ingalls's real 1876 death date is given as having been four years earlier. Air date February 27, 1978.
Season 5, episode 3: November 29, 1880. Air date September 25, 1978.
Season 6, episode 15: 1881 (25 years after 1856.) Air date January 14, 1980.
Season 7, episode 2: At least 1881 but before 1885. "Show Laura" marries earlier than "Book Laura." Air date September 29, 1980.
Season 8, episode 14: 1885. (Move forward about four years.) Air date January 25, 1982.
Season 9, episode 1: 1887. (Move forward two years.) Air date September 27, 1982.
Season 9, episode 18: 1889. While "Show Laura" is about three years older than "Book Laura," "Show Rose" is about two years younger than "Book Rose." (Move forward two years.) Air date February 14, 1983.
Despite the numerous forward skips, the show has only got about six years ahead of itself by this time if you accept the 1876/1976 dates as absolute.
Then comes Little House: Bless All the Dear Children, aired December 17, 1984, so less than two years later, yet it makes the outlandish and outrageous claim of being set in 1896! If Rose was about a year old in 1889, she should be eight by Christmas of 1896 even if her birthday is in December (which "Book Rose's" birthday was) and well beyond the shenanigans in this movie! This date should be thrown right out the window! Discounting this, though, The Waltons are worse offenders in the reunion movies, and Daniel Boone takes the prize for skipping like a yo-yo over a 32-year time span in six seasons and not even keeping in sequence! In an earlier episode, the American Revolution is "long over" while in a later one it is still going on. Strange Universe.

Officially watched every episode and the movies.

Nice! Do you have a favorite episode? Favorite season?

Rob wrote:

Nice!  Do you have a favorite episode?  Favorite season?

It's hard to say.