After Mary Ellen receives the telegram with the news of her husband's death, Grandma (Ellen Corby) ambles to her room to retrieve a letter as everyone else gathers around the young widow. Grandma returns with a letter from Curt to his son John Curtis. In the letter Curt praises the Waltons for their individual strengths and tells his young son of the love and kindness within the family. Although John Curtis has been given life and love, everything else, his father writes, you must earn yourself. This episode does not contain the traditional Walton 'goodnight' at the end.

As saccharine and perfect as The Waltons had always been, it seemed a bit shocking that the series producers would allow one of the Walton children to become a widow. Even though they were following events from the history books, one has to wonder if Curt's death was part of a ratings ploy. Richard Thomas, who played the mega-popular oldest son John Boy had left the show after the series' fifth season, and Michael Learned, who played Olivia Walton, announced at the start of the seventh season she no longer wanted to be a regular cast member. In the seventh season's fifteenth episode, "The Parting," Olivia is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent off to a sanitarium to recuperate. Learned would make occasional guest appearances for the rest of the series' run.

It has often been said that when a television series begins to lose steam, producers try any or all of three things: have a character give birth, kill a cast member, or add a cast member. In the seventh season, The Waltons had Curt die at Pearl Harbor and they added a character when Ben suddenly marries a girl named Cindy (she was introduced briefly earlier in the season) and sets up housekeeping in the shed. While The Waltons was definitely losing steam in its seventh year, fans will be glad to add the DVD to their collections.

The Waltons - The Complete Seventh Season is presented in a full screen format designed to preserve the aspect ratio of its original television exhibition. The audio is in Dolby Digital English Mono and English subtitles are available. The DVDs are dual-layer format.

This set offers no special features.