Review of Little House: Look Back to Yesterday

Although well done, this story is unnecessarily bleak and somber. Albert is diagnosed with an incurable blood disorder, and has only a short time left to live. If this situation had come up earlier in the series, it would have been a way of writing Albert out of the show. At this point, the series was ending, anyway. There was no need to "write off" any character. In any case, note that Albert's disease is never identified. I guess one life-threatening illness is as good as another. Albert's reaction is to do "as much as he can" before his time ends. A commendable outlook, but not entirely believable. Charles is initially devastated, but later pulls it together. Laura's reaction is another matter. She takes it bad. Really bad. Charles tells her that she has to be strong, and she tries to be. However, Laura has limited control of her emotions. What's inside her will eventually come to the surface. Watching Laura and Albert together here, something occurred to me. Laura's feelings for Albert seemed to go beyond a brother-sister relationship. Remember, Albert was adopted. He and Laura weren't related biologically. Who knows what Laura was really feeling? Overall, this is a pretty downbeat story, but it's made watchable by good performances. Melissa Gilbert was particularly effective.