A Walton Wedding

The second of the three 1990s reunions for "The Waltons" TV series finds the Virginia mountain clan preparing for eldest son John-Boy's wedding in 1964. This time around, the writers wisely avoid trying to give subplots to each of the now-grown Walton children (most of these former child actors are now much less natural on-camera) and sticks to members of the family who can carry a story: John-Boy (Richard Thomas), John (Ralph Waite), and Olivia (Michael Learned). While the wedding preparations are going on, budding feminist Olivia enrolls in college and finds some prejudice against older students, while county commissioner John is caught in the middle of a minor scandal when he's forced to vote on a project in which the Walton lumber mill has an interest.

The script is less sappy than the last time-around, but there are also far fewer cameos from all the Waltons' friends and neighbors, which is a bit of a shame. Also, Richard Thomas wears a distracting pageboy hairdo which looks completely out of place for the early 60s, and Michael Learned seems to have lost some of the warmth that made Olivia such a wonderful character in the series (at one point, she refers to a fellow student as a "twit"!). The usually-wonderful Holland Taylor seems out of place on the mountain as the meddling aunt of John-Boy's bride-to-be.

But these are nitpicks. This is a solid effort that will entertain even casual fans of the original series.

Sometimes reunion shows work, sometimes they don't. This and the other two from the 90s didn't.

The charm and innocence of the Walton kids as children, just didn't hold as adults. So, what partially made the original series attractive was completely missing from subsequent films. Then, of course, there are the chronic anachronisms. Hamner and the writers simply ignored the ages as established in the series. For example, John-Boy was born in 1916, and thus would have been 48 for his wedding. Based on that date, and having been 18 at his birth, Liv would have been born in 1898, which would put her at 66, while Michael Learned was actually a decade younger. Grandma was 77 in 1933, which means she'd be 108 for this show.

Throw in the fact that the in-laws all add little to a script, the bulk of whose material was contrived, plus the sudden birth of a baby during the wedding, pretty much implies that the whole purpose of the film was to make a film. It was completely lacking in the elements which made the series great.

What a sad follow-up to a great series. Excellent character studies have been replaced with dumb humor, stereotypes and a messed-up calender. The year should be in the 50s, not the 60s. This date change is unnecessary. The whole college scenes with Olivia are ridiculous. She was such a strong character originally, and in no need of feminist literature to assert independence. John-Boy's hair cut destroys any semblance of a believable time period. Yes, it is that annoying. Currently, I am watching Season 7 on TV Land. It was probably the last good season left in the series (it would, unfortunately, continue for nine, and with a "new" John-Boy). There was great potential for these reunion specials, but they turned into holiday and wedding greeting cards, of the faux-country type.

This movie was a good reunion movie. Although I'd have to say that John-Boy Walton looked way to different than in the series. He looked like something the cat dragged in. As for Olivia Walton, I'd say she looked older than she really was. John Walton looked a little tired in my opinion. He looked like he was getting tired of doing Waltons reunion movies. I barely recognized Judy Norton as Mary Ellen Walton. It just goes to show that not much has changed since the 80's reunion movies. Just one thing I didn't get was why did they have the original cast in the 90's movies and not in the 80's movies. Someone please help me understand the role of Olivia Walton in this movie as opposed to the series. Thank you and God Bless the Waltons. As they say at the end of an episode "Good night".