YMMV / Step by Step

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Frank Lambert is presented in-universe as a loving husband to his wife Carol and a caring father to his biological and stepchildren alike. However, it is very much possible for modern viewers to view him instead as a sexist/misogynistic creep who's only interested in Carol for her looks and/or sexual appeal. Apart from the shotgun wedding which kicked off the series, some other examples of this behavior include:
  • Expressing open disgust at the idea of J.T. working at Carol's beauty salon.
  • Subscribing Carol to a lingerie catalog without her knowledge.
  • Attempting to make strawman's excuses to avoid hiring a female construction worker. When he does hire one, she's absolutely gorgeous, and although very qualified—which, to be fair, he sincerely admires her for—it's also clear that she was Hired for Their Looks and that her competency was just a lucky bonus.
  • Mansplaining to his only biological daughter about how puberty is somehow a justifiable "excuse" for excluding girls from participating in sports.
  • Develops an inferiority complex upon learning Carol made $6,000 more than him the previous year, to the point of getting a humiliating part-time job at a fast-food chicken restaurant just to make himself feel better.
  • Frank's unseen first wife also gets this. Did she callously abandon her family or was she desperate to escape from a marriage that she felt trapped in? We know that Frank basically stalked Carol on her vacation and convinced her to marry him within days. Later, he sincerely asks her how long people should date before they marry, revealing that he's genuinely clueless about how relationships work. It's not hard to imagine that he did something similar to his first wife and she eventually got so miserable that she felt she had no choice but to leave.
  • Which also raises the question of just why he pursued Carol so intensely. Was it Love at First Sight or was he desperate for a new wife/mother for his kids?
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Cody Lambert, Frank's nephew. Too bad he gets Put on a Bus in later seasons.
  • Al is very popular, because of her cool personality, Character Development, and how She Is All Grown Up in later seasons.
  • Flash becomes something of an Ensemble Dark Horse despite his short tenure. His sweet, Adorkable personality probably helped.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Cody/Dana, though the Official Couple Rich/Dana also has its own fanbase.
• Fridge Brilliance: Lily Foster-Lambert receiving her mother's late former husband's surname. This was a nice way to resolve a series premise. It symbolizes the successful union of the Fosters and Lamberts as a family, bringing the related plot lines to an end.
• Harsher in Hindsight: "Beyond Therapy" sees the family go to just that, due to Carol's concern over how the constant Blended Family Drama will affect the new baby. Everyone gets a one-on-one time with the therapist to vent their feelings about the baby announcement, but Brendan's proves surprisingly prophetic. He bemoans how he'll lose his role as the cute youngest one in the family and summarily get shafted, which ends up being exactly what happens (especially when Lily goes through Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome).
• Informed Wrongness: Dana, for continually rebuffing Cody's advances. She's portrayed as a bitch for doing so, even though she's made it abundantly clear that she's not interested and is therefore completely justified in being angry and annoyed that in true TV style, he refuses to take "No" for an answer and continues pursuing her. Granted, he appears to have eased up mid-series, however and starts treating her more like a younger sister.
• Replacement Scrappy: Jean-Luc, a French stereotype who hits on Carol.
• Special Effect Failure: The obvious CGI ocean at the end of the opening credits (used to cover up the parking lot of Six Flags Magic Mountain, where they filmed the intro).
• Strangled by the Red String:
  • Dana and Rich. After spending two seasons barely able to stand being in the same room as each other, they suddenly started dating in season six... and still acted like they could barely stand to be in the same room as each other. In some episodes it really bordered on Informed Relationship.
  • JT and Sam. After their first meeting, there's a Falling-in-Love Montage showing they have supposedly a lot in common (they both like football, that's it) and JT decides she's the woman of his life. All the other episodes involve them arguing and disagreeing over everything, to the point it falls into No Accounting for Taste.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Especially since it ran from 1991 until 1998.
• Values Dissonance: The entire premise of this series happened because Frank followed Carol all the way to Jamaica and charmed her into a shotgun marriage, something which he outright confesses to her when Carol starts having second thoughts. In 1991: This is portrayed is a genuine romantic gesture that reaffirms Carol's commitment to the marriage, even going as far as agreeing to stage a normal relationship to cover up Frank's actions! In 2021: Such actions would not only result in Carol divorcing Frank, but also would have landed him a restraining order, jail time, and losing the custody of his children; making for a very different show than the one we got.
• Values Resonance: The episode that tried to tackle video game addiction seemed ridiculous and unintentionally hilarious in the 90s. However, as time has gone on people have seriously began to look into the concept of video game addiction, with people spending upwards of thousands to tens of thousands on video game Microtransactions and falling too far into Escapism it provides to the neglect of ones real life obligations. It's to the point that it's now considered a genuine mental health disorder by therapist.
• Vindicated by Cable: After a disappointing run in syndication, the show spent nine years on ABC Family's schedule and became part of The Hub's schedule shortly before it changed its name to Discovery Family.