Dr. Max shows up on Tom's doorstep after a fight with his wife and ends up staying with the Bradfords, driving them crazy with his fussy ways. David tries to borrow money from his brothers and sisters to cover a bad check he wrote at poker game to cover a debt.

This episode introduces Betty Buckley in the contract role of Sue "" Abby"" Abbott. At first she was a special guest star. Tommy breaks his ankles at a touch football game and will miss school for five weeks. Mary moves in with her boyfriend, a young psychiatry students [Doug] . Sandra Sue Abbott is sent to tutor Tommy while he is absent from school.

David's new roommate romance both Susan and Joannie.Tom decides he has been neflecting Nicholas and drives Nicholas crazy by spending too much time with him. Tommy organizes a family garage sale to earn money.

After Tom and Abby break up, the Bradford children set Tom up with another woman in an effort to make Abby jealous. Nancy enters the Miss Scaramento beauty contest. David and Tommy hang aroung a laundromat in hopes of meeting girls.

Tom throws a party to celebrates paying off the mortage on the Bradford house. Unfortunately, the kids get into a melee when Susan punches a heckler at David and Tommy's singing appreance and Tom has to remortage the house to pay the damages as seven of his children were arrested after a fight in the nightclub. David waits for the results of his contractor's exam. Nicholas felt left out since he was never arrested.

Mary runs for a seat of the Board of Education and enlists the famil's help on her campaign. Abby is too busy to keep her dates with Tom. Tom proposes to Abby after she and Mary are able to work out their difficulties over Mary's running for the school board. Abby accepts Tom's proposal.

Joannie agrees to do a nude scene in a shakespearean play and is relives when Tom says he can't make it to the show, or so it goes. [Obviously, a sweeps stunt.] Abby's former father-in-law visits and she is hesitant to introuduce him to Tom and tell him about her plans to marry him. David arranges for Tom to buy an engagement ring for Abby through a friend at work, but it turns out to be too hot to handle.

After much debate, Tom and Abby decides on November 9th as their wedding date and agree to let the children handle the wedding plans, but it almost does not happen when things get too crazy. Elizabeth and Nicholas are not as excited about the wedding plans as the rest of the Bradford children.

The children get carried away with the weddind plans and nearly cause the wedding to be canceled. Abby asks Elizabeth to be her maid of honor and develop a special relationship.

Tom and Abby take the kids to San Francisco where Tom is scheduled to accept an award for his column anbd the trip doubles as a honeymoon. Mary is upset when she is rejected by a medical school and Abby wants to contact an old friend to help her get in. The kids wrangle their way along the trip as chaos begins.

Abby coordinates Spring cleaning at the Bradford house. Mary is upset when the son of Tom's friend comes to Sacramento to open an army recuriting office on campus, which does not please her liberal anti-war feelings. Over the course of time they learn to respect each other's beliefs. Tom gets the wrong idea when he spots Mary and Richard in a hug. Tommy helps Nicholas deal with a school bully. Another of Tommy's money making schemes backfires.

Tom's eccentric sister Auntie V returns for another visit with the Bradfords. She surprises Tom and Abby with a new house as a wedding present. The kids are excited, but as they fix up the house for sale they begin to fall in love with it again. Nancy wants to expand her horizons by going on a cruise with Auntie V. Nancy falls for the estate agent who is trying to sell the Bradford house.

The Bradfords celebrate their first Christmas without their late mother,Joan. Nicholas mistakenly assumes the man he finds in the house on Christmas Eve is Santa Claus and lets him steal the Christmas presents, putting Christmas temporaily on hold.

The kids convince Tom to shoiw some Christmas spirit by bailing Sam out of jail and inviting him to the house for Christmas dinner as they celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. Tommy receives a special Christmas present from his mom.

Tom is upset when Abby makes arrangements for Elizabeth to get birth control pills. Tom is drafted into doing a ""Dear Abby"" for the paper. Abby's studies are keeping her busy and leave little time for the family. Abby decides to stay at home more and drives everyone, including herself a little crazy trying to be a Betty Crocker-type. David and Tommy fix Abby's car.

The family gives Tom a day of peace for his birthday, and it drives him crazy. David goes for the weekend and gives Tommy the use of his apartment but Tommy winds up throwing a party. Abby's parenting skills are tested when Tommy gets drunk.

With Abby's encouragement, Tom takes a leave of absence to pursue the dream of writing a book about his family. He can't get it published the norman way, but has a special issue done for each member of the family. David goes on a double date with Nancy and they come home with different stories of the same night.

Abby is upset about when David gives Nicholas a BB gun. Tom's column about garbage causes a controverty when he writes a tongue-in-cheek column. That's when his troubles start to pile up, along with his garbage. Tom is prepared to go to jail rather than reveal his source for his column.

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Joannie, Nancy, and Susan meet new guys at a disco over winter break and love times three drives the Bradford household crazy. David's friend tries to convince him to go on a blind date, so he fixes David with one, but the ""date"" turns out to be totally unexepectely...his sister Mary. Tommy desperatiely tries to win rock concert tickets.

Susan and Tom are jealous when Abby spends too much time with Susan's new boyfriend she brought home for dinner, and Abby strikes up too much connection with her date. Nicholas is appointed water monitor at home during a water shortage, and gets fired for being too tough. Tommy gets into trouble at school and wrongly assumes he's home-free when the principal calls David instead of Tom.

Frustrated by the transporation arrangements, Tommy, Elizabeth, Nancy, and Susan buy their own car. Tom is upset that Tommy is failing English and pressures him to get a good grade. Tom learns a lesson about parental pressure when Tommy, trying to please him,buys a term paper from a high school hustler. Joannie wants Nicholas to play Prince Charming in her play.

Abby suffers a concussion when she falls off a ladder. Tha Bradfords take turns keeping Abby awake by telling her stories and sharing memories, which are flashbacks from previous episodes.

Abby convinces Tom to spend the weekend with her parents in Pasadena, leaving the kids alone for the weekend. While they are away, despite a rule against having any non-Bradfords in the house, the kids throw a party, but then the house is overrun with chaos and the kids barely manage to get things back in order before Tom and Abby return. A distant cousins shows up on the Bradford doorstep for the flower children.

David meets an attractive young woman who is the daughter of a wealthy construction man. Joannie tries to get the family to communicate better using encounter-like truth games. Tom, which helping Nicholas build a car, takes over completely.