The Star

This episode aired on October 19 1972, with this opening. Waltons Mountain is as old as the earth itself. For countless centuries, it has quietly shouldered the sky above the land on which our family settled, built and flourished. Through all its seasons, through all the great and small events of our lives, the mountain was changeless, as fixed and permanent as the glittering stars above. Then there was an evening in the 1930's, which started all of us wondering how, fixed or permanent anything is... even a star. The show openings with once again the beautiful sights and roaming of Waltons Mountain and then the family sitting on the porch and the kids playing tag. In side, the house john Boy is writing and Ben is studying for a spelling bee. It's a beautiful night with stars shining and its also quiet like it is every night on Walton's Mountain. John Boy comes outside to join his parents on the porch when Grandpa grabs his chest. As that's going on a shining star is moving through the sky, it looks like a falling star, and it looks like it hit the ground some where near the mountain. John and the family get in the truck to see if they can find where the star landed. The falling star lands inside the Baldwin Sisters house in the recipe room. The falling star had impact on two lives. The Baldwin Sisters think that the falling star was a message from there father while Grandpa thinks that the shooting star means that he's going to die. One of the Baldwin Sisters relatives tells the Sisters that they need to stop making the recipe because it's the message that there father wants them to do it. This episode to me was not that interesting because no one wants to think about dieing. With that in mine, I give this episode 5 weasel stars.

One of the best episodes of the series, and it all centers around a simple storyline: Grandpa convinces himself that a chest pain he felt while witnessing a falling star is an omen of his impending demise, and he takes to his deathbed. Meanwhile the meteorite itself has landed in the Baldwin sisters' recipe room, prompting a diabolical plan from conman cousin Polonious Baldwin to steal the recipe machine. Everything works like a charm, even the secondary storyline about Ben competing in a school spelling bee; the little scene with him and Elizabeth at the beginning is quite sweet. This is also one of the best looking episodes, the cinematography and lighting are top notch.

With our culture in full decline, divorce rampant, children being encouraged to pick their gender.... Need I say more? Stories about family and love of home are precious and in short supply. We need the wisdom of older generations to temper the immaturity being shown by the naive around us.

I love this episode because it centers around Grandpa and he is my favorite character on the show and I wish he was my grandfather.

The acting and storyline is stellar centering on how fragile life is. Zeb and Esther's scenes are priceless! They are my all time fav TV couple and their chemistry is believable.

10 stars for this one. Emmy worthy!