Little House on the Prairie

You can tell things have started to get really bad by the fact that they’re bringing back Little House on the Prairie. When a society is in serious crisis – or so I’ve read – it no longer needs edgy, transgressive, exciting art to push boundaries and challenge assumptions. Rather, it needs to be soothed and cosseted with bland, undemanding and familiar comfort food. Nothing, not even The Waltons, does that quite like Prairie. It first appeared on British screens in January 1975 – so after an annus horribilis, including the Three-Day Week, power cuts, the miners’ strike, the Birmingham and Guildford pub bombings, etc. – and was scheduled to capture children just before bedtime.