The Best Episodes Written By Andrew Orenstein

Highway horror: Reese gets a learner's permit, which he promptly proceeds to abuse by commandeering a driving-school vehicle.

The whole family attends a Krelboyne family picnic, and Malcolm dreads his performance in the event's Academic Circus will make him look like a freak. Disasters abound as stage acts bomb, families feud, and Malcolm's dad serves meat to vegetarians.

When Dick's evasive about his past, Dr. Albright suspects he's a '60s radical fugitive. Harry joins a CD-of-the-month club, and is swamped with CDs.

Homecoming's upcoming, but Dick can't seem to understand football's appeal. Tommy has a crush on his Glee Club teacher. Sally makes Nina her best friend. Harry gets a job as a security officer.

While Dick cracks North Rutherford society (to Albright's chagrin), Tommy hangs out with school toughs. Meanwhile, "Mustang Sally" develops an interest in wrestling.

Dick is all ready to dump Jennifer and try to win back Mary's heart, but then discovers that his relationship with Jennifer has made her jealous. Wanting the old Mary back, who had time for him over her job, he attempts to capitalize on her jealousy by making his romantic interludes with Jennifer very obvious. Officer Don introduces Sally to bowling, but becomes exasperated when she refuses to play by the rules, and so invites Harry and Tommy behind her back.

When Harry's boss Doug starts deducting income tax from Harry's paycheck, the Solomons realize that they have never filed a tax return and that they owe $9500 to the government. To combat this, they invent the 'brilliant' notion of lying on their tax return and Dick reworks the sums so that the government owes them several hundred thousand dollars. Sally attempts to help by setting up a failed home hairdressing business, but when women start arriving for haircuts, Harry and Tommy 'camp up' and take to the 'salon' to help. Lying doesn't work, however, and the Solomons are faced with an audit - and the threat of being exposed as aliens.

Dick is suffering the humiliation of having been demoted from High Commander to Harry's assistant, performing the most menial jobs, while Sally has been promoted to his old role. Tommy is preparing for his high school prom with Alissa, but when the Big Giant Head insists on coming, things start to slide, especially when Vicki, who missed out on her own high school prom, turns up. After ruining the prom for Tommy and Alissa, the Big Giant Head whisks Vicki off to his bachelor pod in space.

When Ms. Morello is off of school for the day, Chris and Greg cut school to go see Ghostbusters. Drew and Tonya aren't happy that Rochelle is going to help out at their school. Julius renews his license at DMV.

Grandma Ida is even nastier than usual (if that's possible) because of a tumble down the front steps that resulted in a broken collarbone, prompting her to sue her daughter and son-in-law for pain and suffering. And there's more momentous news on the home front: Lois is pregnant.

Reese continues to be a great soldier in the Army until he finds himself in a situation where his Sergeant cannot help. But after comparing being captured to being grounded, he takes action and leads his team to victory. But being such a successful soldier has it's bad parts as well, as Reese prepares to jump from the plane - right into Afghanistan. Malcolm has his hands full as well as he attempts to prove Hal innocent. But being good with numbers helps as Malcolm notices all of the prosecutions given dates are on Fridays - which Hal hasn't worked on in over 15 years. And with Reese missing and Hal's case, Lois falls deeper and deeper into insanity.

The boys stay home from school when their mother thinks it's Sunday instead of Monday. Malcolm thinks of a plan to get Francis out of trouble once again. Hal gets sucked in by a Porsche dealership.

Hal feels like his job is a piece of c* after going to Dewey's class for parent job day. So he decides to take a "kidney failure" weeks off. While Francis is forced to work at the lucky aid over spring break.

Lois forbids the boys to ride a motorbike they found, but Reese disobeys and breaks a leg.

Dewey rules, thanks to his new dog that intimidates Malcolm and Reese; Hal and Lois hit the town with big plans---and flu symptoms.

The substitute teacher expects more from Chris which is making things very hard for him. Tanya figures out if she accuses Drew of hitting her things go her way.

When Drew decides to cut school to find Wayne Gretzky, Chris reluctantly agrees to go with him.

Malcolm, whose frenetic home life is a kind of zoo, begins the fourth season by accompanying his family to the real thing. A visit to the zoo offers close encounters with creatures great and small. But Hal wishes he could have passed on an encounter with Lois's former beau, who lectures on rain-forest animals. Elsewhere, Reese butts heads with a goat; and Malcolm and Dewey take a tumble into a tiger den. Another storyline checks in on ne'er-do-well Francis, now the unlikely foreman of a dude ranch owned by a cheery German businessman.

Lois and Hal leave the boys alone for the weekend with Francis. the boys assume that if all goes well, Francis may not have to go back to military school.

Leonard, a cynical, genius chess player with no friends or job, makes Malcolm think he could grow into a similar adulthood. Determined to prevent this undesirable fate, Malcolm tries to help Leonard change his life by lining him up for a job interview with the obnoxious Craig. Meanwhile, Francis finds employ as a nude model and begins to delight in the exposure.

The Solomons' faith in human nature is shaken when they fall victim to crime (“This planet is in a bad neighborhood,” sighs Sally). Meanwhile, Dick makes Tommy join the school basketball team.

Dick's romance with Mary is out in the open---and she doesn't like it. Meanwhile, Sally wants to be a cop.

Dick compensates for the loss of Mary's affections with a gain in another area: he puts on weight. Meanwhile, Tommy thinks August is cheating on him.

Albright derides the Solomons as "weird," so Dick decides to make them "average."

A negative job-performance review riles Lois; hoops play with the boys energizes Hal; a vermin infestation busies rat-killer Francis.