A Walton Easter

I loved the Waltons as a kid -- it premiered on my seventh birthday. I was so disappointed by the reunion movies. Seeing Ralph Waite recently on Bones made me think about it. Why did they need to "jump the shark" and make a movie out of linear time? They did that the first time with the one about the Kennedy assassination. The original show was perfect -- these final movies (and unless they correct all the errors of the first three I hope they were the final ones) were just heartbreaking for anyone who loved The Waltons. In this movie Mama and Daddy are supposed to be celebrating their 40th anniversary. If that were so, then their first six children were born our of wedlock, and Mama, who is always portrayed as having been a beauty in her youth, withered unmarried on the vine until she was almost 30. We know that's not true -- why make it so fake in a movie based on something we who actually watched the series when it originally ran loved so much? So disappointing. But it's nice to hear John Boy's voice on Mercedes commercials these days.

Good show, but there are some obvious time line problems. First, in the original "Homecoming" it was stated that John Walton died in 1969. It conceivably could have been set before his death, but he looks very good here. In another earlier show, Grandma's age was noted as 68 and that she lived to 94, which would have put her death date at about 1960. But here it is, 1969, and she was over a century old! The kids, especially Elizabeth and Jim Bob, looked far too young to be playing their characters. All this could have been rectified if the producers had set each reunion movie ten years earlier than they turned out, but then it wouldn't have worked with the Kennedy theme in "A Walton Thanksgiving".

With the three TV movies, there was little doubt that Hamner and the network were trying to squeeze the last drops of blood from the stone. The anachronisms have been pointed out by others. Beyond that, the series of conflicts (John Boy and his pregnant wife, Elizabeth and Drew, money problems still, etc) were pretty much contrived to pad the script.

It was nice to see the old characters, including Ellen Corby, though. Sad thing is that most of the old timers are now gone, and died some time ago, including Hamner himself. Michael Learned is about the only one left.

For some reason, creator Hamner has no problem ignoring true-time. The original series was so well produced, acted and directed, with a serious consideration of the time period. To start randomly selecting years for reunion movies, regardless of the logical age of the characters, is quite distracting. In 1969, these people would actually have been ten years older than they are portrayed. The old series was very consistent in its realism, although they did indeed drag it on two years too. John Boy had several interesting girlfriends in the series, so it's hard to figure out why they chose Kate McNeil to play his wife in the reunion films. Her personality is unlike any of his previous romantic interests, and she is not the type of person that John-Boy has ever cared for.

When they did the Walton reunion movies with Richard Thomas returning as John Boy the major problem is continuity. First off the year it started with is 1963 some sixteen years after the other reunion movies ten tears earlier with the retconning of Mary Ellen's son John Curtis and her having two children when she couldn't get anymore pregnant and the disappearance of Ben and Cindy's son.

Now with the final movie John and Olivia is celebrating their 40 anniversary which they married in 1929 which in the series the show is set in the Great Depression and all the children was already was born. The explanation is that the writers at the time wanted to make the movies more up to date.