Okay, for the most part, I do like this show and find it somewhat enjoyable, but there were some things in this show that bothered me.

-This show went from being a nice family show to another teen soap opera.

-Being in a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite sex became life support for these kids! The girls were completely boy crazy to the point of insanity, the guys were desperate if some girl broke up with them. I mean, these kids seemed like they couldn't get through a day without having a girlfriend/boyfriend. It got to the point of these kids getting married when they were still teenagers. And what was with the long, loud makeout sessions???

-The women on this show were kind of overbearing. It's one thing to be strong and assertive. It is another thing to be a casterating tyrant. Annie was the worst. Poor Eric couldn't even clear his throat without Annie tearing into him. I mean, they did episodes that dealt with woman-hating and domestic violence, preaching about how wrong it is to hate, or to hurt, women, yet the women on this show were given a free pass to hurt the men, emotionally AND physically. Are we preaching "equal rights", or that females are better than males and while men have to bow to us, we're free to treat them like crap???:( :mad:

-What was with all the add-on characters in the later seasons??? Why did the show shift away from the Camdens and instead have all these side-characters whom we could give a squirt about???:mad:

-Mary and Lucy seemed to hate each other. They're more like enemies at school than sisters. And they usually always fought over guys. While Mary was in the hospital, Lucy cared more about some stupid guy not liking her anymore. When Mary came home, Lucy went from crying about her leaving to fighting with her over, once again, A GUY!!!:(

-The robo-twins: I usually hate little kids to begin with, but these two I wanted to hit with a brick!:mad:

-Ruthie: She was sooooo annoying, especially when she was younger!! She was weird and even kind of gross. Remember that one episode where she refused to change her clothes and wore the same thing everyday??? Ew! When she got older, she became a typical hormonal teenage girl, but a little more bareable.

-Again, about Ruthie, why didn't she have any close female friends when she became a teenager, like Mary and Lucy did??? It seemed like always hung out with guys, even though she seemed pretty girlie and liked shopping and going to the mall...but she did all the "girlie" things with her guyfriends. What was up with that???:eek:

Okay, for the most part, I do like this show and find it somewhat enjoyable, but there were some things in this show that bothered me.

-This show went from being a nice family show to another teen soap opera.

I agree with you on this one, but also the show had to evolve, and let us not forget that the king of teenage soap operas made this show.

-Being in a romantic relationship with someone of the opposite sex became life support for these kids! The girls were completely boy crazy to the point of insanity, the guys were desperate if some girl broke up with them. I mean, these kids seemed like they couldn't get through a day without having a girlfriend/boyfriend. It got to the point of these kids getting married when they were still teenagers. And what was with the long, loud makeout sessions???

Tell me about it!! It got annoying after a while. Teens do like to date, but these kids became obsessive about it. They did get married when they were still too young, and what made it worse...THE PARENTS ENCOURAGED IT!!! And while the guys were pretty desperate, the girls were much worse. Mary let some loser boyfriend affect her every decision in live, and eventually lead to her destructive behavior. Lucy was a complete basketcase is she didn't have a boyfriend. What are we teaching girls here????? That you need a man to be happy????

-The women on this show were kind of overbearing. It's one thing to be strong and assertive. It is another thing to be a casterating tyrant. Annie was the worst. Poor Eric couldn't even clear his throat without Annie tearing into him. I mean, they did episodes that dealt with woman-hating and domestic violence, preaching about how wrong it is to hate, or to hurt, women, yet the women on this show were given a free pass to hurt the men, emotionally AND physically. Are we preaching "equal rights", or that females are better than males and while men have to bow to us, we're free to treat them like crap???:( :mad:

I never liked Annie Camden. She was always nasty and hostile, mostly towards Eric. Even after the man had a heart attack, she kept belittling him. No wonder he always spoke in a whisper, because everything that came out of his mouth was met with a verbal kick-in-the-teeth from Annie. And, yeah, you're right...the women on this show were a little too assertive to the point of total bossiness, yet the males were taught to bow to their women and cater to their every whim. Basically, this show was saying that while it is a blasphomous sin to hate women, it is perfectly alright to hate men. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with this one.

-What was with all the add-on characters in the later seasons??? Why did the show shift away from the Camdens and instead have all these side-characters whom we could give a squirt about???:mad:

This really ticked me off in the later season. :mad:

-Mary and Lucy seemed to hate each other. They're more like enemies at school than sisters. And they usually always fought over guys. While Mary was in the hospital, Lucy cared more about some stupid guy not liking her anymore. When Mary came home, Lucy went from crying about her leaving to fighting with her over, once again, A GUY!!!:(

This one I'm sort of with you on. In a sense, they wanted to do a more realistic type family show, and in the real world sisters do fight with each other. But, on the other hand, yeah they were really hateful towards each other, and yeah it was almost always over the same stupid guy. It did bother me that Lucy cared more about finding a boyfriend than she did about her own sister, like when Mary was in that car accident and she needed surgery, and Lucy's busy balling over that geek, Jimmy Moon, then the next episode, she beats up Mary because Mary has the "better boyfriend", then in the episode when Mary had to move away, Lucy did seem concerned and upset, but a few episodes later, when Mary came home, Lucy was devestated when Mary supposedly slept with her boyfriend, which turned out not to be true, but in a later episode when Mary comes home again, Lucy decides to go to war with her because of that jerk, Robbie. I think in the later episodes, when Lucy and Mary both got married, they mellowed out, but there was always an eliment of cattiness and jealousy between the two.

-The robo-twins: I usually hate little kids to begin with, but these two I wanted to hit with a brick!:mad:

Totally! I think the mom might have smoked something while pregnant with those two!:crazy:

-Ruthie: She was sooooo annoying, especially when she was younger!! She was weird and even kind of gross. Remember that one episode where she refused to change her clothes and wore the same thing everyday??? Ew! When she got older, she became a typical hormonal teenage girl, but a little more bareable.

Not to mention the fact that Ruthie looked nothing like any of her siblings.:lol:

-Again, about Ruthie, why didn't she have any close female friends when she became a teenager, like Mary and Lucy did??? It seemed like always hung out with guys, even though she seemed pretty girlie and liked shopping and going to the mall...but she did all the "girlie" things with her guyfriends. What was up with that???:eek:

I think this was because Ruthie tried making friends with other girls, but they were always so mean and catty to her, so she fit in better with guys. I'm like that. I am by no means a tomboy, I love doing girlie things, yet I seem to get along better with guys. I have only two really close girlfriends, but for the most part, I'm friends mostly with guys. It can be challenging, but it beats a blank. I also feel it's because Ruthie watched Mary and Lucy being so catty with each other, that she learned a few things.

All in all, I don't know why I even watched this show, but then again I was alot younger and I stopped watching after the 7th season. And occasionally I watch this in reruns and realize what a cheesy show this really is.

Okay, that came out all messed up! Forgive me, I am still pretty new to this stuff! :)

Well, Tube Girl, I guess you're right. But I still like the show most of the time.

I like 7th Heaven too, but I agree with you. I mean, I've only watched the series occasionally over the years so I'm not very in-tune to all the storylines, but I definitely agree that Annie Camden was a tyrant and that a lot of the time, poor Eric couldn't even clear his throat without worrying about Annie making some cutting remark. I also think that as a mother, Annie was the absolute worst about holding the kids' mistakes over their heads constantly. I always got the feeling that Eric and especially Annie never really forgave Mary for that whole basketball graffiti thing or whatever that landed her in jail. It seemed like everybody held that over her head, like, forever. Like I said, I never watched the show regularly so I don't understand the full storylines of it all, but something else that really got on my nerves was the Lucy/Kevin relationship. It bugged me the way that Kevin was so mysterious all the time. I know Lucy could go kind of crazy, but like the way that she was honest with him about the guys she made out with before they got serious in their relationship but she could never get Kevin to tell her whether or not he'd ever had sex with a woman before...that really rubbed me the wrong way. If they're supposed to be husband and wife, they shouldn't keep any secrets, and I kind of felt Lucy had a right to know about his previous relationships. And I remember in one episode where he made the comment, "After working as a cop all day long, handling Lucy at the end of the day is a piece of cake." Handling Lucy??? That just doesn't seem right to me, like he's looking down on her or something. I don't think that the person you're getting ready to spend the entire rest of your life with should be seen as some kind of burden to be "handled." And like I said, I know Lucy could get pretty crazy sometimes and I haven't seen all the episodes, so for all I know she could have been a burden for Kevin to have to "handle" at the end of the day if she treated him the way Annie did Eric. But still, I'm just saying that if you're wanting to marry somebody and you see them as a burden you have to handle or put up with, um, you shouldn't marry 'em! Anyway, that's just me. Since I don't know the show all that well, I could be completely in the wrong, but those are the impressions I got with the show.

Something else, and I do realize this is completely off topic, but...how in the WORLD did Eric Camden support a wife and SEVEN kids on just a pastor's salary??? COMPLETELY unbelievable! Annie should've had a career. (And NO, I'm not saying that being a homemaker/stay-at-home mother isn't a career, I just mean a paying one...maybe staying at home with seven children is what made Annie such a tyrant...LOL!) Actually, I'm just kidding. I know Annie had some kind of teaching job or something at one point when they were sending Ruthie to this private school. (Again, on just a pastor's and teacher's salary, TOTALLY unbelievable.)

Lucy sure always was crazy. The more I watch this show, the more I realise that. Like there was one episode, when Lucy still was in High School, where she wanted to slap a guy, because she thought it looked romantic (!), when Scarlett slapped Rhett on "Gone by the wind", or something like that! I mean, how crazy was that? And in one episode years later, when she was married to Kevin, she begged her mother to give her a pie, that she had baked for the whole family, so she could give it to Kevin, and she only ended up throwing in on his car window. Maybe she was jealous of Roxanne and affraid something was going on, but still! That pie had been for the family! It was even wrong of her to beg for it in the first place, but throwing it on the car window was just plain crazy! And that's only two examples of all of Lucy's crazinesses. Kevin sure was a much calmer person than Lucy was. He was pretty much a normal guy, when Lucy often was... weird.

And yeah, about Annie, she could be crazy too, so I guess we know where Lucy gets it from. About why she didn't have a job... Well, they sure could have needed the extra income, but I also think that the more children you have, the harder it gets to both work outside the home and inside the home. So I understand that Annie remained a housewife. A weird thing though was when she suddenly felt like she had to go to college. Not only was it weird for her to go to college instead of getting a job, since instead of making money, that must have costed them money. But she did it at a very bad time, when Mary was at her worst and the twins only were two years old. Why couldn't she had gone to college before the twins were born, like when Ruthie was five years old?

Something else, and I do realize this is completely off topic, but...how in the WORLD did Eric Camden support a wife and SEVEN kids on just a pastor's salary??? COMPLETELY unbelievable! Annie should've had a career. (And NO, I'm not saying that being a homemaker/stay-at-home mother isn't a career, I just mean a paying one...maybe staying at home with seven children is what made Annie such a tyrant...LOL!) Actually, I'm just kidding. I know Annie had some kind of teaching job or something at one point when they were sending Ruthie to this private school. (Again, on just a pastor's and teacher's salary, TOTALLY unbelievable.)

I think it's somewhat believable because the house was owned by the church and I'll assume the church paid real estate taxes if there were any. No idea where they shopped but if they bought things in bulk they could save a lot of money.

Why couldn't she had gone to college before the twins were born, like when Ruthie was five years old?

Probably because there were still 4 other kids at home. When the twins were born some of the other kids had already left home or were leaving home soon. The older kids did not really need to be looked after. College can cost money but some colleges are free for older people.

I think it's somewhat believable because the house was owned by the church and I'll assume the church paid real estate taxes if there were any. No idea where they shopped but if they bought things in bulk they could save a lot of money.
Yeah, the house was owned by the church, and Annie bought things cheap. I remember an episode, where Mary and Lucy wanted to buy a more expensive shampoo, because they didn't the "family shampoo" was good enough. And later on, there was also an episode, where Ruthie wore a second hand sweater to school, and then the girl, who had owned it first, told her it had been hers.

Probably because there were still 4 other kids at home. When the twins were born some of the other kids had already left home or were leaving home soon. The older kids did not really need to be looked after. College can cost money but some colleges are free for older people.
Hmmm... When she went to college, all kids except Matt still lived at home. Mary would soon leave too, but that still left five children at home.

Hmmm... When she went to college, all kids except Matt still lived at home. Mary would soon leave too, but that still left five children at home.

True but the kids were older and they could look after the twins. Free babysitters were always appreciated I'm sure. And didn't Cecilia look after the twins at some point?

I don't remember much about Cecilia. I haven't seen so many episodes with her. But yeah, the older siblings often looked after the younger siblings.

i agree with just about everyone has been saying on this topic. these are the same things that bothered me about this show while watching it.

i for one could not stand annie camden, because - now mind you this is not meant to sound anti-women, or male cheavinistic - she was always throwing a fit over every little thing, and most her her rages were aimed at poor eric. in eric's defense he was a minister who was dealing with people's problems as well as his own family's problems. and he had a heart condition and was told he needed to eliviate alot of the stress in his life. yet, annie could care less and kept reeming into him. another thing i noticed is she always seemed nicer to her female friends and more understanding of their problems and their needs than she was to eric and even her own kids. how she treated her kids was bordering on mental abuse. even when someone would do the slightest thing wrong, she would get all over them and assert her power and authority over them. like when lucy was using the phone too much, i understand wanting lucy to cut down on her phone usage, but to totally ban her from using the phone was out of hand. that same episode, i remember annie not letting ruthie chew bubble gum. another episode where lucy went to the mall with her friends and she was wearing revealing clothes, i can see annie getting angry with her, but she made it seem like she was sneaking out to meet some guy, or something. now, poor lucy isn't allowed to go to the mall with her friends anymore.

of all the camden kids lucy, ruthie and matt were the ones who got on my nerves the most. lucy because of her constant ranting and whining and how she seemed to not care that her sister, mary, struggled alot because of her knee injury, but all lucy seemed to care about was boys. i also hated how b*tchy lucy was to mary alot of the time. it was more like they were enemies than sisters. ruthie because at first she was this annoying curly-haired little brat who looked nothing like the rest of her family and she was just always doing these stupid little things and getting in everyone's way. usually during a compelling episode, where you want to see what's going to happen, they'd always have ruthie doing something stupid. i have to admit as she got older ruthie became a little more tolerable, and i can safely say as a seventeen-year-old male...she turned out kinda' hot. matt got to me because he was a total lovesick wuss. you know how we always encourage women to be self-sufficient and to not always count on men, well the same should be said about matt and his obsession with finding a girlfriend. he was actually willing to put his entire academic career in jeopardy over that deaf girl and then when he started dating that annoying blonde girl that was all he cared about. no wonder he did so poorly in school.

as for lucy and kevin, well....yeah, he was really secretive with her about his past love life, yet she was open with him about all the guys she dated. but much like annie, lucy got all over kevin for every little thing he said and did. in connection to how annie belittled eric and how lucy belittled kevin, if a man talked to, or treated, his wife the way they treated their husbands, the CW and the show's producers would be flooded with angry emails and letters and there would be picketing by angry feminists outside the studio.

another thing....i'm all for women's rights and human rights in general...however, it felt like on this show they were encouraging us to believe that women are superior to men. because of how it was perfectly fine to bash men and mistreat men...yet, they did entire episodes based on how it is wrong to hate women, mistreat women, or to even have the slightest bit of contempt for women. however, they made no big stink about annie talking down to eric, lucy dating more than one guy, ruthie pulling a guy's pants down in front of the entire school, or simon's girlfriends bossing him around. are we teaching people that while hatred, or even the slightest amount of dislike towards women is a sin, hating men is perfectly acceptable? don't get me wrong, i do not hate women by any stretch of the imagination...but how about teaching people that it is wrong to hate anybody based on gender, or any kind of backround?

It's the same thing with every show. Women can get away with more towards men than what men can get away with towards women. I guess it's because men are usually stronger than women, and especially back in the day, the man of the house was the head of house, and almost anybody in power was a man. And even today, when a woman stands up to a man, it's considered brave, or the right thing to do. But I agree with you, that things can get out of hand. And some women are bitches, just like some men are creeps.

like my girlfriend...i love her, but she is so bossy all the time. we're only seventeen, and she's already tightened her leash on me. i no longer get to see my friends, i cannot even say hi to them whenever i pass them in the school hallway. she's always watching my every move. every word that comes out of my mouth starts an argument. and when i try to tell my mom, she tells me that i have to respect her because she is a girl. so i basically just have to take it.

anyway, back to "7th heaven", i'm watching today's 1:00 episode where eric's friend tries to get in touch with his wife's ex-husband who is in a wheelchair and the wife gets all over his case. and how annie dealt with lucy being caught making out with a boy in some movie theater. to me, she made a big deal, because i've made out with a girl when i was only 14 in a movie theater. my parents didn't give me any grief. but i could not stand annie in this episode. totally controlling.

These were pretty much the same things that always bother me about this show except for the feminism. I for one loved that Annie Camden and the female characters on the show were strong and fought back rather than just smiling and saying "yes" to everything. Annie was a great female character because she established who the boss is in the home and always seemed to put Eric in his place. Like when he brought home that annoying French exchange student without even talking it over with her first. This is the way it is now, because women are stronger than ever. Men are no longer in charge of the house...it is now WOMEN who are in charge! I do agree that Mary and Lucy were horrible to each other and I especially hated it whenever they fought over a guy, or their fights would have something to do with guys. I have a younger sister and we get along beautifully. We only fight over little things, but we never let it get out of hand. Mary and Lucy were alot more like mean girls from school being forced to live together than sisters. Mary was the one I liked the best and I kind of felt sorry for her. Lucy got on my nerves because she certainly had alot of issues and was always screaming at Mary about something stupid. Girls are supposed to support each other, especially sisters. And how Lucy was always whining about Mary being so popular..."Mary gets this, Mary gets that, I get nothing!!! blah-blah..." Ruthie...ARGH!! Couldn't stand that annoying little turd! Especially when she was younger and when they would have an episode about something serious they'd have her all over the place with her curly hair. She didn't even look like any of the kids, or the parents. She got even more annoying when she got older and started acting like teenage jailbait. However, I think alot of the Mary/Lucy dynamic in truth came from Jessica Biel and Beverly Mitchell not liking each other in real life. At first on the show, Mary and Lucy got along, but because in real life the actresses really hated each other, the writers decided to keep their onscreen relationship hostile and full of friction. I also hated HATED the whole dating aspect of the show! It went from being a subplot to the main focus of the entire show!! But what really bothers me about having to watch this show on Hallmark is the amound of commercial breaks. Every ten minutes, they cut out and show the same stupid bunch of promos OVER and OVER again!! Then, they have the stupid "They-a-guy-should-always-dress-for-the-job-he-wants-so-why-I'm-dressed-up-like-a-pirate-in-a-restaurant...", or that annoying Vonage ad, or some stupid ad for foot creams and medicine...most annoying of all is during the 2:00 showings they cut out and show Melissa Gilbert's annoying toothy smile for "Little House on the Prairie" for a good solid fifteen minutes or so!! They actually have more stupid commercials and coming attractions on Hallmark than they do on ABC Family and that's saying alot because ABC Family has alot of them!

These were pretty much the same things that always bother me about this show except for the feminism. I for one loved that Annie Camden and the female characters on the show were strong and fought back rather than just smiling and saying "yes" to everything. Annie was a great female character because she established who the boss is in the home and always seemed to put Eric in his place. Like when he brought home that annoying French exchange student without even talking it over with her first. This is the way it is now, because women are stronger than ever. Men are no longer in charge of the house...it is now WOMEN who are in charge!
Yeah, but there were times, when the women in this show, especially Annie and Lucy, acted like total maniacs. Okay, Mary did stupid things too, but she was supposed to a "bad girl", while Annie and Lucy were supposed to be "good".

I do agree that Mary and Lucy were horrible to each other and I especially hated it whenever they fought over a guy, or their fights would have something to do with guys. I have a younger sister and we get along beautifully. We only fight over little things, but we never let it get out of hand. Mary and Lucy were alot more like mean girls from school being forced to live together than sisters. Mary was the one I liked the best and I kind of felt sorry for her. Lucy got on my nerves because she certainly had alot of issues and was always screaming at Mary about something stupid. Girls are supposed to support each other, especially sisters. And how Lucy was always whining about Mary being so popular..."Mary gets this, Mary gets that, I get nothing!!! blah-blah..."
Hmm, that's funny. I don't remember Mary and Lucy fighting all the time. It wasn't they fought in every episode, was it?

However, I think alot of the Mary/Lucy dynamic in truth came from Jessica Biel and Beverly Mitchell not liking each other in real life. At first on the show, Mary and Lucy got along, but because in real life the actresses really hated each other, the writers decided to keep their onscreen relationship hostile and full of friction.
Hmmm... I didn't know that.

I also hated HATED the whole dating aspect of the show! It went from being a subplot to the main focus of the entire show!!
Yeah, on TV, and I don't only mean "7th Heaven", but all the sitcoms too, people always manage to find all these new boyfriends and girlfriends. If they break up with someone, they often have a brand new love interest already in the next episode. And they often have these short-term boyfriends or girlfriends, which we only get to see in one episode. I have problems with finding just one single guy in my entire damn life, and for people on TV shows, it seems like they just have to look at a member of the opposite sex to get a date. So is TV realistic, or am I an even bigger loser than what I thought?

Mary and Lucy fought quite a bit on the show, usually over the stupidest little things. There were times when the fights turned pretty physical. The one that really bothered me was the one right after Mary's accident and she was walking on crutches and Lucy, who seemed to care more about that piece of crap, Jimmy Moon, dating another girl, actually tackled her and threatened, at one point, to beat her up. Remember the wedding episode where Lucy and Mary beat each other up in their bridesmaid dresses? Then the other one shortly after Mary came home from Buffalo and Lucy gave her sh*t about that idiot, Robbie, and basically beat the crap out of her. Sadly, alot of their fights were real and alot of the hostile dialogue was ad-libbed, because in real life, Beverly Mitchell hated Jessica Biel. There were times when the director had to call "cut" in order to get them to stop fighting. I think the reasons were, during the first season, both Jessica and Beverly had a mutual crush on Barry Watson, and Jessica used to playfully tease Beverly alot. Then, later on, alot of their off-camera fights ocurred over a guy, then later on, when Jessica Biel posed naked for Gear Magazine and wanted out of the show. But I think the main reason behind the fighting was because Beverly was jealous over the amount of attention and publicity Jessica was getting. I even heard a recent story where Beverly was being interviewed and at one point she was asked a question about "7th Heaven" and she was talking about what a great experience she had working on the show....but as soon as she was asked about Jessica Biel, she got really angry. Just unfortunate petty cattiness.

i remember another thing that really bugged the poop outta' me. in one of the later episodes, i believe it was around the time where mary left home and moved in with her grandparents in buffalo, lucy gets a call from mary and she's all the way up in her room, or something, and she calls for annie because mary wants to talk to her and lucy yells for her. then annie comes in and scolds lucy saying, "i am not happy, the dog! i do not appreciate being yelled at like that!" okay, so what the heck is the poor girl supposed to do? run all the way downstairs looking all over the house for annie? and just today, annie layed into poor stressed out eric again when his parents showed up unexpectedly in the midst of matt's graduation and the possibility of mary being pregnant. in short...i can't stand annie camden!!

I have tried watching this show over and over and each time it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It did turn into another teen soap opera and the characters would annoy me to know end; all of them. I really wanted to like it, but that was never going to happen.

Andrea

The first two seasons were really the best because they dealt realistically with teenage issues and other issues such as racism and teen sex. It was a nice, wholesome family show in contrast to all the sex drentched teen soaps like "90210" that were coming out at the time.
By the third season, the show started to get to me, mostly because this was a big enough family as it is, did they really need to bring in two additional (and annoying) offspring. This was also around the time when Annie Camden turned into this raving lunatic tyrant who degraded her poor husband over every little thing he said and did, not to even mention how she treated her kids. And yeah she did tend to treat her women friends alot better than she treated her husband and she did treat other people's kids better than her own.
If anything, I remember reading a number of articles through the years about this show criticising Annie because of how she talked down to both her husband and her kids, and how Eric was often reduced to being a "Stepford Husband". I even believe that Eric had a heart attack because nothing he said, or did, was right in his wife's eyes. Yet after the poor man had the heart problems, Annie kept right on him all the time, picking at him and belittling him over everything he said and did.
I think I actually stopped watching this show after Mary went bad and was sent to live with her grandparents in Buffalo, because to me, this was not the right way to deal with their daughter's problems. Though it was a vehicle for Jessica Biel to leave the show to pursue film work, but still, instead of making her bad, they should have just maybe sent her off to college instead. I know the whole nude photo spread kind of ticked the show producers off.
I did find myself occasionally watching the later episodes just to see what was happening with the Camdens...and instead was seeing what was happening with all these rent-a-kids who weren't the Camdens....not to mention those pathetic little shaggy-haired machine twin boys who finished each other's sentences. And, of course, Annie became even nastier and Eric became an even bigger wuss.
As far as the Lucy/Mary tiffs...I actually kind of understood that, because Lucy was a middle child who needed attention, but she was constantly being overshadowed by her beautiful older sister, Mary. It didn't help matters that Mary was a huge basketball star in school and then after she got messed up, everyone was talking about her. So, I sympathise with Lucy, because she was insecure and always had to compete with her popular older sister for everything.
Ruthie and Simon annoyed me beyond belief with their annoying little side-stories that seemed to distract from the plot of the episode.
Matt....at first I liked him and found him to be really hot....but when he started getting all weepy over girls, he kind of lost points with me.
Lastly, what was up with these kids being so co-dependent on the opposite sex all the time! These kids were bordering on mental if he/she didn't have a girlfriend/boyfriend for crying out loud! Not to mention little toddlers going steady, 6-year-old kids making out and teens getting married and starting families!!! No wonder these kids were flunking out of school...and what made it even more ridiculous was how the parents didn't exactly encourage their kids to be more self reliant and to stop focusing so much attention on finding a significant other.
So, all in all, I only watch the first and second seasons of this show when in reruns, but as soon as I see Mary and Lucy with the short haircuts, I know season 3 has started and I immediately tune out!

the episode that was on yesterday afternoon at 1:00 where eric's musician buddies stop by for a visit and where the kids have to give up bad habits for a week....at one point, mary asks her mother if she could play basketball with her friend in the park and the mother says "i don't have to drop you off, or pick you up, do i?" and mary says "no" and annie says "then, have a good time!" okay...firstly, why would mary have to go all the way to the park in order to play basketball when she has her own court in the backyard? secondly, considering it was pretty dark outside, wasn't it unethical for annie to not be concerned for her daughter's safety enough to drive her to the park and then pick her up afterwards? at one point, mary even asks matt to take her and he asks "do you have a ride back?" and mary says "yes" then matt says "then why do you need me to drive you there?" and mary answers, "because nobody wants to talk to mom and dad!" uh...what?! did eric and annie do something that would make people no longer talk to them? what was that all about?