Season seven of The Waltons brought some big changes to the series. Will Geer who portrayed Grandpa Zeb Walton had died during the series hiatus after season six, so the seventh season premiered on September 21, 1978 with a special two hour episode titled “Empty Nest” dedicated to his memory. Narrator Earl Hamner Jr. opened the show with these words: “For as long as any of us could remember our house had stood in the shadow of Waltons Mountain. We counted time by its seasons, growing up and growing old and even those of us who went away never really left it. It was a fitting place for my grandfather to be buried, and in the six months since his death we had learned to live with our grief. We never looked up at the mountain without feeling his strength. We were to need it: the year was 1941 and there was a tension in the air that threatened to pull us apart”.
1941 was to be a tough year for the Waltons. The loss of his father left John (Ralph Waite) at a crossroads. He felt lost, but at the same time his lumber company was busier than it had ever been. After declining an offer to become Vice President in charge of Lumber Procurement for Matt Sarvers Company, John decides to oversee a lumber co-op involving all of the lumber companies on Waltons Mountain. For the first time in his life, john begins to feel some financial freedom, as the mill is overflowing with orders to aid the War effort.
Meanwhile, Mary Ellen (Judy Norton-Taylor) has entered the accelerated program to complete her registered nursing degree, so that she can join her husband Curt (Tom Bower) in Hawaii. A nurse suggests she try amphetamines to get through the last few weeks of the program after she sees Mary Ellen asleep in the lounge. At first she resists the idea, but soon asks her friend, Dr. David Spencer for a few days’ supply of “pep pills.”
In the midst of all this, Curt comes home on leave for a visit. He tells Mary Ellen he won’t be able to get a pass to come home and attend her graduation ceremony. Further, he advises her that she must do well on her state exams so she can successfully compete with other nurses to join him in his duties. Mary Ellen decides to ask David for more pills and some sedatives, so she can use them to get through her state exams in two weeks.
Mary Ellen finishes studying the night before the exam, but discovers she has run out of sedatives. Unable to sleep, she drives to her husband’s office hoping to find pills. Of course, she is found by the friend living in the adjoining house who calls one of her brothers. When they arrive back at the Walton home, Mary Ellen confesses to her mother and she goes through a rather painless withdraw from the pills in one night.
Mary Ellen takes the state exams and passes. Still unsure whether Curt will be there to see her graduate, Mary Ellen is overjoyed when he appears and is brought up on stage to place the nurse’s cap on her head. Curt also announces he is being transferred to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where his wife and son can join him soon.
In the words of narrator Earl Hamner: “On that day we were not only aware of Mary Ellen’s victory in becoming a nurse, but also of a greater victory that she had won. We knew that she had found her strength again, and with it had come a bright re-discovery of freedom”. A statement like that helps to explain the enduring popularity of The Waltons. Corny or not, the family loved each other, believed in each other and weathered every storm that came their way as a unit.
The family would need all the inner strength they could muster in “The Day of Infamy” episode. Though The Waltons had deaths in their family, they always seemed insulated from the outside world, protected from any real harm. December 7, 1941 started out as a normal Sunday on Walton’s Mountain. The family was preparing an early Christmas for John Curtis and Mary Ellen before they departed to Curt in Pearl Harbor in a few days. That day, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, thousands of Americans were killed and the United States entered World War II. Among those killed was Curtis Willard.
After Mary Ellen receives the telegram with the news of her husband’s death, Grandma (Ellen Corby) ambles to her room to retrieve a letter as everyone else gathers around the young widow. Grandma returns with a letter from Curt to his son John Curtis. In the letter Curt praises the members of the Walton’s for their individual strengths and tells his young son of the love and kindness within the family. Although John Curtis has been given life and love, everything else, his father writes, you must earn yourself. This episode does not contain the traditional Walton ‘goodnight’ at the end.
As saccharine and perfect as The Waltons had always been, it seemed a bit shocking that the series producers would allow one of the Walton children to become a widow. Even though they were following events from the history books, one has to wonder if Curt’s death was part of a ratings ploy. Richard Thomas, who played the mega-popular oldest son John Boy had left the show after the series fifth season, Michael Learned who played Olivia Walton announced at the start of the seventh season, she no longer wanted to be a regular cast member. In the seventh season’s fifteenth episode, “The Parting,” Olivia is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent off to a sanitarium to recuperate. Learned would make occasional guest appearances for the rest of the series’ run.
It has often been said that when a television series begins to lose steam, producers try any or all of three things: have a character give birth, kill a cast member or add a cast member. In the seventh season, The Waltons had Curt die at Pearl Harbor and they added a character when Ben suddenly marries a girl named Cindy (She was introduced briefly earlier in the season) and sets up housekeeping in the shed. While The Waltons was definitely losing steam in its seventh year, fans will be glad to add the DVD to their collections.
The Waltons – The Complete Seventh Season is presented in a full screen format designed to preserve the aspext ratio of its original television exhibition. The audio is in Dolby Digital English Mono and English subtitles are available. The DVDs are dual-layer format.
This set offers no special features.
