AllMovie

John Ritter makes his first appearance as Matthew Fordwick, the new minister on Walton's Mountain. No sooner has the sober, upright Rev. Fordwick arrived than he pays a visit to his distant relatives, the Baldwin sisters. Innocently consuming far too much of the Baldwins' special "recipe," the Reverend ends up making a drunken spectacle of himself. It is up to John Walton (Ralph Waite) -- who'd initally been offended by Fordwick's overbearing religious fervency -- to persuade the poor man not to leave the Mountain in disgrace.