The Good

Now that John-Boy is getting older, things are starting to get interesting.

The Bad

No extras came with this DVD.

The Waltons: The Complete Fifth Season gives us 24 episodes of this quintessential, American family. The kids are certainly growing up this season as John-Boy creates problems with his paper The Blue Ridge Chronicle, Mary Ellen gets married and Ben gets a job selling used cars among other things. It seems like with this season, the kids stand out a little bit more and the older folks, while still important and highly prevalent, play more secondary roles. Some of the fine episodes making up this set are "The First Edition," which finds John Boy reporting on brother Ben being a thief. "The Hiding Place" is an interesting tale that brings the events of the Holocaust to the Walton's doorstep. "The Cloudburst" is a heart-wrenching episode that has John-Boy choosing between his nascent publishing career or a piece of his family's land. Lastly, "The Achievement" is the final episode of this season which has John-Boy going to New York when he finds out that his book is going to be published.

Filled with a lot of changes and personal growth The Waltons: The Complete Fifth Season was so much different than any one I have ever reviewed. As I said above, with the kids all getting older and starting to have their own lives, this season really allowed them to spread their wings. Since there was so many of them, the goal seemed to be showing how different all the Walton's truly were. In addition to this, it juxtaposed the older generations ideals with those of the younger ones.

Features

No Extras came with this DVD set.

Video

Standard version presented in a format preserving the aspect ratio of its original television exhibition. From a color standpoint, these episodes seem to have been compressed quite well. They are crisp, bright, and I noticed very little dirt or other problems with the picture. Now, the biggest problems I had was in the darker scenes. Mainly the outside night shots. Either they didn't think it was worth the time to clean them up, they couldn't clean them up, or they didn't see this problem, but when there is a lot of black on the screen white specks flick across is constantly. Aside from this (there aren't a ton of night shots in each episode), everything was fine.

Audio

Dolby Digital. English: Mono. The audio on this DVD was good even though I did have to turn things up a lot louder than I thought I would. Once I leveled things a bit past the halfway mark, everything played just fine. I was a bit surprised by how low this was at first, but I was happy to see that once I set things they played fine over the course of all 5 discs. Warner Bros. also did a very good job with the overall mix. These things sounded really sharp and I didn't hear any problems that sometimes occur over multi-disc sets.

Package

All the Waltons are present and accounted for on this orange toned, slipcase cover. Of course John-Boy gets the biggest picture out of everyone. The back cover features a shot of all the Walton kids (another sign of what I mentioned before about this season being a bit more concerned with the younger generation), a description of what this show is about, a cast list and technical specs. The 5 discs are stored in three slim cases, all of which have the descriptions, directors and airdates written across them. In addition to that there are also more pictures from this show as well.

Final Word

I can't explain what it is about this show but every time a new season comes out I get caught up in it again. I never watched this show until I started watching TV Land. I bring this up because each time I get a new season, I can't help but wonder what I am going to write about it. Sure, there are different episodes and different stories being told, but I can't help but wonder if things aren't going to be a bit redundant. I even get a little nervous. WHAT WILL I WRITE?

Then... I put the DVDs in my player. I see the events of this legendary TV family start to play out. I see the landscapes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Walton house, the family members interacting with one another, the events of the town and suddenly I start thinking about this show. I think about the characters. I think about what life must've really been like back then. I start to have all these thoughts and out of this spawns my review. Sometimes I capture perfectly the essence of what I am trying to say. Other times, I don't do so well.

At its core, The Waltons isn't merely a lighthearted look at family values from a time gone by. It is a look at American history that has been deftly crafted to be a part of Americana forever.

The Waltons was released .