The Waltons was created by Earl Hanmer Jr., who based the series on his 1961 novel, Spencer’s Mountain, which was made into a feature film of the same name in 1963. Hamner’s experiences growing up in the unincorporated area of Schuyler, Virginia provided the basis for many of the storylines on The Waltons. The series had been a huge success from the time it debuted on CBS in September of 1972. The show was a solid performer in the Neilsen ratings and had won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1973.
However, by the eighth season from 1979-80, The Waltons was clearly a series nearing the end. Richard Thomas who played the role of “John-Boy” left the series as a regular after the fifth season and returned for a couple of guest appearances the following year. The biggest blow to the series had been the loss of actor Will Greer. Greer, who played Zebulon Tyler “Grandpa” Walton died between the shooting of seasons six and seven. Though his death was written into an episode of season seven, his loss was keenly felt by fans and the series never really fully recovered. To make things tougher, multi-Emmy winner Michael Learned, who played Olivia matriarch of the Walton clan, asked to have her role reduced to pursue other projects. As a result, her character contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a sanitarium in Arizona to recover. Learned would return for a batch of episodes during the eighth season before leaving the show for good. For such a family based drama, not having Olivia around for most of the episodes gives the show a very empty, uneven feeling.
The loss of Thomas, Geer and Learned found the series moving away from the core family drama that made the show such a success. Without those core cast members everything was a bit disjointed. Even Ellen Corby who played Esther “Grandma” Walton, was relegated to the background after she suffered a series of massive strokes that left her with little speech. But at least she was there. Having never moved from its Thursday 8:00pm timeslot, during the series entire nine year run, The Waltons went from 15th for the year in the Nielsen’s, during Thomas’ last season, to 21st for the sixth season, to out of the Nielsen Top Thirty during its seventh and eighth seasons. Clearly, the loss of several characters many fans had grown up with was hurting the series.
Season seven had ended on an emotional note, as Mary Ellen (Judy Norton Taylor) deals with the death of her husband during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Season eight finds World War II in full swing and the Walton family ready and willing to help their country. John heads the draft board, Mary Ellen and Erin help manufacture war supplies and Ben signs up.
Despite a few fine episodes, season eight of The Waltons is undeniably uneven. Dealing with the departure of so many pivotal cast members couldn’t have been easy, but I would have4 thought the producers could have come up with some more believable transitions. In the case of Michael Learned, she appears in the first ten episodes of the season. She comes home apparently cured of tuberculosis, much to the joy of her family and fans of the show. Then, just like that, she goes off to be a Red Cross nurse. Learned wouldn’t appear on the series again, not even for Jim Bob’s high school graduation at the end of the season.
If Learned’s goodbye was strange, nothing beats the recasting of the John-Boy role. I can’t believe producers actually thought fans would go for this. I was a spectacularly bad idea. However, since the series’ central story arc was, John-Boy’s adventures as a writer (he remains the narrator of the show, via creator Earl Hamner), they probably felt they had no choice, if they wanted to continue the series within the context of World War II, but to bring back John-Boy. Though the actor who replaced Richard Thomas is probably a fine actor in his own right, playing John-Boy was a losing proposition. Thomas made the role iconic, and everything the “new guy” did felt wrong.
I came away from season eight with the distinct feeling that the producers didn’t have much faith in the intelligence of the shows fans. Are we to believe that Olivia, a woman we have been told, can’t stand to spend one night away from her family, would really up and leave to become a Red Cross nurse? Couple that with the John-Boy recasting and The Waltons producers had to know time was running out.
The inclusion of new “family” Cousin Rose Burton (Peggy Rea) and her grandchildren Jeffrey (Keith Mitchell) and Serena (Martha Nix) didn’t really work for me. They were just annoying and another sign the series was on its last legs. Despite numerous issues, season eight does have a few notable episodes: In The Diploma, Mary Ellen befriends a group of “hillbillies,” and in the process discovers the warmth and feeling they possess behind their protective facades of suspicion and willful rejection of what the outside world has to offer them. In The Silver Wings, Jim-Bob falls for the wife of a pilot. Familiar comedic character actor Todd Susman takes on a dramatic role in The Unthinkable, where he brings Jewish traditions – as well as the first inklings of the Holocaust – to the Walton family. Always stand-outs, Mary Jackson as Miss Emily, and Helen Kleeb as Miss Mamie, impress yet again as the delightful Baldwin sisters in The Inspiration, where a rather remarkable appearance by Ellen Corby marked this as one of the series’ best episodes.
Unfortunately, these stand-out episodes are too few in the twenty four put forth during The Waltons eighth season. Cast defections had left the series a shell of its former self, but fans of The Waltons will still want to add this set to their DVD collections.
The full-screen, 1.33:1 transfers for The Waltons: The Complete Eighth Season are disappointing. Scratches and dirt are present on almost every episode, while colors often appear muddy or faded.
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track accurately recreates the original broadcast presentation, but there are occasional warbles in the sound. Subtitles are included.
Included as a bonus, A Decade of The Waltons Retrospective Special, which originally aired in May at the end of the eighth season, has The Waltons’ creator Earl Hamner appearing on screen, discussing the past “decade” of The Waltons (which is confusing, because he refers to the past eight years of the cast portraying the characters). Set around the birthday of Grandma, the special allows for a generous selection of “best of” clips, woven into the birthday narrative (Grandma gets a photo album, hence, the flashbacks), while at the end of the show, Hamner is able to “introduce,” via some split-screens, his actors to their real-life counterparts: his family. Hamner also gives a brief look at his hometown of Schuyler, Virginia, as well as a visit with his mother.
Below is a short clip from A Decade of The Waltons Retrospective Special.
