Alex shocks his parents when he visits his 3-year-old brother Andrew's very special preschool class, decides the wrong values are being stressed and withdraws him from the school.

Distraught that his girlfriend Ellen has gone to Paris on a dance scholarship, Alex desperately tries to find someone to take her place, but finally realizes that falling in love again will take time.

Mallory is teamed with 66-year-old Margaret Hollings on a college sociology project and fins that she has a lot to learn about honesty, sensitivity and older people when she almost causes the woman to quit the class.

When Steven is asked by an old college friend to help him re-establish a left-wing political magazine they had worked on 20 years before, Steven realizes he is no longer in tune with the radical thinking it reflected and that his values are more middle-of-the-road than he had ever expected.

Alex is emotionally torn when he goes to work in a bank and finds that the vice president to whom he reports is Ms. Ryan, a beautiful, smart and self-confident woman and that he's growing more romantically interested in her each day.

Nick and Mallory make sudden plans to elope when Steven and Elyse vehemently oppose their marriage plans and threaten to ground their teenaged daughter.

Alex sees Mallory and Nick leaving the Keaton residence in the predawn hours to elope, and unable to stop them, follows them to New Jersey where he finds the young couple taking a hard look at their decision.

When Terry Bridgeman, a colleague of Elyse's, confides that he has broken up with his girlfriend, Elyse decides to fix him up with a family friend, the beautiful Liz Obeck.

Alex must choose between his friendship with Skippy and allegiance to his college fraternity when Theta Pi Sigma pledges Skippy with the idea of making him the object of a cruel prank.

Nick faces a serious dilemma when he learns that to teach an art class he must have a high school diploma. Mallory volunteers to tutor him, but it takes the skills of another Keaton to help him prepare for his final exam.

While assisting his economics professor in the final stages of an important research paper, Alex faces a serious moral dilemma when he finds that his mentor's conclusions are not supported by the facts.

When Mallory brings her new friend, Allison King, home with her to study, little does she expect that Allison will find a kindred spirit in Elyse.

It's bad news for the Keatons when Uncle Rob arrives for a visit and announces that he and his wife, Maureen, have split up.

The emotional roller-coaster continues at the Keaton household with the arrival of Aunt Maureen, Uncle Rob's estranged wife.

Mallory's relationship with Nick is put to the test when she joins a poetry reading group and becomes infatuated with its handsome and sophisticated leader, English grad student Colin Spenser.

Steven and Elyse are forced to take a new closer look at Nick and his considerable artistic talents when they invite him to compete with other local artists to create a sculpture for the lobby of Steven's television station.

The Keaton's are a house divided over a ""major"" domestic issue whether to redecorate their old-fashioned, but cozy kitchen. Elyse, Mallory and Jennifer think the time has come to leave the familiar behind and opt for a new, more modern look. Steven loves the kitchen's history, and doesn't want to change a tile.

While Steven tackles the job of re-wallpapering the Keaton kitchen singlehandedly, Alex is in Chicago with his boss, Rebecca Ryan, attending an important banking conference. Forced to share a tiny room due to a shortage of hotel space, the two spend an awkward and uncomfortable nite together, with Alex relegated to sleeping in the closet.

When Alex plays "gentleman" to his mother and two sisters and orders for them at a restaurant without even asking them what they want, the battle begins with Elyse, Mallory and Jennifer on one side, and Steven, Alex and Andrew on the other.

As chairman of the entertainment committee for the Leland College 10th reunion, Alex has big plans, which include hiring some great bands to impress attending alumni in the music business. Jennifer finally talks a very skeptical Alex into letting her new all-girl band, The Permanent Waves, audition for the affair.

Brother and sister go head-to-head when Steven announces a scholarship competition sponsored by his station, WKS. A confident Alex scoffs as the family encourages a reluctant Mallory to enter the competition. In spite of Alex's arrogant comments, Mallory prepares her fashion presentation for the competition and realizes that no matter what he says, she really wants to try. Alex discovers that he may have grossly misjudged his sister's business acumen as well as her sense of fashion. When the winner is announced, Alex and Mallory react to the news in a way that surprises even themselves.

When Alex's friend Greg dies in a car accident, Alex is thrown into a state of shock and begins to seriously question the meaning and purpose of his own life. Having been asked to accompany his friend on the fatal trip and refusing because it wasn't convenient, he is overcome by guilt. He tries to fathom why he was spared in the face of such selfishness, and begins to have encounters with Greg's ghost. His family urges him to get help.

Jennifer develops her first major crush on science lab partner Tim Higgins, the handsome star pitcher of the school baseball team. When Tim comes over to work on their science project, Jennifer is thrilled, but also embarrassed by his open admiration of her academic talents. Believing the adage that boys never like girls who are smarter than they are, she decided the way to keep Tim interested is to play dumb.

When Skippy falls head-over-heels in love with Mallory's new college friend, Amy Sussman, he's both startled and overjoyed to find himself in his first real romantic relationship.

When Elyse's sister Michele and her family arrives for their annual visit, Elyse is overjoyed, while the rest of the Keaton clan brace themselves for a long hard week of togetherness.

When Mallory comes home from her sixth disastrous date in a row, Alex tries to comfort and then help. He will find her a new and perfect boyfriend using a computer that the Keaton's have gotten for Jennifer's ""educational"" use.

In her quest to become one of the popular kids, Jennifer invites her trendy classmates to her thirteenth birthday party. When they become bored and begin grumbling at her ""lame"" party (which includes a traditional puppet show by her father), Jennifer takes drastic action. With Mallory's guidance, she becomes a ""valley girl"", who then deserts her own party.

In her quest to become one of the popular kids, Jennifer invites her trendy classmates to her thirteenth birthday party. When they become bored and begin grumbling at her ""lame"" party (which includes a traditional puppet show by her father), Jennifer takes drastic action. With Mallory's guidance, she becomes a ""valley girl"", who then deserts her own party.