Little Misnomer on the TV Series

I picked up a vhs copy of the pilot "premiere movie" of Little House on the Prairie, which for some reason is not included in the Season One dvd set. The irony is that they cover and exhaust the events of that book in the pilot movie. The tv episodes that most people are familiar with from years of reruns in syndication are set in the later book On the Banks of Plum Creek and a few other books. Out of ten years of the tv show, only 96 minutes of it are based on Little House on the Prairie. Most of it is based on the later books. It's like if the whole series Star Trek: The Next Generation had been named "Encounter at Farpoint".

There were a few details left out, a few details changed, but it was surprisingly true to the source material. They don't hold back Ma's fear or hatred of Indians. Ma seems strict and snobbish in the movie, and both parents tend to snap at the children more due to their stress. The books talk a lot about church, but the tv version has more thanking the Lord for surviving the latest calamity. The tv version inserted a miracle that was totally unnecessary: in the book, Charles and Caroline take actions that prevent a prairie fire from destroying their house. In the tv show, a sudden rainstorm puts out the fire that they seem unable to control. If you want to convince people that God is great, your stories shouldn't have such obvious Deus Ex Machina. Especially when you're contradicting the source material.