The Corner Penthouse

Lionsgate recently released the Little House on the Prairie: The Complete Series Blu-ray. Read on to find out more about it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Based on the best-selling books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, follow the heartwarming journey of Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon) and his family - wife Caroline (Karen Grassle) and daughters Laura (Melissa Gilbert), Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson), and Carrie (Rachel & Sidney Greenbush) - from their arrival in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, through all the wondrous, challenging, and joyful moments of their extraordinary frontier life during the 1880s.

[ EPISODES ]

The 45-disc set includes all 204 episodes of the 1974-1983 nine-season NBC series. Thankfully, an episode list is printed inside of the case, as well as on each disc face. This makes it easy to find an episode.

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

The show is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The show is Not Rated. Audio languages include English, French, Spanish. Subtitle languages include English SDH.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the special features below can be found on the respective Blu-ray discs. There are no extras for Season 7. The order for the three movies on the last two seasons is wrong. Don't watch any of the movies until AFTER you watch Season 9, and then the order to watch is "Look Back to Yesterday", "Bless All The Dear Children", and finally "The Last Farewell".

• SEASON 1: The Little House Phenomenon, Part 1: A Place in Television History (14:04)
• SEASON 1: Original Screen Test (1:48) - A brief scene between Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert that actually didn't make the final cut of the pilot.
• SEASON 2: The Little House Phenomenon, Part 2: In the Beginning... (15:59)
• SEASON 3: The Little House Phenomenon, Part 3: Casting Walnut Grove (18:50)
• SEASON 4: The Little House Phenomenon, Part 4: A Day in the Life of Little House (16:50)
• SEASON 5: The little House Phenomenon, Part 5: Stories to Remember (15:10)
• SEASON 6: The Little House Phenomenon, Part 6: A Lasting Legacy (16:20)
• SEASON 8: Look Back to Yesterday (1:35:19) - A 1983 special that aired during the holiday season.
• SEASON 8: The Last Farewell (1:35:18) - A 1984 special that offers "spoilers" galore in terms of eventual outcomes of several characters. This should be watched LAST; after season 9 and the other two movies!
• SEASON 9: Bless All the Dear the Children (1:35:09) - A holiday-themed story that takes place prior to The Last Farewell, but NBC aired it as the last of the three movie specials made after the series itself had come to an end.

[ POSSIBLE ISSUES ]

A review by Chris Long details issues with the individual season discs that might still be present in this complete series set. (I don't own any of the old DVDs to compare to to see if any of these issues has been fixed.) I can only tell you that the incorrect subtitle issue with the Season 1 episode "Family Quarrel" has been fixed!

• SEASON 1: "Country Girls" is missing a 20-second part where the Kennedy boy reads his summer poem.
• SEASON 1: "Child of Pain" is seemingly missing about 1 minute (scenes unknown).
• SEASON 1: "To See the World" is seemingly missing about 1 minute (scenes unknown).
• SEASON 2: "Remember Me, Part 1" ends abruptly, cutting to "To Be Continued" text on a black screen.
• SEASON 6: "Whatever Happened to the Class of '56" is possibly missing about 15 seconds (scenes unknown).
• SEASON 6: "Darkness is My Friend" is possibly missing about 30 seconds (scenes unknown).
• SEASON 7: "Divorce, Walnut Grove Style" is missing 3 minutes (a different glass scene among others). The same issue is on DVD and Digital Copy.
• SEASON 7: Subtitles are a tad off sync.
• SEASON 7: The French and Spanish audio is not synced up with the video.
• SEASONS 7&8: The audio was mastered too high and thus produces "clipping" sometimes, which can lead to annoying artifacts in the audio.
• SEASON 8: Movie "The Last Farewell" - in the final triumphant scene, capping the entire series as a whole, where the townpeople are singing a triumphant hymn, the English audio was mixed incorrectly and you can barely hear them singing. The Spanish and French audio does not have this problem. (The song is in English and there's no further dialog so one can alternatively just switch tracks when the townspeople start singing.)
• SEASON 9: "Home Again" episode missing 3:45 of footage. Although it's listed only as "Home Again", it is actually a two-parter with the second part starting mid-way through the first part's credits. The missing footage is supposed to be at the end of Part 1/beginning of Part 2 and it's semi-important. While the Blu-ray does add some other footage not in the old edited Imavision DVD, that DVD does have the missing footage. On the Blu-ray, Part 1 ends with Albert planning to substitute morphine. On the old DVD, there's a whole scene with him then delivering medical supplies to Doc Baker, who examines the contents of the box and then tells a nervous Albert where to find the key that he can use anytime he wants to come in and read his medical books. (This is notable given the final narration scene of the episode.) Albert then runs off and has an interaction with Charles and Mr. Edwards.
• SEASON 9: Movie "Bless All The Dear Children" is possibly missing about 40 seconds, based on comparing runtimes to the old Immavision DVD. Of course, the time difference could be a conversion issue of the old DVD where some frames were duplicated, thus adding more time. So, there might not be anything missing here.

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

No digital copy code voucher is included. However, three thick, clear Epik Pak DVD cases goes inside a side-loading slipbox. These are the crappy cases where the inside part that holds the discs isn't attached to the outside, and the discs are hard to get out because the clasps that hold them in place have zero give to them.

It would have been preferable if the studio put each season in a standard-size multi-disc case (the same ones they use for the individual season releases), and then put those cases inside the side-loading slipbox. That's the way Universal packaged the recent Murder She Wrote Blu-ray set, which is for the same target audience as this set.

[ NOTES ]

Little House on the Prairie: The Complete Series is available on Blu-ray, DVD, DVD (House Box), and DVD (Wagon Box). The discs in the Blu-ray set are, likely, the same that were released in the individual season sets. From what I can see, those sets are in proper Blu-ray cases, so if you absolutely hate the Epik Pak case (and I don't blame you), and you can afford to buy all nine seasons individually, go for it. If you can deal with the crappy case, this Complete Series set is likely cheaper.

This item has been provided by Lionsgate for review on this site.