The Waltons: The Complete First Season collects those initial episodes from the series building on the strengths of the Homecoming pilot, which introduced the extended Walton clan led by a strong-willed mill owner, John (Andrew Duggan), and his equally resolute wife, Olivia (Patricia Neal). The Waltons recast those key roles (as well as a few others) with Ralph Waite and Michael Learned (yup, a female), but Richard Thomas carried over as oldest child John-Boy Walton, an aspiring writer whose cusp-of-manhood view informs the series. Will Geer (Seconds) replaced Edgar Bergen as Grandpa Walton, Ellen Corby remained as Grandma, and John and Olivia's large brood (seven kids in all) were filled out by largely unknown, young actors. The episodes, still delightful and touching, strong on production values and unusually tight and polished for primetime drama, tended to focus on creator Hamner's pet themes of self-sacrifice and heroic effort when the going got tough.

Year 1 highlights include "The Carnival," in which the impoverished Waltons, who can't pay for tickets to see a circus performance, end up sheltering stranded carney folk. "The Typewriter" is a classic about John-Boy "borrowing" a museum's antique typewriter, only to have his sister Mary Ellen (Judy Norton) sell it as junk. "The Sinner" concerns the arrival of a fundamentalist minister on Walton's Mountain, finding comfort in the words of religious iconoclast John Walton after the clergyman makes a fool of himself with moonshine. That's Hamner himself providing touches of narration. During the long run of the multiple-award-winning The Waltons, there were many changes in casting and storylines. But this boxed set reveals a fine series in its pristine state.

Season 2

Year 2 still finds the original cast complete and the show humming along nicely on nostalgia for an earlier America, specifically the Depression-era 1930s, a time of sacrifice and family unity as The Waltons portrays it. The characters we came to know so well in season 1 continue to live in a spirit of cooperation and generosity, and with hope that a younger generation of Waltons will prosper and dream new dreams for everyone. The 24 episodes included in this boxed set feature a number of very strong stories, including a handful of classics, all immersed in the series' typically old-Hollywood production values. (Several season 2 shows were directed by Waltons star Ralph Waite.) Among the best is the premiere, "The Journey," in which the ever-noble, college-bound John-Boy (Richard Thomas) passes on a school dance and an important date to take an aging neighbor, Maggie Mackenzie (Linda Watkins), on a special, final journey. "The Separation" finds Grandpa (Will Geer) and Grandma (Ellen Corby) Walton feuding--even living apart--after the former crafts a secret plan to raise money to pay the family's electricity bill. (Their reconciliation is one of the series' most enjoyable and tender moments.) The memorable "The Thanksgiving Story" is a nail-biter in which John-Boy, facing a hopeful future as he awaits college and a visit from his girlfriend, endures a head injury in the family mill and must undergo surgery. Finally, "The Honeymoon" sees John (Waite) and Olivia (Michael Learned) finally taking their honeymoon after 19 years of marriage and seven kids. Throughout all the major storylines is a constant buzz of subplots concerning John-Boy's younger siblings--their joys and disappointments, first loves, accomplishments and relationships with one another. The Waltons never slows down, but it is capable of revealing the most delicate of feelings within shared or private moments.

Season 3

Meanwhile, John-Boy's father, John Walton (Ralph Waite), nurses a dream of opening a father-and-son-operated lumber mill, knowing full well that the very busy John-Boy can't do much without sacrificing his education. (John also discovers next-in-line son Jason (Jon Walmsley) is already dreaming about his own career beyond the mountain.) Walton mom Olivia (Michael Learned) looks wistful over the speed with which her children are growing up, and Grandpa (Will Geer) tries to do his part for the family's well-being within the limits of his age and rocky health. The Complete Third Season starts powerfully with a story about Walton kin, living elsewhere on the mountain, who refuse to leave their generations-long home in an eminent domain struggle with the government. Glimpses of the world Grandpa grew up in--full of moonshine, guns, and hardheaded men and women--abound in this fascinating episode. Other dramas concern heart problems for Grandpa; a runaway crisis when Jim-Bob (David W. Harper) bolts from home; a proper (and long-delayed) wedding for formerly eloped couple John and Olivia; a horse race that's supposed to be fun but takes on greater dimension; and troubles for John-Boy with a femme fatale and Boatwright's flawed honor code.

Season 4

The Waltons: The Complete Fourth Season finds life on Walton's Mountain changing in some significant ways. The first episode, "The Sermon," sets the tone with a story in which oldest son John-Boy Walton (Richard Thomas) is asked by the local preacher (John Ritter) to substitute for him at one Sunday service. Meanwhile, John-Boy's mother, Olivia (Michael Learned), is asked by the local schoolteacher to fill in for her for a week. Each of these Waltons has doubts that they're up to the task (Olivia has an especially hard time, since her charges include several of her own children). But they persevere, and Olivia finds herself teaching on and off throughout the season. Meanwhile, patriarch John (Ralph Waite) has a midlife crisis that causes him to leave home for a stretch, a cousin of Olivia's comes to grieve the death of her husband, the family closely follows the abdication of King Edward from the throne in England, and musician Jason Walton (Jon Walmsley) has a crisis of confidence as a performer. Special episodes include "The Fighter," starring Cleavon Little as a boxer who takes a paying job working for the Waltons, and whose presence upsets Olivia and Grandma (Ellen Corby). "The Genius" finds John-Boy being asked by his school to supervise a brilliant but socially cold 16-year-old who has to learn a lot about life.

Season 5

While John-Boy stands up to popular opinion, brother Jason (Jon Walmsley), a talented musician, has to take a job playing piano at a roadhouse to make up for the loss of his college scholarship. The decision doesn't go down too well with the Walton women, but Jason's presence at the Dew Drop Inn allows for some interesting scenes over the course of the season, none more so than the unexpected visit of a fire-and-brimstone evangelist in "The Baptism." In that same show, father John Walton, played by Ralph Waite, notorious in his Christian community for eschewing church services, faces renewed pressure from wife Olivia (Michael Learned) to accept her faith, making for one of the most interesting episodes of the season. Meanwhile, John-Boy’s sister, Mary Ellen (Judy Norton), is wooed by a couple of different men and hears wedding bells with one of them. She also pursues her nursing degree and misdiagnoses an ailment of Grandma Esther (Ellen Corby), resulting in long-term hospitalization and no end of grief for Grandpa Zeb (Will Geer). The other, increasingly restless Walton boys and girls grab their share of the spotlight, too, but The Complete Fifth Season is, once again, John-Boy's year, capped by dramatic developments in his career and vision of himself.

Season 6

Jim-Bob (David W. Harper) dreams (and dreams) of becoming a pilot but is too young to enlist. The laconic teen also falls in love with a girl leaning toward entering a convent--the experience is painful, to say the least. But something in Jim-Bob grows up after that and stays that way. As for the girls, Mary Ellen (Judy Norton Taylor) struggles with a full-time job as a nurse while leaving her baby at home, though none of those complications compares with the loss she endures the day Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, where her doctor husband is stationed. Erin (Mary Beth McDonough) and Elizabeth (Kami Cotler) carry on with work and school, and Grandma (Ellen Corby) gets around pretty well while suffering the long-term results of a stroke. The war affects everything on Walton's Mountain, including race relations, the clientele at the Dew Drop Inn, the employment scene. But if that's not enough change for The Complete Seventh Season, there's a whopper of a development midway through the year affecting the health and presence of Olivia in the show. There's always change on The Waltons, but none has ever been quite as extensive or sad as what happens on The Complete Seventh Season. Despite (or even because of) the withdrawal of Richard Thomas from The Waltons, there is a delicate balance between the other characters heretofore unseen.

Season 8

Despite all the commotion, season eight tightly focuses on the ripple effect of the war. The two-part season opener "The Home Front" finds John Walton (Ralph Waite) in the unenviable position of running the local draft board and making determinations about the fitness of local boys to go into the U.S. Army. When one young man (Glenn Withrow) has to be talked out of going AWOL and ends up dead while shipping out, the boy's grieving father comes gunning for a Walton offspring in revenge. The story also illustrates the backwoods nature of much of the community in the shadow of Walton's Mountain--people suspicious of the government, of outsiders, of educated folk. (In the episode "The Diploma," Mary Ellen (Judy Norton-Taylor), a nurse, rides horseback to go on rounds checking on skeptical hillbillies who want no outside interference.) "The Innocents" finds Olivia advocating for the unsupervised children of women working in a local factory while their men are off at war. "The Journal" finds Olivia and John forced to confront the disappearance of their oldest son, John-Boy, who is missing-in-action. "The Silver Wings" is a Summer of '42-like story involving the Waltons' youngest son, Jim-Bob (David W. Harper), and his attraction to a woman whose husband is off flying bombers in Europe. "The Unthinkable," arguably the best episode in the eighth season, concerns a Jewish army buddy (Todd Susman) of Jason's (Jon Walmsley), who encounters anti-semitism in the service at the same time he receives a letter indicating his beloved grandfather died in a Nazi extermination camp. What makes the show special, in part, is the way patriarch John must deny to himself and others that such camps, in all their inhumanity, can't possibly exist in modern times. There are a few episodes that don't touch on the war theme, the sweetest of which is "The Traveling Man," in which an old beau (William Schallert) of Rose's turns up, ready to marry but torn by career aspirations.

Season 9

Things start off powerfully with the two-part "The Outrage," in which John Sr. leaps to the defense of an African-American employee, Harley (Hal Foster), who has been living under an assumed name since escaping a chain gang years before. Never a show to back off from issues of discrimination, The Waltons: The Complete Ninth Season, tackles gender bias (Mary Ellen is turned down for admission to medical school, while Erin is one of many women on Walton's Mountain who lose their jobs to returning veterans) and anti-Semitism (Jason's wonderful girlfriend Toni, played by Lisa Harrison, causes a stir when everyone discovers she's a Jew). Meanwhile, John-Boy falls in love with a Parisian bookseller who encourages him to write an article about stray land mines, though his true destiny as a writer leads him back to his roots. Ben, too, is full of ambition following the war, eager to attend engineering college but needed at the family mill after John Sr. leaves. Jason takes over the Dew Drop Inn and finds a way to make a go of it with Toni's help. Rose rediscovers love again when her dance partner, Stanley (William Schallert), returns, albeit as an emotional wreck. (The Rose-Stanley storylines in season nine are among the sweetest episodes.) In a strange development, Mary Ellen's allegedly late husband turns up, a very different and darker personality than he was before. Other new and recurring characters continue to add color and texture to the show, most notably Ike (Joe Conley) and Corabeth Godsey (Ronnie Claire Edwards), the Baldwin sisters (Helen Kleeb, Mary Jackson), and newcomer Rev. Tom Marshall (Kip Niven), who starts off a firebrand and ends up a civilizing influence over the aforementioned anti-Semitic tensions.