Inside the New ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Family With the Stars (VIDEO)

Get ready to fall in love with the pioneer Ingalls family all over again. The classic 1974-83 NBC series Little House on the Prairie fronted by Michael Landon and based on Laura Ingalls Wilder‘s semi-autobiographical books about frontier life is getting a fresh, eight-episode reboot on Netflix, and it’s already renewed for a second season.

TV Insider visited the set in Winnipeg last September when the cast shot a lively barn dance scene that takes place in the season finale. Ten-year-old Laura Ingalls (Alice Halsey) and her older sister by two years, Mary (Skywalker Hughes), spun and laughed while their adventurous pa, Charles (Luke Bracey), played the fiddle and gazed lovingly at their ma, practical Caroline (Crosby Fitzgerald).

Things aren’t always so cozy. We won’t spoil what happens after the music stops, but let’s just say it’s one of the series’ most dramatic sequences. Halsey teases some of the other dangers: “The Ingalls face river crossings, wolves, people who aren’t very friendly — but they overcome all of them.”

Executive producer Rebecca Sonnenshine, a book fan since childhood, says the series is “digging into what exactly was happening at that time in history in this country.”

Eric Zachanowich/Netflix

There are new Osage Nation characters like Laura’s bestie, brave Good Eagle (Wren Zhawenim Gotts). The recently concluded Civil War haunts the Ingalls’ troubled family friend, Mr. Edwards (Warren Christie) and heroic town MD, Dr. Tan (Jocko Sims). “Dr. Tan himself was a doctor in the Civil War. He has seen a lot of bloodshed. I definitely wanted to bring that into the role because he smiles a lot, he’s happy a lot, but there’s a lot that he’s been through,” Sims says.

Along with these welcome updates is the unchanging core of the series that has made generations of readers and viewers fall in love with Little House – outspoken, kind, and courageous Laura. “Laura’s kind of reckless, but she stands up for what she thinks is right,” Halsey says. “She’s in a life-or-death situation every single day. And sometimes the only thing on your mind is the survival of you and the people you love.”

To get a taste of one of those life-or-death situations, check out our video interview above featuring a clip of the iconic river crossing scene that became a much-buzzed-about moment in the original series and was recreated for the reboot. It takes place on the Ingalls’ journey to the frontier from their Wisconsin home (an earlier era covered in Wilder’s “Little House in the Big Woods”) and almost brings a tragic end to the family.

“That’s most likely my favorite scene that I’ve shot,” Halsey says. “It was so fun. We were in this huge tank, and we had to use this little boat to get to the wagon and then to get out of the pool. [On the wagon] it felt like a roller coaster.”

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Bracey says with a laugh, “Got to remember to stretch beforehand, I’ll tell you that much!” The actor describes “a big sound stage where they build a giant pool. There’s blue screen all around you and cranes and hydraulics and the wagon on a thing that’s tipping over and big jets screaming of water at you. You get lost in it. It’s NAR — no acting required — you are basically trying to stay alive and not drown. It’s great to intersperse it in with all the quiet moments of this family and this man and this journey.”

For Fitzgerald, the scene locked in the qualities she’d hoped for in her character. “I’m actually hanging off to where if I let go, I would be in the water! What I was so afraid of for Caroline was that she would just be this set piece of a wife and a mother. I loved the script. [After I read it] it was clear to me that’s not what [the producers] wanted either. Doing this scene cemented that for me. She’s like, well, we’re doing this, and I can do anything,” Fitzgerald says.

Check out the video to hear the cast reflect on the strength each of the Ingalls brings to the family unit, the skills they learned for the series, and for Bracey’s take on whether his Charles Ingalls is as swoon-worthy as Michael Landon.

Little House on the Prairie, Series Premiere, Thursday, July 9, Netflix