Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Little House on the Prairie: Season Seven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 5, 2017

Consumer (and/or viewer) interest can make a difference. I’m old enough to remember begging my father, who had taken me out to dinner that evening, to get me home in time to watch a spring 1968 episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2, since it had been revealed that an “important announcement” would be broadcast at the episode’s close, and (being the geek I was and having followed the news about one of my favorite shows so closely) which I suspected was a renewal announcement for a third season. That turned out to be the case, though as long time Star Trek fans know, it was only a temporary reprieve, and the Starship Enterprise’s supposed five year journey into worlds unknown came to a premature close at the end of the 1968-69 television season. NBC’s response to a somewhat limited but still very vocal campaign to save the series, one which evidently buried the corporate headquarters in Rockefeller Center under a mountain of fan mail, turned the tide and allowed Gene Roddenberry’s iconic series to live for at least a little while longer. Something at least a little similar has happened with another vaunted NBC property, the beloved Michael Landon adaptation of the equally beloved books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie. Lionsgate started releasing the series in 2014, and brought out new volumes of subsequent seasons every few months thereafter, until suddenly with the advent of the sixth season, no further announcements of upcoming Blu-ray product were made (initial press releases mentioned only DVDs). Once again, a rather rabid (in a good way) fan base kicked into gear, and while the technology had changed (emails instead of snail mail), the result was the laudable decision to release the subsequent seasons as Amazon Exclusives. Interestingly (at least for those of us who work in the reviewing game), Lionsgate didn’t seem to be overly concerned about publicizing these final seasons, and in fact never sent screeners for official review purposes. While fans of this series will no doubt be thrilled that they can complete their collections, sticklers may have at least a quibble or two with some decisions that were made with regard to the final three years of the series.

Our reviews of the previous seasons of the series can be accessed by clicking on the following links:

Little House on the Prairie: Season One Blu-ray review

Little House on the Prairie: Season Two Blu-ray review

Little House on the Prairie: Season Three Blu-ray review

Little House on the Prairie: Season Four Blu-ray review

Little House on the Prairie: Season Five Blu-ray review

Little House on the Prairie: Season Six Blu-ray review

Though longtime fans of Little House on the Prairie will probably want to string me up for saying so, in a way the series itself might have been better off ending after the sixth season, since already storylines were feeling forced and a certain repetitive quality had kicked in. As with the previous seasons of the series, right is virtually guaranteed to come out on top of wrong, and some of the saving graces afforded various initially underhanded characters can seem positively saccharine. What’s especially interesting about at least the opening of this seventh season is how it focuses on a couple of supporting characters rather than the Ingalls clan, notably schoolmarm Eliza Jane (Lucy Lee Flippin), who is after all admittedly a Wilder and therefore ultimately part of the wider family. But Eliza Jane’s nascent romance with Harve Miller (James Cromwell, Babe) takes up a perhaps inordinate amount of time in the early going.

The Eliza Jane story at least dovetails rather nicely into pre-marital squabbles between Laura (Melissa Gilbert) and Almanzo (Dean Butler), and while a bit on the quaint side, some the simmering disputes between Laura, who wants a teaching career, and Almanzo, who wants to be the “man of the family” and therefore the sole breadwinner, give this season a little fire now and then. In fact, Little House on the Prairie goes the “natural disaster” (or at least problem) route with Laura and Almanzo, with a drought positing even more obstacles for the young couple to overcome (and guess whether or not they ultimately do).

Some of the most moving material comes courtesy of the whole blindness subplot which has been part of the Little House on the Prairie saga for several seasons now. There are various episodes that either feature the school outright (one offers a young David Faustino of Married with Children fame) or at least feature characters who are afflicted with sightlessness, though the series offers at least one “miracle cure” that stretches the already at time fragile credulity of this series. However, for a series I have repeatedly taken to task for offering a somewhat candy coated revisionism of what life was really like for hardy pioneers, it can’t be argued that this season of Little House on the Prairie indulges in its fair share of heartache, offering some frankly kind of shocking subplots involving sexual harassment and a kind of melancholic acknowledgement that Charles (Michael Landon) and Caroline (Karen Grassle) aren’t exactly spring chickens anymore.

This season’s episodes are:

• 1. Laura Ingalls Wilder - Part I
• 2. Laura Ingalls Wilder - Part II
• 3. A New Beginning
• 4. Fight Team Fight!
• 5. The Silent Cry
• 6. Portrait of Love
• 7. Divorce, Walnut Grove Style
• 8. Dearest Albert, I’ll Miss You
• 9. The In-Laws
• 10. To See the Light - Part One
• 11. To See the Light - Part Two
• 12. Oleson vs. Oleson
• 13. Come, Let Us Reason Together
• 14. The Nephews
• 15. Make A Joyful Noise
• 16. Goodbye, Mrs. Wilder
• 17. Sylvia - Part One
• 18. Sylvia - Part Two
• 19. Blind Justice
• 20. I Do, Again
• 21. The Lost Ones - Part One
• 22. The Lost Ones - Part Two

Little House on the Prairie: Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Little House on the Prairie: Season Seven is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.36:1. Despite back cover verbiage touting a "Fully Restored Picture", this season continues the somewhat precipitous decline in video quality that I first addressed in our Little House on the Prairie: Season Six Blu-ray review, and in fact is considerably worse looking, at least in passing, than even the sixth season. The palette is oddly wan throughout this season, with little of the warmth and immediacy that graced at least the first few seasons of this series on Blu-ray. Several episodes have a kind of purplish or bluish tint that is completely unnatural looking and which tends to further detract from already problematic detail levels. Certain isolated moments also look like they were sourced from secondary elements, with a marked decrease in clarity and an increase in pretty splotchy grain, something that can lead to minor compression anomalies (see screenshot 3). It's certainly supportable to at least slightly upgrade my score in terms of the overall look of this season, but I'm low balling this a bit to make sure fans are forewarned and not expecting the generally excellent appearance of the series' first few seasons on Blu-ray. There are also some tangential authoring issues which may bother the more detail oriented videophile, including a static main menu and chapter stops that aren't really very logical. Subtitles don't always line up with dialogue, and while I didn't spend much time listening to them, several members have reported that the foreign language audio tracks are out of sync as well. Finally, "Divorce, Walnut Grove Style" is evidently missing some footage, though I didn't notice any egregious gaps in storytelling.

Little House on the Prairie: Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Even more concerning for some Blu-ray consumers will be the decision to afford this season of Little House on the Prairie a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, rather than the lossless audio of the previous seasons. While probably not a deal killer for many (maybe even most) fans, the lossy audio presentation does rob the series of some sonic immediacy, especially in the mid to lower ranges, where things can sound a little thin at times. Higher registers show a hint of distortion that may derive at least partially from too hot amplitude. That said, dialogue, effects and score are all presented cleanly enough, with no appreciable age related wear and tear.

Little House on the Prairie: Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Either surprisingly (considering the supplements afforded the previous seasons) or unsurprisingly (considering this is a "MOD" Amazon Exclusive), this season of Little House on the Prairie has no supplementary material.

Little House on the Prairie: Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

You know that old adage "be careful what you ask for", and some may feel like it's at least somewhat relevant to this release. The good news is that there even is a release, but the technical merits of this season are decidedly lackluster when compared to the series' previous releases on Blu- ray. The series continues to mine its at times still potent heartstring tugging proclivities, and fans will probably be willing to overlook any shortcomings, either technical or indeed of the series itself.