Why did Michael Landon (Charles Ingalls) leave Little House on the Prairie at the end of Season 8? Having been around since the very first episode, she is largely absent from Season 9, which focuses more on Laura and her relationship with Almanzo’s character. But there is a good reason for this withdrawal.
chain-induced decision
Michael Landon left the series at the end of the eighth season, as the channel decided in agreement with the writer-producer that after 8 years of the series and the age that the young actors were now reaching, it was time to update the formula a bit.
This is the reason why the series changes its name from season 9 to “Little House: A New Beginning”, focusing on Laura Ingalls and her husband Almanzo Wilder, and excluding Laura’s parents, Charles and Caroline Ingalls.
It wasn’t an easy decision for Michael Landon and Karen Grassley, but for Landon it was obvious, as he told them. New York Times In 1984: “I didn’t think a married woman should ask her father for advice”. Thus, Laura’s parents became truly indispensable and only appeared in a few episodes of season 9.
And very quickly, the end of the series
At the end of that, the audience was slightly down, the television landscape was changing and the demands of the public were evolving, and NBC wanted to follow that movement. He therefore canceled Little House on the Prairie at the end of its 9th season, without giving the series a narrative ending and without warning Michael Landon, who discovered this when he noticed that the series was no longer on the channel’s schedule at the beginning of the 1983 school year.
Still a series producer, Landon is negotiating three final TV movies (the last of which is truly moving) to bring an end to a saga that will keep him (well) busy for a decade: “It was also a great catharsis for the cast and crew.”Landon told the NYT. “There were a lot of tears (…). The actors were all very attached to their buildings, so it was very emotional.”
Source: Allocine
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