Customer Reviews

The Waltons: The Complete Fourth Season

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There were many great seasons of this special show, but season four is the best IMO. Standout episodes include:
The Sermon - John Boy is asked to preach Sunday services and he gets plenty of coaching from proud Grandma.

The Competition - Ben gets angry and leaves just as the Waltons get into a competition for a huge contract.

The Search - Story by Ellen Corby (Grandma) Olivia, Jim Bob and Elizabeth are lost in the woods after a car accident.

The Fox - Grandpa's war stories don't quite live up to the truth.

The Burnout - The family is scattered after the house burns down.

The Quiliting - Tensions flare between Grandma, Olivia and Mary Ellen after Grandma plans a quilting party to announce Mary Ellen is ready for courting.

The House - Grandma and Grandpa are on different sides of the county's decision to tear down an old house.

The age of innocence is long gone from America TV. I grew up in the 1960's and remember the days of family-friendly television. Remember those great family shows that every member of the family could enjoy - The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl, Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, and Ozzie and Harriet? A few family-friendly shows remained in the 1970's: The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, and best of all ... The Waltons. Since the Waltons left TV in the early 1980's there have been very few quality tv shows the entire family can watch and enjoy together ("The Wonder Years" stands out as one of these). Since the days of adult-oriented "Dallas" and other similar sleazy sex melodramas, the major tv networks have been set on corrupting and ridiculing the strong family values that made America a once-great and proud nation.

Thank goodness for The Waltons! The Waltons is a series that everyone in the family can sit down and enjoy together. Parents can relax because there is no cursing or foul language, no double-entendre sex jokes, no graphic violence, just real characters growing up in a much more innocent age than we currently live in. (For a look at how our grandparents grew up, watch the Waltons).

In Season Four of the series, 24 episodes are presented, all of them being quality family enertainment. I have my favorite episodes of season 4 and you will too - there is much to like about this season. John-boy grows closer to graduation from college and begins a newspaper, Mary-Ellen begins her first steps in her nursing career, Ben grows into a young man with strong ideas of his own, and of course there is always the steady presence of the parents and grandparents, guiding this large family through the trying years of the Great Depression.

While my favorite Waltons season is the very first, there is still so much to treasure in this fourth season. The acting is superb, with Michael Learned winning an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a drama series, and the perpetually old and cranky Ellen Corby winning an Emmy for supporting actress. (Does anyone recall Ellen Corby playing anything other than an old lady or Grandma? - I can only recall one role as a pioneering farming homesteader in the movie "Shane" ). Richard Thomas binds this series together, being the person from which the stories are being told. When Richard Thomas leaves the show after season five, the series loses its central focus. And while the series still remains entertaining after season five, the loss of John-Boy is imposible to overcome.

I heartily recommend Season Four of the Waltons. It is something your family can watch and learn important life-lessons from, a far-cry from today's tv viewing options.

Jim "Konedog" Koenig

I love this series. I just wish they would get them out faster. Every year when we buy them, we will lay in bed at night and watch one episode. As the end of each season draws near, we may skip a night here and there to make them last longer. We really miss them when it's over. I wish they would release them all or at least release one every 4 or 6 months. I have no patience...

While we are getting ready to say goodbye to John Boy in the 5th season (not this 4th season), every episode deserves 5 stars. I loved this show growing up (high school) and can watch reruns forever. I'm planning on purchasing all seasons, as I treasure every episode. This is my all time favorite television show and, I think, always will be.

Now don't get the wrong impression of my rating because this is an excellent family show and it gets 5 stars it that area, but the 2 rating is my opinion of the poor way that this quality show was put on DVD.. First i noticed that this is a bare bones transfer with no extras but you would think since we are paying good money for these dvds that they would at least make sure the trasnfer quality from film to dvd is excellent, but sadly its not, it seems like there was not much care taken in the transfer process. Let me explain, during the opening music i noticed that it fades in and out something that i did not notice in the previous 3 seasons. Also on a few episodes i just watched, it appears like there was little cleaning up of the film done before transfer to get rid of all the spots or floaters that sometimes appear on older films, it would have been nice if the time was taken to remaster the film for good dvd viewing. It also would have been nice to include a closed caption feature for the hearing impaired for those who need it. In closing i really enjoy watching the Waltons and I am very pleased to have it on DVD, but if a little more care and extra work was put into the transfer process this could be so much better and i would feel i am getting the most for my money spent...

It's unlikely that any of us have known a family "just like The Waltons" but I grew up in a community that had some a lot like them. In these times watching "The Waltons" should be tax deductable as "therapy." Where else can you get a hour of relaxation at such a great price.

.....and to you naysayers out there, forget the lame-duck 7th Heaven as well. Not only is this one of the best family TV classics to ever hit the airwaves, it also happens to be, for the record, one of the most outstanding, well-crafted, poignant, family-oriented shows EVER. They know how to avoid cliches (where the Bradys cannot) and (sorry, again) know how to be BOTH sincere AND endearing WITHOUT being lame or watering it down (where 7th Heaven always seems to excel at). Plus, they also know how to show a little more pickup (where Little House can't; it's not at all lame, but does tend to drag on).

Sure, they even have their own disputes and squabbles amongst themselves, but also without turning it into something downright nasty, brutal, or patronizing. So, having said all that, this is definitely one classic TV show which will always deserve a special place in my heart. ;)

GOD BLESS EARL HAMNER AND THE WALTONS CAST

I've purchased seasons one through four as they've become available. There isn't a bad show in the bunch. The acting and writing during all four years is superb. The setting is sublime. Every storyline shows how people with morals confront the daily issues of life. Every storyline shows how people with strong family ties and strong family values deal with important issues of their daily lives.

The characters of season four have remained true to the personalities we began to love in the first season. John-Boy, Olivia, grandpa, grandma, Jason and John were superbly cast and are amazingly talented actors. By season four the viewer knows these characters as if they were friends or neighbors.

The writing and dialogue of this show is simply superb. Seldom if ever does the viewer find themselves wondering what's going on in a scene; in fact, its just the opposite. The acting and writing are so extraordinary that one cannot help but feel they have actually experienced the events... just as the Waltons have!

While season two is my favorite season, my all-time favorite Walton's show was during season four. "The Fledgling" is the second to last show of a very good season. The ups,downs and ultimate vindication of doing the right thing seen during The Fledgling are sure to keep any viewer rivited to their TV screen.

My opinion of The Waltons series is 99.9% on the positive side, so first I'll mention a slightly negative aspect encountered with the series, namely very slight inconsistencies with an otherwise strong and diverse story line. The only examples I can think of--which says much for such a long-running series--were found between season 1's The Star, season 2's The Awakening, and season 3's The Statue. The closing monologue in season 2's The Awakening has John-Boy reminiscing about Mary Ellen's adult life and the fact she had married a university professor and was the mother of two boys, whereas in later seasons she was married to doctors and, in one episode, was injured, keeping her from having any more children than son John Curtis. The other inconsistency had to do with Grandpa Walton's requested gravesite on the side of Walton's Mountain in season 1's The Star, and season 3's projected gravesite in The Statue. In the latter episode Grandpa and Grandma had an argument over the placement of a statue Grandpa had won in a raffle. He wanted it placed over their future burial site in a local cemetery, which was located on flat land surrounded by shady trees. However, after Grandpa's death--made necessary due to actor Will Geer's actual death--whenever they showed his burial place it was on a sunny slope of Walton's mountain, which had been requested in season 1's The Star. To me these were niggling things that pointed out the importance of thinking through, planning, and maintaining a story line regardless of creative impulses urging otherwise.

On the mostly positive side I believe that, as the years and generations pass, the importance of having recorded The Waltons series will become increasingly evident and appreciated, perhaps even studied in the classroom. Earl Hamner's spirit of family life totally infuses the series with a love and family communion almost impossible to achieve these days in real life due to the myriad influences bent on tearing families apart. The longer The Waltons series ran the more these influences began showing themselves within the series itself and, perhaps more poignantly, within the lives of the actors who played the roles. I seriously doubt it would be possible to recreate the series today, so the fact that it exists at all, and can easily be obtained, should be a boon to future generations. It will be there for anyone who feels a need to expose others to a family where children loved--and loved being with--their parents, grandparents, and each other, were equally loved in return, and were mentored empathetically and in healthy directions by honorable and honored members of the older generation.

On a personal level, I'm not sure how my life would have turned out if it hadn't been for exposure to The Waltons, even if only through TV. Coming from a typical, modern, dysfunctional family, complete with paternal infidelity, divorce, and a parade of stepmothers, I needed this vicarious relationship with a family much closer to the idyllic norm. The Waltons not only exposed me to familial love and mutual cooperation/sensitivity that was hard to find at home, but also encouraged my love of writing, which, perhaps not too surprisingly, has found vent in stories about relatives and histories of my ancestors, where I've occasionally found people like the Waltons in my own family tree.

Thanks for not making us wait an entire year for this one. Why these take so long to come out is very annoying. This season is one of the best. I love the two part episode about the fire. I only plan to buy one more year after this one, since Richard Thomas leaves the show after that.