Series / 7th Heaven

Top row to bottom row, left to right: Matt, Annie, Eric, Mary; Lucy, Sam, family dog "Happy", Simon, David, Ruthie.

7th Heaven is a drama TV series that aired on The WB (and later its successor, The CW) from August 1996 to May 2007. It followed a pastor, his wife, their seven kids, and their dog. The pastor, a good-natured fella, dealt with the problems of both his family and his flock, which were often related, with varying degrees of success.

This show had an interesting mix of old-fashioned TV family entertainment and Soap Operatics. It stretched the limits of preacher's kids' misbehavior in later seasons.

7th Heaven was the longest-running and highest-rated show on The WB by far, as well as Aaron Spelling's longest-running show. Originally the 10th season finale was the series finale, but the show got renewed for an eleventh and final season.

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This series provides examples of:

Tropes # - C

• 10-Minute Retirement: Eric retires as a minister for about a season (season 7) after having had a heart attack leaves him in an existential crisis and even questioning the existence of God (cue associate minister Chandler taking over most of Eric's job). Eric snaps out of it, though, and returns as a minister.
• Academic Athlete: Oldest daughter Mary, until mid-way Season 4, is both successful as a basketball player of her school team (so much so that she's about to go to college on a basketball scholarship in Season 04), and academically successful. This is inverted in a big way come the two-part episode "Sin..." and "...Expiation" of Season 4, when the basketball team are suspended due to their grades slipping, Mary and her friends vandalize the school, and during the rest of Season 4 and 5, a lot of drama ensues surrounding her character, which ultimately results in her being Put on a Bus and her becoming The Unfavorite during the later seasons.^note Character Mary's downfall was probably brought on by the fact that in Real Life, actress Jessica Biel had posed semi-nude in a magazine, and the shows' creators were not amused by that.

• Aesop Amnesia:
  • The kid characters seem to have a major dose of this trope, as they would always get in trouble in the next episode, despite having learned countless aesops beforehand.
  • Particularly drawn out for Mary, who keeps losing job after job due to negligence at the beginning of Season 5 without learning from it. ^note To drive the point home: just when you think she really has hit rock bottom, when she is totally broke, in debt, and having lost her umpteenth job, four of her siblings steal money from their mutual youngest two siblings, to help Mary bridge the time until she finds a new job. What does Mary do instead of putting any effort in finding a new job? Spend all the stolen money in a cinema, on repeat-watching a movie and on ice cream and popcorn. Invoked Trope since at this point, the actress and the producers / writers weren't getting along anymore and this storyline was introduced so the character could be Put on a Bus.
• The Alcoholic: Eric's sister, Julie, in the first episode she appears in Season 1, is an alcoholic whom Eric insist on detoxing at his home. ^note In Real Life that would be medically ill-advised... When later appearing in the series (most notably in Season 5, when Mary drinks a beer while babysitting Julie's daughter), Julie refers to herself as a recovering alcoholic.
• Alcoholic Parent:
  • The father of Ruthie's then-boyfriend Peter, who returns home after three years away, and proves to be a Jerkass at first, until Eric convinces him to be a little more enthusiastic about life. However, by this time, he has been sober for a while, though apparently according to Peter, he was a nightmare when he was hitting the bottle.
  • Averted for aforementioned The Alcoholic Aunt Julie, because by the time she has her first child, Erica, she is sober and on the wagon. Her alcoholic past hast left some BerserkButtons in her though, like her completely flipping out at the presence of any alcohol in her house.
• All Abusers Are Male: Almost every time some plotline involves domestic violence, the culprit is the man, and the woman is the victim. One exception to this trope is when Kevin and Roxanne arrive at the scene of a domestic dispute, where it is clearly shown that both the husband and wife are abusing one another, with the woman actually getting the jump on Kevin, which leaves him sorely embarrassed.
• All Crimes Are Equal: Any time one of the Camden kids gets into trouble, he or she will suffer the worst possible consequences of it. This runs the gamut from Ruthie being made to wash an entire wall because she was trying to make a mural in her room, to Mary being shipped off to Buffalo because she couldn't keep a job, had about two beers, and ran a stop sign.
• Alliterative Name: Jordan Johansson, Paris and Peter Petrowski, Cecilia Smith, Jenny Jackson, Wilson West, Roxanne Richardson, Shana Sullivan, Kevin Kinkirk, Stanley Sunday.
• Alpha Bitch: Simon's ex-fiancee, Rose, is depicted as a selfish, whiny, spoiled Jerkass whose behavior and antics have earned her the ire of many fans, enough to be considered the Scrappy. Amongst other things, she seemed to fall into Clingy Jealous Girl mode around Simon, was always pressuring him to move up their impending wedding (which he ultimately did), acted rude and insolent towards the Camdens (including getting rid of their Christmas tree by feigning allergies, etc.) as well as her supposed friend Sandy, and when Sandy called Rose to be by her side when Sandy was giving birth to her son, Rose refused and simply stated "she had classes," and got jealous when Simon was justifiably worried about Sandy.
• Always Identical Twins:
  • Subverted with Sam and David, who were fraternal twins (though were initially portrayed by fraternal quadruplets).
  • The twin friends of Simon's who went on a date with Lucy and Mary in an early episode.
  • Actually, all the twins presented on the show are of the same gender (Matt and Sarah's twins are boys, Mary's twins are girls, Sam and David are boys, so on and so forth).
• Anti-Alcohol Aesop:
  • Eric's sister Julie is an alcoholic. There are actually a handful of episodes related to her struggle with the bottle, but the one which falls into this is the one where Eric keeps her essentially locked in his house for a weekend to help her get through the worst of the detox symptoms before taking her to rehab the following week. Julie is moody, violent, and cruel as she goes through her withdrawal, and her oldest nephew Matt is particularly left shaken by his interactions with her.
  • In season 4, Mary goes into a downward spiral where she messes up everything in her life, and this is seemingly started when one evening she drinks one bottle of beer after work and then drives home — she runs a red light and is stopped by a cop, who then tells her parents of her underage drinking. She later drinks a bottle of beer while babysitting (the baby of the aforementioned aunt Julie, who by now is sober and very anti-alcohol herself), which is the incident that definitely derails the relationship between her and her parents. Things go downhill after that, and the aesop seems to be that it all started with (underage) drinking of alcohol.
• Artistic License – Medicine:
  • In a Season 2 episode, Annie tells her daughter Lucy that the latter was conceived on Valentine's Day, which is half February. But in Season 1, Lucy's birthday was established to be midway January, which can't be reconciled with the aforementioned conception date—it would imply that Annie would have been pregnant with Lucy for no less than 11 months, which is biologically impossible.
  • Before season 10, Sandy and Martin had an affair, explicitly stated to have happened during the summer, resulting in the former's pregnancy. However, Sandy gave birth to their son in the episode that aired January 30, 2006 and the baby was stated to be born around his due date; so the conception would be around April.
  • Eric's having psychological stress about his daughter Mary's "downfall" is played as a major source of his having continued cardiologic problems after having had a heart attack. In Real Life, medicine, even back at about the year 2000 this took place, had figured out the role of psychological stress on cardiology issues is much less than previously thought, and patients taking their prescribed medicine and following life-style advice regarding food and exercise (which Eric seemed to diligently do) is much more important than psychological stress. See also Hollywood Heartattack.
  • When Annie undergoes a "standard medical checkup" at her family physician, the latter for some reason decides to throw in a pregnancy test in the lab tests - despite this woman at that point not showing any signs of pregnancy or having any medical complaints. This is certainly not a standard test in a standard medical check-up, and something a doctor would discuss with the woman on hand before taking it. It turns out to be a plot device in order to let the idiot doctor switch up Mary and Annie's lab results in order to letting the family think for about half an episode that teenage Mary is pregnant.
• Artistic License – Physics: In the season 7 episode "Smoking", we are given an entire house burning down with only the front door standing. Any firefighter can tell you that an entire house can't burn down completely, and there should be some structure standing by the time the firefighters get the fire under control (in that short amount of time, anyway). But here, nothing but the front door remains. See the headscratchers section for more.
• As Himself: Happy the Dog... plays Happy the Dog. She got starring billing for her stirring role playing a common house-dog, though her Emmy submissions always seemed to be rejected.
• Author Tract: 7th Heaven was basically a way for the writers to belt out their feelings over the perceived decline of godliness in American society, while also looking down on numerous topics that they felt secular people indulge in irresponsibly (including alcoholism, drug abuse, premarital sex, and teen pregnancy). The show also (mostly) implicitly advocated for conservatism (heck Lucy even stated in one episode that "maybe people should be a little more conservative!" to Mary).
• Axes at School: "See You In September" has Simon getting suspended from school because Annie accidentally packs a knife with his lunch.
• Babies Ever After:
  • Eric and Annie, to begin with; this is pretty much a defining premise of the show. They start out with five children at the beginning of the show, and have two more due to a surprise ^note Due to a medical mix-up, Annie ironically first thinks her teenage daughter Mary is pregnant, but she is herself; years later in season 8, Annie tells Lucy she got pregnant with the twins while on the pill, so they weren't planned, but the family is still happy to have them.pregnancy in season 3^note Which causes them from going from being a family of seven people, to having seven children - Seventh Heaven, get it?.
  • Taken to ridiculous extremes in the 10th season finale, in which Lucy, Mary, and Matt's wife, Sarah were all pregnant with twins.
  • Double Subverted for Lucy, because her second pregnancy, with twins, ends in a miscarriage. She later does get pregnant again though (at the series finale).
• Babies Make Everything Better: Subverted, because Mary and Carlos soon separate after the birth of their son Charlie. Doubly subverted when Mary and Carlos do get back together, and have twin daughters. Exaggerated considering the fact that three siblings (Mary, Lucy and Matt) were all expecting twins at the same time (though Lucy lost them due to a miscarriage).
• The Baby Trap:
  • Robbie’s girlfriend Cheryl initially claims to be pregnant in order to get him to marry her. They break up when he discovers the truth.
  • A pregnant date of Simon’s explains to her that she got pregnant the second time because she wanted the father to stay around.
• Back for the Finale: The season 10 finale, the intended end to the series before being Un-Cancelled, brought back Matt and Mary, the latter of whom hadn't been seen onscreen since season 8. The episode also brought back recurring characters, Sarah (Matt's wife) and Heather (Matt's ex-girlfriend and friend, introduced in season 1).
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Passionate Sports Girl Mary is the Brawn, boy-crazy Dude Magnet Lucy is the Beauty, and Wise Beyond Their Years Ruthie is the Brains.
• Bifauxnen: In Don't Take My Love Away, the youngest daughter Ruthie wants to wear a tux to her parents' vow renewal ceremony. In the same storyline she doesn't want her brother Simon to move out of their bedroom.
• Big Brother Worship:
  • Sam and David adore Simon.
  • Simon feels like this about Matt.
  • Ruthie to Simon, also. And, until her "fall from grace," Lucy seemed to have a case of Big Sister Worship for Mary, despite the fact that they fought all the time.
• Birthday Episode:
  • Lucy turns 13 in Season 1 and the family celebrate it.
  • Downplayed in an episode in Season 5, when it's Eric's birthday but it's only mentioned at the end. Mary flies in from Buffalo to wish her father a happy birthday in person.
  • After the twins are born in Season 3, the family are regulary shown to celebrate their birthday, which coincides with Valentine's Day.
• Bittersweet Ending: "See You in September" has all five Camden children coming away from their first day of a new school year wiser, but suspended for a day.
• Blame the Paramour: An obnoxious boy flirted with Lucy, which angered his jealous and somewhat unhinged girlfriend. In spite of Lucy insisting that she doesn't like him and that the girl should discuss any issues with her boyfriend, she refuses to listen and keeps threatening (along with her girl posse) to beat Lucy up.
• Born in an Elevator: Kevin and Lucy's daughter, Savannah. Lucy goes into labor while stuck in an elevator with her brother Matt, who conveniently is a doctor, so he helps her deliver the baby.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: In See You in September, Ruthie and Lynn's teacher, Ms. Rainey, utters "What are we doing?" when she sees the girls trying to flush Ruthie's hat down a toilet.
• Bowling for Ratings: Eric delays telling the family that he needs an open-heart surgery, so he decides the family should go bowling.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Lucy in seasons 1-4. Whiny and self-involved? Check. Drama Queen? Check. Boy-crazy? Double check. Glued to the phone? Pretty much (this was taking place before mobile phones were ubiquitous, but yeah, to the family's land line)...
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Season 9's "Hungry" features this to drive the point home how poverty and hunger is more present than the audience might think. Arguably, season 8's "The Kid Is Out of the Picture" could count as an example, though the Framing Device might justify it.
• Broke Episode: Actually a few consecutive ones, involving Mary, beginning Season 5. She couldn't keep any job and spent all her money on useless stuff. This eventually led to her parents putting her on a plane to Buffalo and her not appearing again until the end of the season.
• Butt-Monkey: Mary went through a period of making bad choices and having lots of bad things happen to her, mostly during Season 4 and 5 but arguably up to the end of the series. Apparently, it was not enough that she gets hit by a car in the first season's two-part finale, injuring her knee, but every time her basketball ambitions seem to be taking off, something happens to throw a wrench in the works. She's also portrayed as though basketball is the only thing holding her together, to the point that when the girls' team vandalizes the gym, Mary is apparently so unable to cope with the aftermath that she ends up hanging out with a wild crowd, bouncing from one dead-end job to the next, and eventually being sent to Buffalo. Her relationships have a habit of going down the tubes, too, right up to her husband Carlos, from whom she almost immediately separates. She gets back with him and they have twin girls, but her family is next to ignored for the rest of the Post-Script Season. In general, Mary Camden seemed never to be allowed to be happy or successful at anything, possibly because of Jessica Biel rebelling against the show's clean image when posing topless for Gear Magazine.

• The Bus Came Back: Multiple instances.
  • Mary returned to Glenoak for season 6, after spending half a season in Buffalo with her grandparents. However, she was Put on a Bus, or rather plane, again in the second episode of season 7, when she took a job as a flight attendant.
  • Simon didn't came back per se in season 9, though he missed only eight episodes of that season. He later transferred to a local college in Glenoak to attend his junior year, in season 10. However, he was Put on a Bus off-screen, and later left town again.
  • Same case for Matt, who came back sporadically in season 9, and was even placed in the opening credits, despite being present for less than half the season. Once again, he went back to New York by the start of season 10.
  • Peter Petrowski, Ruthie's ex-boyfriend, came back twice after departing the show in between seasons 8 and 9.
  • Kevin's brother Ben appeared occasionally after leaving in season 7.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: It doesn't appear that anyone in the Camden family (or their friends or relatives) can keep a secret hidden for very long. Ruthie is especially guilty of this with the sole exception of the time Matt married Sarah on the first date and she was swore to secrecy about this.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin':
  • Anytime a character even so much as tiptoes near the "dark side", they will see the worst possible consequences of it.
  • Teenagers (or unmarried people in general) who have sex, will always get pregnant.
  • Apparently, drinking not even half a beer will land you into an AA group for teens (no, seriously).
  • Anytime there is a secret within the Camden family, inevitably it will come out.
• Catchphrase:
  • Ruthie had "What are we doing?" in the very early seasons, which was her way to signal she wanted to participate in whatever anybody else was doing.
  • At the beginning of season 5, about the time Mary was turning into The Unfavorite Butt-Monkey and a point was being made about how much stress this was causing to Eric, there was an episode in which Eric repeatedly kept responding to other characters "it's not mad, it's angry!"...
• Character Filibuster:
  • There is something in the air of the Glenoak Parsonage that prevents people who live there too long from Ever. Shutting. Up.
  • Combined with That Makes Me Feel Angry. Basically, the characters are always giving long, complicated speeches describing exactly how they feel. Inversion of Show, Don't Tell.
  • One episode had a running subplot/Running Gag of the kids asking "Are you mad at me?" and them answering "I'm not 'mad' at you, I'm angry with you."
• Character Title: Simon's video application to film school is a dedicated episode which has many alternate titles, including "Simon Camden".
• Character Outlives Actor:
  • Averted; Barry Watson survived his Hodgkins Lymphoma and returned to the show.
  • Played straight with Graham Jarvis (Annie's father Charles), who died mere days before his last televised appearance yet Charles wasn't Killed Off for Real until almost a year later.
• Christianity is Catholic: Inverted by the Camdens in universe, as when Mary marries Catholic Carlos, the family makes it a point to remark "They are from different religions"; so apparently they don't view Catholicism as falling under Christianity, and to them, Christianity Is Protestant.
• Christmas Episode: Surprisingly for a Christian show that ran for over a decade, 7th Heaven only had three: "Here Comes Santa Claus" (season 3), "X-Mas" (season 10), and "Christmas!" (season 11).
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Being a long runner will do that to you, especially with some usage of Revolving Door Casting in later seasons. Examples include Matt, Mary, Simon, Shana, Roxanne, Chandler, Cecilia, Peter, Robbie, Meredith, Rose, and all six members of the Hamilton family.
• Church of Saint Genericus: Eric is the pastor of the Glenoak Community Church, which is apparently a non-denominational (but Mainline Protestant) congregation.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Cheryl was pretty clingy to Robbie in season 4.
  • Aunt Julie had this in shades; during one of her separations from her gynecologist husband, she once speculated that he was having dinner with one of his patients, a supermodel (however, since the woman was pregnant, this would be pretty unlikely, and also unethical in medical practices).
  • Lucy to almost all of her boyfriends, though it is more prominent when her then-"almost" fiancee Kevin got a female partner when he was still a cop (in season 7).
  • Also, Annie is an older version of this trope, acting this way towards Eric when his counseling with women gets a little too personal, or when a former female friend returns in his life. In a non-romantic version, she also appeared jealous at Cecilia when the twins were bonding with her.
• Cock Fight: One episode has two boys competing over Lucy. Their continued bickering ends up annoying her so much, that she is put off by them both and does a Screw This, I'm Out of Here!.
• Coincidental Broadcast: Occasionally used as a plot device.
  • In "Consideration", all the news stations in Glenoak seem to have nothing else to do except broadcast Simon's low speed "chase" through the town.
  • In the very first episode of the show, the family adopts a dog that seems to be (no one ever shows up claiming ownership of it) a stray/abandoned dog at the time. More then a year later, in a Season 02 episode, Simon and this dog appear in a commercial. By sheer coincidence, this commercial, when broadcast on TV, is seen by a girl who was the original owner of the dog, and now, as a result, is claiming ownership of the dog again.
• Commuting on a Bus: Matt, Mary, and Simon did this in latter seasons, though all didn't appear in season 11. Some of the other actors (Catherine Hicks and Mackenzie Rosman, who portrayed Annie and Ruthie, respectively) missed numerous episodes in the final season, so this could be a possible case.
  • Simon got off the bus for season 10, having a major storyline that saw him getting engaged and nearly married to Rose.
• Compound Title:
  • "Boyfriends..." "...And Girlfriends"
  • "Chances..." "...Are"
  • "Monkey Business"; "Monkey Business Deux"
  • "Sin..." "...And Expiation"
  • "Secrets..." "And More Secrets"
  • "Goodbye..." "And Thank You"
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • In season 1, Annie runs into a woman who claims to be the wife of an old friend of Eric's. After learning who it is, Eric tries to apologize to the former classmate, who now is living in Glenoak, after an incident that occurred on Halloween 32 years earlier (when they were 10 years old). The coincidence is that both men grew up together in Binghamton, New York yet somehow both end up living in Glenoak, California by their 40's.
  • Eric tries to convince a dying patient that he will have longer time to live, though he isn't sure of it. Turns out the guy that his son Matt had been talking to all day had also been given a terminal diagnosis, and is still alive well beyond his expected time.
  • Robbie meets a girl who looks nearly identical to Mary, who has the similar name "Marie" and who also played basketball.
  • Simon defends a kid from bullies, and when one of them asks why, he states: "For all you know, he's going to come to school with a gun and shoot innocent students like me because he's angry at idiots like you, so knock it off!" At the end of the episode, the police arrive at the school because of a call, and find a gun in the bullied kid's locker.
  • When Lucy and Mary go to Buffalo, they are detained after Lucy makes "threats" in the airport (in reality, she is angered that her bag was confiscated by airport security, and was being sarcastic). Kevin is revealed to be the officer who confiscated her bag, and Lucy is immediately infatuated. Later, Lucy and Mary meet Kevin and his brother at a restaurant. Kevin's brother is then revealed to be Ben, who was Mary's boyfriend while she was living in Buffalo.
  • After she's moved cross-country from Glenoak, CA to Buffalo, NY, Mary runs into her ex-boyfriend Wilson, who coincidentally has also moved to there.
  • At the end of season 10, Mary, Lucy, and Matt's wife Sarah are all pregnant...with twins at the same time.^note — Though downplayed if you consider the genetic fact that women whose mother has had twins—and Mary & Lucy's mother Annie had—have a higher chance of twin pregnancies themselves — but that doesn't explain how it would be happening at the same time.
  • Jane, who lives with the Camdens in season 11, happens to be married to Eric's adoptive brother George, who is away doing training for the Marines, though this fact isn't mentioned until halfway through the season, when the Colonel and Ruth visit the family.
• Courtroom Episode: "Twelve Angry People", where Eric is the lone juror for a guilty verdict, an inversion to the trope.
• Creepy Twins: Unintentional example: Sam and David. The ultimate in Dull Surprise.

Tropes D - L

• Death by Childbirth: The origin story for Wilson being a single teen father—his girlfriend died while giving birth to their son Billy^note Very sadly, a bit of Truth In Television—teenage pregnancies have a much higher rate of complications to both mother and child, than do pregnancies in adult women.
• Designated Girl Fight: Chandler, Ben, Ben's mother, and Roxanne are driving in a car when they get into a fight. This escalates into a physical fight (after they have to stop and get out of the car for Roxanne having to vomit), in which Roxanne and Ben's mother fight each other while Chandler and Ben, the men, also fight each other.
• Discriminate and Switch:
  • Reverend Camden overhears an argument between Matt's Jewish father-in-law and Ruthie's Muslim friend that sounds like they are attacking each other's religions. When he comes into the hall to break it up, he realizes they are arguing about their favorite baseball teams.
  • In another episode the Camdens are hosting a party with that same Muslim family, only to find nobody wants to attend. He eventually finds out that people assume the family is French because of their last name. (The episode was made around the time the Iraq War started. Subverted somewhat because people are still nervous about attending when the truth is found out.)
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Because Mary got fired from several jobs, did some underage drinking and got behind the wheel after drinking one beer, her parents decide to send her off—against her wishes—to live with her grandparents far away in Buffalo, New York, which many would argue is an overreaction.
  • When Peter is found drinking what appears to be one beer (and not even half of it), he gets a stern lecture from his recovering alcoholic dad and a seat in an AA group for teens.
  • When her children disagree about Mary’s return to the home (namely, her getting the newly-renovated apartment above the garage even though she didn’t apologize for her actions over the past year), Annie’s response? Exile four of them (two of whom are underage) to the garage without any food, water, or plumbing.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title 7th Heaven, apart from its obvious religious meaning, also refers to the family first consisting of 7 people, and and later having 7 children.
• Double Standard:
  • In the Season 9 opener, Ruthie pulls down Martin's pants in school when he won't give her a ride to school and also pay attention to her. She refuses to apologize, and Annie won't hear of her being punished for it, instead speaking of the kind of loose pants he was wearing and the favor he wouldn't do.
  • When the twins' teacher makes a pass at Eric, he complains to the principal, who responds by hysterically laughing in his face as if she finds the idea ludicrous, insinuating that he's either mistaken or lying outright, and overall making it clear that she's not going to do anything about it. Eric ends up blasting both of them and pulling his kids out of the school.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: All instances of domestic violence in which women are the victims and men are the perpetrators are played for drama. The one instance in which a woman (offscreen) beats up a man and assaults Kevin for butting in is played for laughs as Kevin seems to be embarrassed by the fact that he was assaulted by a woman.
• Drugs Are Bad:
  • In the first season episode "Last Call for Aunt Julie", Eric's sister Julie, who is an alcoholic, attacks her nephew Simon for not giving her the key to the liquor cabinet. She also has lost her job and her relationship due to her alcoholism. However, she goes to rehab and is in the first steps of recovery by the end of the episode.
  • Just about any drug you can imagine was featured; from ordinary cigarettes to marijuana to hard drugs, and even huffing spray paint got an episode.

• Easily Forgiven: The Camdens don't hold grudges with people they meet (barring maybe Rose), no matter how irritating they are. For example, when Martin is first introduced, he enters the Camden residence without their permission and drinks some milk from the fridge. However, when they find out, they're not freaked, instead they brush it off as something that happens on a daily basis.
• Egocentrically Religious: In a later season, Eric has a heart attack and ends up being ready to give up not just his job but his entire faith in God as a result of having to confront his mortality like this. In the end, his Rabbi friend has to come remind him that God doesn't really play favorites, even good and devout people will still encounter personal suffering.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Mary, doing her math homework, and Annie, trying to help her, break down and cry about how much they hate math.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
  • Aside from the direct Camden family, most characters from Glenoak refer to Eric as "the Reverend" (rather than "Reverend Camden"). It's kept ambiguous how big Glenoak is (see the Headscratchers), but firmly established In-Universe that Glenoak has at least one other reverend (Reverend Hamilton) - and by Fridge Logic probably has even more congregations and reverends - which makes this a bit confusing.
  • Eric's father, an ex-army man, is always called "The Colonel" by the other characters—even his children and grandchildren—rather than his first/last name, or "grandpa"/"dad".
• Everytown, America: Glenoak, California is a small town with deeply religious and conservative values.
• Fake Guest Star: Sergeant Michaels is the only recurring character who appears in all 11 seasons, appearing in a whopping 45 episodes throughout the show's 11-year run—enough that he's essentially a recurring character; but his actor never makes it to more than "guest star".
• Family Theme Naming:
  • Reverend Camden and his wife Annie give all their children Biblical names: Matthew, Mary, Lucy ^note The name "Lucy" is the feminine form of Luke, Simon, Ruth(ie), Samuel and David. Justified, of course, for a family of a minister, who have a strong Christian identity.
  • Most of the members of the Camden family have names ending with a long E sound (Annie, Mary, Lucy, Ruthie, also Happy (the dog). They however break this tradition for the last children they have, Sam and David. Also played straight when Mary has a son herself, as she names him "Charlie", the "-ie" version of the child's father's name Carlos; but subverted once Lucy has her daughter, as she names her "Savannah", thereby breaking both the tradition of Biblical naming (the daughter is instead named after the Georgia town Lucy and her husband spent a vacation in) and of "-y/-ie" names.
• Felony Misdemeanor:
  • Mary drinks a beer and TPs the school gym = Mary is a fallen woman on an uncontrollable downward spiral whose recklessness and lack of reverence for the conventions of civilized society will surely spell her doom. Also, she passes out from one beer — so completely that the continuous screaming of the baby she's supposed to be watching doesn't wake her up until its parents come home. The penalty? Put on a Bus to Buffalo (the Television Without Pity recappers had a lot of fun with the idea of Buffalo as the nightmarish place you go to pay for your sins; Mary herself even refers to the town as "Siberia"). And that's just the most significant example (as mentioned above, this was punishment for Jessica Biel's posing topless for Gear).
  • Simon is in deep anguish over the fact that he had extra-/pre-marital sex with someone. He is majorly concerned that he might have contracted an STD, and it is played for much drama, even though he had used a condom. He even appeared to be more shaken up by the time he had premarital sex, than when he had committed vehicular manslaughter.
  • In one episode, listening to rap music was equated to being a woman-hater (even for female listeners themselves).
• Firemen Are Hot: Everybody expresses how incredibly hot a guy Mary's fire-man love interest Ben is; even Ruthie blatantly checks him out, asking him to turn around for her while she stares at his body. His cop brother Kevin, who gets with Lucy, is also played as a very attractive man.
• First Period Panic: Both middle daughter Lucy and (years later) youngest daughter Ruthie got an episode dedicated to their getting their first period.^note They had completely different attitudes about this, since to Lucy getting her period was A Very Big Deal, which she talked about with the rest of the family; while Ruthie shrugged it off and didn't really want to discuss it with the rest of the family.
• Flanderization:
  • The main characters' quirks slowly became their most defining trait, with their lesser characteristics put to the side for the sake of drama, such as Annie's overprotective/controlling attitude and nosiness, Lucy's clinginess and sensitivity, Ruthie's sneakiness, Simon's Wangst, Mary's flakiness... pretty much everyone over time, actually. But being a Long Runner will do that to you.
  • Mary's was essentially done deliberately by the writers/producers to demonize her and to shame and insult her actress Jessica Biel after doing a semi-nude photo-shoot. Mary, in later seasons, becomes extremely "sinful" (as judged from the main character's conservative viewpoint), and also gets dumbed down (from being the Academic Athlete she is in the first few seasons, to a ditzy airhead).
• Flipping the Bird: Played for Drama, when Simon is caught flashing the gesture among a group of friends, and later Ruthie shows Matt. The actual fingers are obscured, but it's made clear which ones are being held up via slow-motion and a dramatic music sting.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Lucy's friend Sarah dies in "Nothing Endures But Change", and Lucy is pretty traumatized by that for the duration of this episode. But from the next episode on, Sarah is never mentioned again (except for a brief mention three seasons later).
• Foster Kid:
  • In season 11, the Camdens take in Jane, Margaret, and T-Bone (the latter of whom starts dating Ruthie).
  • Eric's parents adopt a boy, George, who the Camdens initially had live with them.
  • Though Robbie never is officially adopted by the Camdens, in practice he basically is—homeless, and without any parent to look after him, the Camdens take him in and take care of him, and he becomes a member of the family for a while. Ditto Martin from later seasons.
  • Chandler Hampton takes in a boy who can't be taken care of by his grandfather anymore.
  • Cecilia Smith's parents take in foster kids after she leaves.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: The eldest four Camden children zigzag around this.
  • More like first date marriage, as Sarah and Matt get married on their first date because of Love at First Sight.
  • Implied for Mary and Carlos—out of the blue she announces to her family that she has gotten married to Carlos a few months before, after running into him at the airport in New York. Her parents had no idea they had a relationship, or even of Carlos' existence, and it's implied Carlos and Mary acted very impulsively when suddenly marrying.
  • Downplayed with both Lucy and Simon. Both got engaged (or, in Lucy’s case, “pre-engaged”) not very long after meeting their respective partners, Kevin and Rose. With Lucy, she was practically engaged to Kevin within episodes of meeting him, while Simon is engaged to Rose in the first episode we meet her. However, Lucy didn’t actually get officially engaged until about ten months after meeting Kevin and Simon didn’t go through with his intended marriage to Rose. Nevertheless, both married ( or attempted to) within a year of meeting their spouses.
• Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind: Rod, Lucy's one boyfriend. Although he has (according to the Reverend) all the earmakings of a stoner/slacker including tie-dye clothing and a straggly mustache, he is actually a decent if not a little odd kid and a genuine friend to Lucy.
• French Jerk: Guy, a French exchange student, drives Eric and all the kids crazy.
• "Friends" Rent Control: Justified. The Camden family home is very spacy with no less than seven people living in the house at any given time, with multiple renovations added to the house in later seasons to make it even more so. It's explained several times that the house is paid for - and owned - by the church. Sometimes, people use the fact that the church owns the home as a (flimsy) excuse to barge right in (we're looking at you, Mrs. Beeker).
• Gaslighting: Annie was becoming emotionally distressed that the twins would not call her "mommy", yet repeatedly called Ruthie "mommy". Turns out, Ruthie managed to somehow teach them how to call Ruthie their mommy (in a manner similar to how a Sea World trainer teaches aquatic animals tricks) as a prank for Annie.
• Girl of the Week: Especially prominent in earlier seasons, often with one-episode love interests.
• Gift of the Magi Plot: In one Christmas episode, where Annie trades her mother's cross for a jukebox for Eric's prized record collection and Eric trades the records for an expensive chain for Annie's cross. Fortunately, the antiques dealer catches on and shows up at the end to set everything right.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: The show has a lot of teenage (and also adult, but unplanned) pregnancies, all of which are carried to term even when it will make life hard on the prospective parents. Not only is abortion not an option in this universe, but the word even is never uttered.
• Good Parents: Eric leaned towards being overprotective, and the mom leaned towards being My Beloved Smother, but they are both loving and supportive Christian parents. They always stuck together as a family no matter how many things their children do wrong...except Mary. Though an Alternative Character Interpretation of Annie, for some viewers, is that she's a potential Abusive Parent instead. She's got good intentions, but some of her punishments (like sending their kids to the garage without any supplies) can be pretty bad.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Always evil smoking, as the show has a strong anti-smoking message and portrays characters who smoke negatively. In one episode, a smoking character even ends up accidentally burning down a house, afterwards shrugging it off with "You have insurance."
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Enforced Trope with a "family" show. The worst words the show has ever used were "damn", "hell," and "ass". In the season 5 episode "Tunes", a boy called Lucy a bitch, though he didn't actually say the word (in fact, it was very vague about what he was saying - "Looks like you need a man" being his exact words, with the offending word then muted), though both Lucy and Ruthie quickly figured out what he said. For a casual viewer, you wouldn't realize what he actually called her until Annie came to Eric and stated that Lucy was called the "B-word".
• Gossipy Hens: The Camden's neighbor Mrs. Beaker and the other block ladies, though Mrs. Beaker herself was able to put it away early in season 4...and again in season 5 after Mary was Put on a Bus and the Camdens caught her in the act.
• Grammar Nazi: The Camdens will, on occasion, correct their kids' (and other people's) language, which you wouldn't notice on first glance. One example is when Simon corrected a bully's grammar while defending a kid with Tourette's (season 2's "Words"), which was seen as a diss in-universe though in Real Life, would probably earn a pop on the mouth. Also look under categories "Catchphrase" and "Insistent Terminology" for a further example.
• Grounded Forever:
  Mary: So I guess I'm grounded for life?
  Annie: That's a given.
• Halloween Episode: The episode "Halloween" in season 1 is set on Halloween, and dedicated to how each member of the family spends it.
• Hand Puppet Mockery: Played with in one episode. For a class project, Ruthie made finger puppets of the family (and Happy). While her intention initially wasn't to mock any of them, once Simon becomes annoyed with her playing with the puppets too much, she goes out of her way to aggravate him with them, especially while using the Simon puppet.
• Happily Married:
  • Eric and Annie, the parents of the show, are portrayed as happily married.
  • Daughter Lucy is later happily married to Kevin.
  • Matt and Sarah are happily married even though they got married after their first date.
  • Zigzagged with Mary and Carlos; they are happy together at first, then Mary abandons her husband (and son) and files for divorce, then they get back together again and have more kids.
• The Hecate Sisters: The first three episodes are about the life cycle. In the pilot, daughter Lucy is sensitive about starting her period and thus becoming a woman. She says that her type is Prince Charles, because she bets that he is sensitive and shy. The second episode has mother Annie using her intuition and welcoming nature to learn that Matt's friend is a pregnant teenager. In the third episode, grandmother Jenny is visited by Annie, who is concerned because Jenny has Leukemia. Annie finds that Jenny is spending her final days living life to its fullest. When Annie expresses her concerns about Jenny resting and watching her cholesterol, Jenny says that she'll be resting soon enough and she's not supposed to be watching it anymore.
• Holiday Volunteering: In the episode "Here Comes Santa Claus," each of the kids has to do a good deed over the holiday season. Matt becomes a mall Santa, Mary volunteers at the soup kitchen (and is happy that a hot boy was recruited alongside her), and Simon is determined to help Ruthie keep her faith in Santa.
• Hollywood Atheist:
  • Implied Trope with Rose, Simon's fiancee. Rose apparently never understood the fundamentals of Christianity, including the nativity scene (see Fridge Logic on the YMMV page), and always seemed skeptical of the idea of Jesus. She attempted to try to learn some Christian fundamentals, though only to appease the Camdens. Moreover, her selfish and self-righteous behavior made her into this trope, or almost anyway.
  • The most notable example was in a seventh season arc where the family dad, Eric, a lifelong Christian minister, becomes the first type after having major heart surgery. He loses his faith in God and decides to leave the ministry because he thinks if God were real (or wanted him to be a minister), He wouldn't have made him suffer like that. His rabbi friend eventually helps sit him down and calls him out on his entitlement and the shallow faith he's showing.
• Hollywood Genetics: Fifth child Ruthie has a noticeably darker complexion and less WASPy features than the rest of her TV family (especially her blonde, blue-eyed parents), which almost could make you think she isn't a biological child of the Camdens.
• Hollywood Healing:
  • Roxanne gets a stab injury that heals within one episode, which doesn't seem realistic.
  • Eric has a heart attack and is diagnosed with a terminal heart condition but by the end of the season, he's given a clear bill of health.
• Hollywood Heart Attack: A subversion and an aversion, with a Woobie of the Week (in "Red Tape" - season 2) and Eric himself (start of season 4), respectively. In the case of the former, he actually had heartburn, whereas in Eric's case, his heart attack (caused by stress) is mostly played realistically, with the episode dropping hints along the way. Neither pass out during their heart attacks, nor portray them stereotypically.
• Hollywood Tourette's: One of the show's many very special episodes deals with a boy with Tourette's whose verbal symptom is echolalia (repeating what others say). His parents, of course, have never heard of the condition until a parishioner tells them about it and assume he's "doing it on purpose." The father reluctantly admitted that he thought it was hereditary, though, since he had a cousin who did the same thing.
• Housewife: Annie studied everything from art to business and economics for the expressed purpose of running a household.
• Hypocrite:
  • When Lucy's encouraged by Eric to do her Confirmation in the church, she asks to read about other religions first. Eric acts like he is totally fine with this and gives her books about other religions. When she tells him to have become interested in Buddhism however, Eric says to Annie he will never let that happen, and then straight-out blackmails Lucy (by threatening to else punish her for something) into doing the Confirmation. Not only, why would he give her the books and fake to be so open-minded about other religions if he wouldn't let her make her own choice anyway, but worse, wouldn't a minister want people to commit to a religion out of their own conviction and faith, instead of being blackmailed into it?
  • When Mary decides not to go to college and instead take jobs as a waitress and other low-paying jobs, her parents are repulsed by that. Ironically, some of the jobs she has are in joints her parents themselves hang out - so while the Camdens put on this facade of accepting all people, they really deem waiters and other not-requiring-a-college-degree jobs to be less worthy people. The real hypocrisy kicker comes 2 years later though, when Mary gets a job as an airline attendant - a better-paying, and requiring more professional training, job than those she had before - and they even react in horror to that too; Annie says "How could our kid that had so much promise in high school, end up as an airline attendant?".
  • When The Unfavorite Mary announces her marriage to Carlos to her family, they talk about it amongst themselves and say the marriage will probably be problematic because Mary and Carlos "are from different backgrounds, languages, religions". Not only is Carlos a man who happens to be from Puerto Rican descent but speaks English perfectly^note Plus, he's turned his life around from being homeless before, and seems to be actually more mentally stable than fickle Mary., but the Camdens never objected to other people of different ethnicities being together before - apparently that's o.k. as long as it's not my children... They also apparently now deem Catholics not Christians, while other daughter Lucy herself also married a man who was Catholic.
  • "Tunes", again. The episode is basically saying that people shouldn't listen to rap music because it adds to ignorance about prejudice against women, but in the process, it implies that all rap listeners (including women themselves) are misogynistic, which itself is ignorant and prejudiced to the people who listen to that music. Also in earlier seasons, in some episodes, you could hear some of the Camden kids listen to rap music, though this wouldn't be noticeable on first glance.
  • Martin's season 10 teen pregnancy storyline. In season 9, Martin basically gave Simon a talk about the "evils" of premarital sex, and stated that he would never have sex until marriage. Flashforward several months later, Sandy comes to Martin announcing her pregnancy with his child, the result of an affair that occurred over the summer. More over, Martin blatantly ignored Sandy during much of her pregnancy, and pretended that he wasn't the father for much of the time.
  • The family's philosophy seems to be "don't hate anyone" even if they are unbearably annoying. However, this doesn't really stop them from hating Rose, who granted was an Alpha Bitch, though their philosophy is ultimately thrown out the window for just this one person.
  • In the season 9 finale "Mi Familia (Part 2)", under the belief that Mary and Carlos are getting back together, Annie decides not to call them because she believes that she and the family should stay out of their business in order for them to reconcile in their own way (Annie's words: "Everyone is going to stay out of this, including myself and your father...Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone you love is to stay out of their business.") However, this is contradicted by the family's meddling behavior into almost everyone's business, including their own family members, which has gotten so bad to the point where it has became a Once an Episode thing.
• Identical Twin Mistake: Happens in the episode “Smoking” with Eric and Lucy mistaking Chandler’s twin brother Sid for Chandler himself at different points in the episode.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Season Five had only one-word episode titles for all 22 episodes except the first one; this was continued until halfway Season 6. There also was a streak of four episodes (ep. 4-7) titles that all started with a B: "Busted", "Blind", "Broke" and "Bye". These were the episodes that set up Jessica Biel leaving the show: they were about character Mary's problems which led to her being Put on a Bus (or rather, a plane to Buffalo, NY) in "Bye".
  • Also, all seasons except the 11th/last, had the names of the last two episodes of the season either be a pt. 1 and pt.2 (i.e. "Love Stinks, pt. 1" and "Love Stinks, pt. 2" for Season 4) or a compound title (e.g. "Boyfriends..." and "and Girlfriends" for Season 2).
• I Have No Son!. Variant used in a Narm way. When the entire family reveals to Annie that they won't be home for Thanksgiving, she announces, "You are not my family"—her minor-aged children included, no less.
• Improbable Food Budget: The show features a huge family that apparently has never heard of "economy-size." The Camdens, despite consisting of two parents, five (later seven) kids, a dog, and any number of friends and grandparents drifting in and out, are often seen bringing home a "load" of groceries consisting of like two bags (implying that they're not really that low on food and this was just a quick errand... which Annie must run about half a dozen times a week) and getting pints or quarts of milk out of the fridge (instead of pouring a glass from a gallon). There's also always fruit and cookies and snack foods lying around for the snagging, and at least once Annie cooked a full family-sized meal that ended up getting thrown out because no one felt like eating it.
• Incest Subtext:
  • In the pilot episode Mary asks her brother Matt to help her practice kissing. Their father walks in on them before anything happens. Reportedly, the script actually called for them to kiss, but Jessica Biel and Barry Watson refused to do it.
  • The seven siblings all had active, obsessive interests in the sex lives of their brothers and sisters, to say nothing of their parents.
  • In the episode in which Lucy gives birth, brother Matt takes her shopping and the store employees assume they are married. Rather than say "He's my brother," Lucy replies that they are not married, leaving the store employees to assume they have a sexual relationship. While in labor in a stuck elevator, Lucy insists on Matt (in training to be an OBGYN) be the one to deliver her baby even though there are trained, non-related paramedics in the elevator.
  • This infamous scene, when Ruthie is "dancing" in her room, and the dad comes up. When Ruthie sees her dad watching, she smiles at him in a very un-daughter-like fashion.
• Injured Limb Episode: Mary spends the first episode of Season 2 walking on crutches, as she suffered a serious knee injury when she was hit by a car. She has trouble learning to walk without them again, but succeeds at the end of the episode. Her knee injury is an important topic in some later episodes of Season 2 as well, because it hurts her basketball career.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • In "Tunes", when Eric sees Simon sagging his pants, this is on the lines of what he says: "Do you know where that fashion trend started? Prison. Do you know where you're going if you keep sagging your pants? Prison!"
  • In "Just You Wait and See", Julie remains adamant at not wanting to have a baby with her husband, from whom she separated, despite the fact she's eight months pregnant, and also implies that her brother is to blame for her marriage because she thinks she does the opposite of what he wants. Her logic is different from our Earth logic.
  • In-universe example: Lucy's friend Rod speculates that the reason why the girls' basketball coach cancelled the season was that the team hired trained Russian girls to be on the team to ensure wins, which he justifies by stating that the economic collapse of the Soviet Union (which fell in 1991, a full eight years before the episode aired) would make this possible. Lucy calls him out on it, and states the real reason being that the girls' grades slipped.
• Instant Emergency Response: Averted in "Just You Wait and See" when Julie goes into labor at the Camden House, Annie calls for an ambulance but it doesn't arrive. Also falls under Fridge Logic on the YMMV page.
• Insistent Terminology: In season 5, about the time daughter Mary was "ruining her life" / turning into The Unfavorite Butt-Monkey, an episode was dedicated to Eric repeatedly saying to other characters "it's not mad, it's angry "! (The point seemed to be that Eric was himself very angry at Mary but supressing / denying that feeling, while the whole situation with her was worsening his heart condition.)
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Several episodes have Eric, Annie, or one of the kids helping or being helped by an individual with a disability. In "The Kid Can't Stay in the Picture," when Simon talks about all the people his family has helped, the Inspirationally Disadvantaged individuals are designated as "Angel."
• Irony: Oldest brother Matt when asked to take his little brother Simon to the family doctor to attend to a non-emergency in Season 2 Ep. 5, literally says doctors freak him out and he can't handle [doctor's] waiting rooms. He goes to medical school a few seasons later and is a doctor himself by the end of the series.
• Is That Cute Kid Yours?:
  • In one episode, Lucy (then 16) took her twin brothers out for a stroll and was mistaken for their mother, which opened her eyes to the plight of single teen mothers.
  • Inverted for Teen Dad Wilson and his baby boy Billy, as Mary upon meeting them (and by extension, the audience) believes Billy is Wilson's little brother; it isn't until Wilson confesses to Mary (and secundarily the audience) that he is Billy's Teen Dad, that this becomes clear.
• It's All My Fault: Lucy believes this when her friend is killed in a car accident.^note This was based on something that really happened to Beverley Mitchell.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Matt is the only one to go off to an Ivy League school, specifically the medical school at Columbia University, though technically he spent four years at the local college in Glenoak before graduating and leaving for New York.
• Jerkass Ball: This ball is thrown about like hot potato either when the plot calls for it or otherwise.
  • Annie holds it a lot:
    • She displays this when dealing with her stepmother Ginger despite the woman being nothing but kind towards her. While she might get along with her later, that's only because her father Charles was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. More over, after Charles does pass away, she admits that she's glad that her parents are now together again in Heaven - shortly after Ginger becomes a widow for a second time.
    • Her behavior towards her other children after Mary returns in season 6 is not much better. When they disagree about Mary getting the new apartment above the garage, Annie outright banishes them (including the underaged Simon and Ruthie) to the garage for not agreeing with her.
    • She's rude towards her half-sister Lily even before meeting the woman (as mentioned above).
    • Annie also picks it up anytime Eric becomes (or she perceives him to be) closer to the women he's counseling. Case in point, how she treats Serena in season 5 (even if it did turn out that her assertion that Serena liked Eric was correct, she had no way of knowing this was true until Serena admitted it was). At one point during this storyline, she shredded Eric's notes in the garbage disposal when he tries to counsel Serena over the phone.
  • In season 7, Eric acts terrible towards new pastor Chandler Hampton for replacing him as pastor of the church (despite the fact that Eric had recently had heart surgery and was in no condition to do church duties).
  • Lucy holds it anytime she becomes a Clingy Jealous Girl. The most obvious example occurs in the seventh season where she acts extremely paranoid about Kevin's relationship with his new police partner Roxanne to the point where she believes that the latter is trying to steal him from her (which isn't true). She acts like a total jerk towards Roxanne throughout most of the season, all out of insecure paranoia.
  • To a lesser extent, when Matt fails a chemistry test, he blames everyone but himself. He's called out on it and gets help with chemistry.
  • With the possible exception of Eric, the entire Camden family acts terribly towards Eric's sister Julie in the season 1 episode "Last Call for Aunt Julie" where even though she's an alcoholic and most of her awful actions were driven by her dependence on it (such as her attack on Simon when she's trying to get the key to the liquor cabinet), the family appears to be less than understanding of Julie's situation for much of the episode. But especially Mary and Simon.
  • Mary in the first episodes of season 5 acts more irresponsible than usual (this beginning her Flanderization that would characterize her in the second half of the series) to the point where her siblings help out her by borrowing money from their toddler brothers' piggy banks, which she promptly spends on movies rather than looking for a job, which was the intent of the borrowing to begin with.
• Jesus Taboo: Jesus is almost never mentioned, even though the characters are Christians and the lead character is a minister.
• Jury Duty: In "Twelve Angry Men", Eric has jury duty and there are scenes of him and the other jurors discussing whether the defendant is guilty.
• Karma Houdini: Michael Towner appears to have never gotten any punishment after striking Mary with his car and driving away from the scene of the crime at the end of season 1. In fact, Mary even has a fling with Michael some seasons later.
• Lack of Empathy: Frequently, Straw Loser characters will exhibit this when the writers are trying to force in an Aesop. One of the more striking examples occurs when Kevin's brother Ben briefly dates a Jerkass smoker named Betty. During the episode, Kevin, Ben, and Betty learn that the house Betty was housesitting for was accidentally set ablaze by one of Betty's cigarettes that she forgot to put out. She admits to the brothers that she doesn't care because it wasn't her house that was destroyed nor does she seem to care about the potential legal consequences that would result in the aftermath of the fire that she caused. All to push in the "aesop" that all smokers are sociopaths who don't care about the people around them.
• Last-Minute Baby Naming: Eric's brother-in-law and sister, Hank and Julie, name their newborn daughter Erica because Eric and Annie were present for her birth.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: When a show introduces numerous teen girls (plus, Annie) who unexpectedly got pregnant even if they used a condom or applied birth control, this trope is definitely in play.
• Like Goes with Like:
  • An episode has Matt's friend and roommate, John, try to pair up him and Matt with a couple of women in the building and it's obvious that he'll be with the black one and Matt will be with the white one (it even is the page quote on this Tropes' page).
  • Another episode has Simon's friend Nigel says that there's a desirable girl in his class who could have picked anyone to be her boyfriend and she picked him. Come to find out that she's black like him.
  • Averted, in the religious sense, for the Camden's oldest four children's spouses / significant partners. Matt marries a Jewish woman (and plans to convert to Judaism afterwards), Mary and Lucy marry Catholics, and Simon almost marries Hollywood Atheist Rose.
• Little Miss Snarker: Ruthie — way, way back in the day.
• Loners Are Freaks: And not being in a committed relationship is a tragedy. Basically anytime the Camden kids come across a loner, they inevitably have to solve some sort of problem involving them (e.g. preventing a school shooting).
  • A prime example is in Season 2, when a 13-year old boy is trying to commit suicide due to his being a loner; Annie then explains to the boy's mother that she originally put Mary on a basketball team to cure Mary from being a loner (never mind that Mary's playing basketball up until then had been played purely as her being an athlete by nature).
• Long-Lost Uncle Aesop: And they never come home for Thanksgiving...or anytime after their first episode, actually. An occasional plot device in order to teach the kids a valuable lesson, or to put to light a very serious topic that affects millions (e.g. alcoholism, homeless, domestic violence).
• Love at First Sight: Many of the main characters believe in this trope, as Matt married his wife Sarah on their first date and Lucy basically made a marriage commitment with Kevin, once again on their first date.
• Low-Speed Chase: Simon, when a new driver, gets into a low speed car chase aided by his grandfather who has dementia but who is supposed to be helping him learn to drive.

Tropes M - Z

• Maligned Mixed Marriage:
  • Conversed when Mary reveals she married Carlos and her siblings think it won't work out because "they have different religions, backgrounds, languages..." (she's Protestant, white and 100% American; he's Catholic, Hispanic and English is his second language). Subverted because Mary and Carlos ultimately stay married (she leaves him for a while but that is attributed to her general later-seasons irresponsibleness rather than the couple's different backgrounds).
  • When the of course very Protestant Christian Matt Camden marries Sarah, a Jewish woman, both Matt's minister father and Sarah's rabbi father are extremely worried about this trope, thinking that two people of different religions won't be able to have a successful marriage. The trope is strongly subverted though, as Matt and Sarah are proved over the following years to stay happily married.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: The Camden family started out with 5 children, which already is a big family by most standards. By Season 3, Annie had twins so they now had 7 children, an even more unusually big family. It's downplayed in that they never had all 7 children live under the same roof—by the time the twins were born, Matt already was 18 and at college.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Annie goes without her family to an apartment at sea, at a point in her life she strongly worries about her children (mainly Mary). There, she runs into an older woman who she confides to about her family problems, and the woman is very sympathetic and lifts Annie's spirits. When Annie leaves, the woman has suddenly disappeared, and other people nearby have never heard of her. The woman is either an Angel that appeared to comfort Annie in a time of distress or all in Annie's imagination / a dream. ^note This storyline, which was only part of one episode, came across as a bit of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, seeing that although characters frequently pray and talk to God, during the rest of the series God talking back to them, let alone Divine intervention, was never implied.
• Meaningful Name: Unintentional example with Mary, which aside from meaning "beloved" could also mean "rebelliousness" and "bitter" which fit perfectly into Mary's flanderized character traits in later seasons.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Lucy, at the beginning of the series, is the middle of 5 children and feels very insecure. By the third season, the twins are born, making Simon actually the middle child—and promptly his Wangst is played up.
• Military Brat: Eric Camden and his sister Julie, as well as Martin Brewer.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • A somewhat outside-the-fourth-wall case: For a time, 7th Heaven was aired right before Angel, which one reviewer described as being akin to "Following up your glass of orange juice with a vodka chaser."
  • Season 3's "Here Comes Santa Claus" gives us this little exchange about Mary describing Carlos:
  Eric: Who's that? What happened to his arm?
  Mary: That is Carlos. He got hit by a bus. Isn't he cute?
• Monochrome Casting: Out of 22 actors (plus a dog) credited in the opening credits during the show's decade-long run for no matter what length, only one has been a minority.
• Musical Episode: The ninth-season Valentine's Day episode "Red Socks."
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Matt's initial attitude towards any boy who dared to date Mary or Lucy, feeding a bit into the Incest Subtext from above.
• Naïve Everygirl: In the pilot Lucy is sensitive about starting her period and thus becoming a woman. She says that her type is Prince Charles because she bets that he is sensitive and shy.
• Never My Fault: Invoked in "Help" in which Matt blames everyone but himself for failing a chemistry test. Eventually, he is called out on it, and eventually asks his professor for help (get it?).
• New Media Are Evil: Eric gets shot by a kid in one episode. The kid likes video games. See where this is going?
• New Technology Is Evil: This show takes place during the end '90s - beginning '00s, right at the time the internet became booming and mobile phones became a serious thing. The family resisted for a long time to own or participate in any of this new technology. Eric was still using his infamous pager at a time most people had mobile phones. (Granted, the fact that the family were financially tight was also a factor). Eric did have a laptop from season 1 on, but it was implied that it was only strictly for ministry business use, and that it never had an internet connection.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: No viewer who saw his tribute episode but didn't personally know the man can say "Staff Sgt. Dwight J. Morgan" without laughing.
• Nosy Neighbor:
  • Mrs. Beaker (infrequently) pops in and out of the Camdens in order to search through their business, and spread gossip about them.
  • The Camdens could definitely count as well, given how much drama they conjure every week, mostly because they were trying to help someone, even when they didn't have to, and this was usually because they were either eavesdropping on people or just felt the need to do so.
• Odd Name Out: A fairly subtle example, even for this show. Out of the Camdens, only Eric doesn't fit into the biblical Family Theme Naming (discounting extended members and later grandchildren); Matt, Mary, Lucy, Simon, Ruthie, and twins David and Sam are known biblical figures or shortened versions of their names, while Annie's name may be a diminutive for "Anne" as in Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary.^note Granted, the name "Saint Anne" didn't show up in the canonical gospels or the Quran, where Mary is the only named woman, and her name was taken from New Testament apocrypha, of which the Gospel of James (written perhaps around 150) seems to be the earliest that mentions her and her husband Joachim. Saint Anne is patroness of unmarried women, housewives, women in labor, grandmothers, horseback riders, cabinet-makers, which in this case seems pretty fitting for Annie. This is hilarious considering that Eric is the reverend of the show.^note His name "Eric" however means "leader" or "powerful" in the Old Norse language.
• Once an Episode: Look up and down this trope list, and chances are this trope can apply to any other trope here. For example, the Nosy Neighbor trope could be applied, as the Camdens often sneak into other people's business and try to fix them. Plus, in earlier seasons, Eric's Papa Wolf tendencies often dominated episodes in which dating (usually his daughters) was the primary focus.
• Once a Season: Almost every season has some plot involving either a pregnant woman (more likely, teenager) or a teen mother.
• One-Steve Limit: Mostly played straight, averted with Mary Camden and Patty-Mary Kinkirk, Kevin's sister. Plus, Ruthie Camden was named after her paternal grandmother, also named Ruth. Downplayed with John Hamilton and John Camden, the latter of whom is always known as "The Colonel".
• Only a Flesh Wound: When Eric gets shot, it's treated with all the seriousness of sprained ankle. The doctors give him a bandage and an arm sling and send him home the same day.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Eric spends the last Christmas episode in kind of coma at the hospital. he spends the time in heaven, where he's greeted by Annie's mother, Jenny. She spends time with Eric while his guardian angel processes the paperwork to campaign for his return to earth and helps him shop for symbolic gifts for the family. She gives him a pendant that Annie's father gave to her when Annie was born. Eric has his memory wiped before he's returned home, but when he and Annie are reunited, he still has the pendant.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: A recurring element of the show.
• Out of Focus: Mary, Matt, and Simon in later seasons. In Mary's case, she doesn't even appear in the episode where she gives birth to her son, nor does she appear at all in season 9, while her storylines - her separation from Carlos, giving up parental rights of her son, her subsequent reconciliation with her husband - continued off-screen. She returns for the season 10 finale, where she is revealed to be pregnant again. In season 11, Mary (alongside Matt and Simon) doesn't show up with her family, though is mentioned in the passing.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Frequently (almost to the point of Once an Episode territory), a member of the Camden family would eavesdrop on another member's conversation and misconstrue it without knowing the full context and this would become a subplot for the episode.
• Overreacting Airport Security: Occurs twice.
  • An episode has Mary and Lucy held up and frustrated by airport security. It doesn't help when, in her frustration, Lucy sarcastically mentions having a bomb on their person, which results instantly in outright detaining. They're let go, but warned that they have to take every threat seriously regardless of how obvious the sarcasm is. However, this could be kind of justified, considering that the episode aired months after 9/11.
  • Occurs a second time when Ruthie is coming back to America from Scotland, when she blatantly mentions Al-Qaeda in conversation, causing the security to detain her and her parents for questioning. Ultimately, they are released.
• Parent with New Paramour: An older version of this trope with Annie (in her 40s) when her father Charles begins dating again after the death of her mother. The woman whom Charles dates (and eventually remarries to), Ginger, treats Annie kindly. Annie, on the hand, treats Ginger awfully because the close proximity between her mother's death and the beginning of Ginger's relationship with Charles. This doesn't really improve much over the next couple of seasons; one instance has Annie knocking her head into a wall when she learns of her father and Ginger's engagement. Annie and Ginger's relationship gets slightly better when Charles is diagnosed with Alzheimer's but even after the latter's death, Annie makes it clear to her husband that she likes the idea that her father and her mother are now back together in Heaven.
• Passionate Sports Girl: Mary Camden plays on the girls' basketball team and is seen as a girl who would give the guys a hard time because of her self-confident nature. She was so good at basketball that she originally was going to go to college on a basketball scholarship. All of this fizzles out come the infamous "trashing the school gym" and its aftermath in season 4 - she loses the scholarship, and from then on basketball isn't mentioned again as a thing in her life.
• Pick Up Babes With Babes: Matt and Simon take the twins to the promenade, thinking they'll attract family-oriented girls with good values. Unfortunately, the only girl who talks to them chastises them for having the babies out so late in the cold.
• Pink Elephants: When Eric instists on detoxing his alcoholic sister Julie at home, she hallucinates that rats walk all over her body. Hallucinations of a scary nature are a known symptom when detoxing from alcohol.
• Plot Parallel: 7th Heaven had a habit of having separate plotlines, one innocent and one serious, that interconnected to drive home an Aesop even more anviliciously.
• Post-Robbery Trauma: Annie and Matt were robbed at gunpoint, very early in season 1. Matt reacted in the usual terrified way, suffering a Heroic BSoD the next morning, while Annie remained calm and strong as usual. However, later on Matt was getting better thanks to a support group while Annie unexpectedly broke down in tears a few nights later, and freaked out when she mistook a stranger giving back a pair of dropped sunglasses for an assailant
• Post-Script Season: The show was renewed for an eleventh season three days after the series finale, leaving the writers scrambling to figure out what to do with a much smaller budget.
• Practically Different Generations: Eric and Annie have their last pregnancy pretty late in their life/marriage: 5 years after their next-youngest child and 18 years after their oldest.
  • Because of the big age gap between the oldest sibling, Matt, and the youngest, twins Sam and David, Matt already has moved out of the family home (he's a college student by then) by the time the twins are born, and never lives with them under one roof.
  • 3rd sibling Lucy, the twin's then 16-year-old sister, is mistaken for the twins' mother by some people.
  • This last pregnancy of the Camden's clearly was not planned, which explains the "Surprise!" aspect. Annie even thinks she's beginning menopause instead of realising she's pregnant—until the family doctor makes it clear.
• Preacher's Kid: A lot of the drama revolves around the trouble the Reverend's children get into.
• Precision F-Strike: When Eric in the "Who Knew?" episode is confronting Matt about having found a marijana joint of, presumably, Matt's, in the house (which vexes Eric beyond recogition), he drops a Damn it!. Taking into account the fact that he's a minister, has a strong Christian identity, and plays himself to be very "Straight Edge", this swearing of Damn it! seems to actually be a case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business...
  • There are a couple of episodes where Lucy uses the word "hell" in the sense of "going to hell in a hanbasket", to raised eyebrows.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: The cast members deemed important enough to rate the opening credits change too often (almost every episode, starting in season 4, to reflect the cast in the episode) and too randomly to attach an adequate adverb to. The only consist members in the credits were Stephen Collins, Catherine Hicks, and Beverley Mitchell, though Hicks was absent in several episodes for season 11.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: The Camdens, but especially Eric and Annie, will always be in the right no matter what.
• Put on a Bus: The show did this ALL. THE. TIME. In the series finale, all of the characters leave on a bus (or RV, as the case may be). Some examples include:
  • Mary, after Jessica Biel's aforementioned escape from Contractual Purity, in season 5. She returned full-time for season 6, then left again in season 7, and appeared sporadically in seasons 7 and 8. Mary was completely absent for season 9 as her plotlines continued off-screen, before returning for the final time in season 10 finale.
  • Matt and Sarah moved to New York for medical school at the end of season 6, making limited appearances until season 10. While in New York, they had a Day in the Limelight episode in season 8, though neither were main characters at the time.
  • Simon was Put on a Bus for season 8, after being accepted into early admission at a college after he accidentally killed a boy in a hit-and-run crash that left him fearing retaliation from the boy's older brother. He got off the bus for season 10, before jumping right back on, remaining off-screen for season 11.
  • Ruthie was in Scotland for a cultural exchange program in season 11. However, The Bus Came Back after six episodes. Ruthie's absence was the result of budget cuts in order to fund the season.
  • Annie missed two episodes in season 11 to take care of Mary after she gave birth to her twins. Her absence as well was the result of budget cuts.
• Questioning Title?: A few of the episode titles are stated as questions, most obviously:
  • What Will People Say?
  • Who Knew?
  • Says Who?
  • Who Do You Trust?
  • Who Nose?
  • Why Not Me?
• Really Gets Around: Believe it or not, Simon became this starting from season 9, to the point where he missed college classes because he was off having a fling with some girl. His parents were definitely worried and became suspicious of every girl he came home with. There have also been some other examples unrelated to the Camdens, including a teen mom who was a mother of three at age 16, all by different dads that she wanted to hold down. Ironically, the girl dated Simon when he was still the pious, wangsty teen from a couple of seasons earlier.
• Redheads Are Uncool: There is an episode where Mary's high school friends tease a girl with frizzy red hair for wearing flannel and being fat.
• Renaissance Man: Or woman. During her college education, Annie studied everything from art to business and economics, and later returns to school to earn her Masters (though later dropped out).
• Retcon: Lucy's age. Originally in the show's first season, she starts at the age of 12, before turning 13 halfway through the season. In the second season, however, she jumps to the age of 14, only a couple months after the episode that celebrated her 13th birthday.
• Right Behind Me: Matt gets caught badmouthing his new English Literature teacher in See You in September.
• Running Gag: Everyone in the Camden family constantly corrects each other's grammar throughout the series.
• Satellite Love Interest: There were only a handful of romantic interests for the Camden kids that had some depth. One notable example would be Meredith, who has little depth and only functions to serve as Martin's girlfriend and Ruthie's friend; this is even more jarring when you consider Meredith was in the opening credits! (For nine episodes, but still).
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One episode has Matt bringing home a beautiful blonde classmate of his that he was interested in. Unfortunately, Mary and Lucy decided to bully the poor girl out of jealousy by assuming that she was dumb and all of her assets, like her teeth and her breasts, were fake. She overheard this and and severed ties with Matt, and even though both he and the girls offered sincere apologies, she still wanted nothing to do with any of them.
• Secret Pet Plot: Ruthie and Simon have a ferret in one episode; they keep this a secret.
• Self-Harm: In one episode, Mary catches Nicole (a new friend of her sister's; portrayed by future Smallville star Allison Mack) self-harming in her bathroom. Mary tells Eric (her father), who then tells Nicole's father. Eric gives him a card and a number to call so they can get help for Nicole. Nicole is then Put on a Bus.
• Sex Is Evil: Unmarried sex only^note Married sex was good, seen how some subtle references that Eric and Annie were regularly getting it on (see Sickeningly Sweethearts), were sometimes present and treated as healthy and sweet. Also, anvilicious (and inaccurate) about how birth control will always fail; many of the many teenage girls that unintentionally got pregnant in this show mention how they got pregnant despite of using protection; in the episode where Annie (mistakenly, since she herself turns out to be the pregnant one) accuses Mary of having gotten pregnant, when Mary says she can't be, Annie cynically shouts "Why, because your birth control is infallible?!"; and Annie later reveals to Lucy (who herself is having a pregnancy scare while on the pill) that she got pregnant with the twins despite being on the pill.
• Sickbed Smuggling: The first season's Thanksgiving Episode offers a downplayed and invoked combination of this and a Jail Bake. Eric's sister Julie, having hit rock bottom due to her drinking, is allowed to detox in the Camden home under his and Annie's guise. In the midst of this, she requests Matt to sneak her in a beer. When he flatly refuses, she angrily kicks him out of the parents' room and starts yelling how much she hates him.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts:
  • Eric and Annie. When Annie is pregnant with the twins, the younger kids don't want her to drive them to school because, as Lucy puts it, "The fact that there are five of us is already proof that Mom and Dad can't keep their hands off each other."
  • A late-season episode has them get so worked up by the sight of another couple kissing that they sneak off to their basement during a dinner party to have sex.
• Single-Minded Twins: Played straight with Sam and David, as well as twin guys who dated Lucy and Mary in one episode. One may wonder if the showrunners have ever met real life twins.
• Snooping Little Kid: Ruthie often took to spying on the older members of her family, until she became a teenager.
• STD Immunity: Double subverted. A date of Simon's reveals she has a sexually transmitted disease (one that goes unmentioned by name throughout the entire episode), which leads to Simon worrying about having contracted the disease and later getting tested. He doesn't have it.
• Status Quo Is God: Anytime Annie tries to get a job outside of her home, she'll inevitably quit and return to the home.
• Staying with Friends: The Camdens' house was basically a revolving door for any friend/acquaintance/random kid who couldn't stay at their own house for whatever reason.
• Straw Loser: The show's basic description of anyone who took drugs, had premarital sex, an alcoholic/smoker, or anyone who did anything to upset the Camden family's rigid lifestyle.
• Strictly Formula: The show always seemed to feature the same plot: kid makes mistake, kid must pay for mistake, kid's mistake affects overly righteous parents, righteous parents forces kid to learn from mistake. And to make matters worse, the kids always seemed to suffer from Aesop Amnesia as they would commit that very same mistake in the next episode.
• Suspiciously Specific Sermon: Shows up a fair amount in the series, as usually the issue-of-the-week (tm) would tie directly into Eric's sermon. Averted in the first episode, when Eric cites "To everything there is a season..."^note That is a Bible verse rather than only a Byrds song in his sermon and Lucy freaks out, thinking he's talking to his congregation about whether or not she will get her first period - but he's not.
• Swirlie: The first season episode "Brave New World" has Mary drag Michael Towner's head into a toilet, since he had been sexually harassing her the entire episode, with his and her teammates watching. Comes directly after he gives her a "Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Teen Drama: 7th Heaven pretty much defines this trope.
• Teen Pregnancy: There have been numerous examples, such as teen mom Mary's friend Corey Conway, as well as the teen dad example of Mary's ex-boyfriend Wilson (who later married Corey). Exaggerated with a pregnant girl whom Simon briefly wanted to date; as it turned out she was on her third pregnancy and she was about Simon’s age (15/16).
• Ten Minutes in the Closet: Eric and Annie lock Reverend Hamilton and his wife in their attic, incorrectly thinking they're breaking up. Since the victims don't have anything to make up over, nothing else to do, and no way out, they have sex.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: What passed for dialogue was often alternating character filibusters combined with this trope, in which the characters were analyzing their own and others' emotions ad nauseum.
• 13th Birthday Milestone: In the Season 1 episode "With a Little Help from My Friends", Lucy's 13th birthday is coming up and she wants it to be a day she'll remember by throwing a coed party, but unfortunately, her parents object and declare her too young. To make matters worse, a geeky boy in her school named Dwight, shares a birthday with her and has a simultaneously occurring party on Wednesday. The Camden parents invite Dwight over to the house and decide to have him and Lucy celebrate their birthdays together, which makes Lucy feel embarrassed. However, after a dinner outing with her family, Lucy still has time for Dwight's party and realizes he's really a nice guy after all and Dwight confesses he's in love with her, but Lucy is already taken by Jimmy Moon, though she and Dwight remain friends. The episode ends with Lucy's family giving her a basket of things to get her through her teen years and saying happy birthday to her.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: During Mary's Put on a Bus episode, each family member gives her a speech during their intervention that all go along the lines of "we love you and want you to get better". Except for little Ruthie, who lays into her sister for going into Broken Pedestal status to her.
• Three Successful Generations: Mary has the confidence and ability to want to play in the Women's National Basketball Association someday, Annie is the vastly knowledgeable mother, and Ruth wants to visit the children more than once a year to influence them.
  The Colonel: Well, we're lucky to have Annie and Mary. You know, our Mary has enough salt to make jerky.
  Grandma Ruth: That Annie, she's always been a doer. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty.
• Token Minority: The show loved to introduced minority characters that rarely lasted an episode, mostly to tell an Aesop or to tell the audience that "Hey look, Glenoak's diverse!" The longest-running minority on the show was Sergeant Michaels, but we don't know too much about him (even after being on the show for its entire run).
• Token Black Friend: Matt has an African-American friend, John, who is about the only non-white character on the show.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mary and Lucy are close in age and share a room so there's quite a bit of interaction between them. Mary is an aspiring basketball star, quite capable of physically defending herself against men if needed (or even dunking a guy's head into a toilet), who looks down on her insecure sister for being a mall rat, wanting to be a cheerleader, and being boy-crazy (one episode even is about their arguing about Lucy's slavishly following the book The Rules (a purported "guide to women on how to get the man you have a crush on into a relationship") and Mary's opposing that).
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Basketball star and tomboyish girl Mary wears her hair in one of these when she's playing basketball, and often at other times too.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Annie, who ended up at her worst in Season 6 when she would lash out at Eric constantly for no reason, as well as banishing Matt, Lucy, Simon, and Ruthie from the house for protesting the undeserved preferential treatment that Mary was getting.
• Tuckerization: Associate pastor Chandler Hampton for series creator Brenda Hampton.
• The Unfavorite: Mary, for sure. See also Butt-Monkey.
• Unexpected Positive: Mary must undergo a physical before she leaves for basketball camp that summer. The doctor ropes Annie into having one too, and this is how she finds out she's pregnant with the twins. (But not before an episode-long assumption that Mary is the pregnant one due to the doctor mixing up their results.) Also overlaps with Mistaken for Pregnant.
• Valentine's Day Episode:
  • "Happy's Valentine": Eric and Annie spend Valentine's with Morgan and Patricia.
  • "In Praise of Women": The twins are born on Valentine's day. This also meant that from Season 4 on, Valentine's day also is their Birthday Episode.
  • "Loves Me, Loves Me Not": Mary goes out with Robbie, with disastrous results.
  • "V-Day": Lucy goes on a date with Jeremy, and the family celebrate the twins' birthday.
  • "Hot Pants": Matt, Mary, and Lucy all are dateless, and get closure from their exes.
• Very Special Episode: Pretty much every episode dealt with a major issue like alcoholism, infidelity, sex, pregnancy, drug abuse, sex, homelessness, sex. Not particularly surprising considering series creator Brenda Hampton had previously written for Blossom (itself notable for its frequent very special episodes).
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Meredith was Ruthie's friend and Martin's girlfriend, though she disappeared after she stopped false pregnancy rumors about Ruthie with an explanation for her absence never given. Even more jarring if you consider that she was in the main credits (for nine episodes, but still).
• Wild Teen Party: There have been a few of these over the show's run. The most notable party was thrown by Matt and Mary in season one when Eric and Annie went out on Valentine’s Day. It starts out like any average party but gets out of hand when more guests show up, someone sneaks beer into the Camden house, and the dog Happy gets out and hit by a car. She gets better though. Another one appears in the sixth season episode "Drunk", which was about Simon going to a party and having too much to drink.
• Where Did We Go Wrong?: The Camdens' reaction to Mary's rebellion towards the middle of the series.

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