Five siblings raise each other following their parents' untimely deaths.

In a spin off from "Party of Five," Sarah leaves the Salingers behind to search for her birth-father in New York.

A con man lives a double life: he is married to two different women in two different Texas towns.

Three twenty-something best friends living in Los Angeles and are having the best - and worst - times of their lives but through it all, they know that no matter what they will always have each other's friendship to carry them through.

During a family dinner at the restaurant, Bailey, Julia and Claudia all announce their plans to leave town to start over. It starts a wave of tension and arguments over their priorities. Later though, Charlie has a surprising revelation of his own when he tells them that he has decided to sell the house and split the money between them to pursue their own dreams. After thinking about it, the rest of the siblings agree and decide to move on and let go of their past for good. Griffin also decides that it's time for him to move out of the Salinger garage and into a place of his own. With everyone leaving town, Charlie makes Luke the new partner in his furniture factory to support him, Daphne, and little Diana, while Charlie and Kirsten, expecting their first child, move into a new house with Owen to start anew and set the next stage for their new lives together.

On Spring Break, Sarah goes away with her parents and Bailey volunteers himself to chaperon Claudia on a trip to Los Angeles for a violin concert in order to distract himself in her absence. Bailey then falls off the wagon, but learns a valuable lesson of his problem from Joe and his young wife, Fran, living there over Bailey's drinking being not only psychological, but physical in nature as well. Bailey finally decides to start attending AA meetings. Meanwhile, Julia and Griffin's motorcycle trip through California hits a snag when their motorcycle breaks down, where Griffin decides to buy the shop where it gets fixed with his insurance settlement money which upsets Julia's spontaneous plans. Also, Grace has a pregnancy scare, which turns out to be a false alarm, but brings up an issue on kids to Charlie.

Charlie and Kirsten are nothing but supportive of Daphne when her doctor orders her to bed rest for some time. Meanwhile, Julia hopes to avoid Ned at a Halloween party, but realizes that she can't get him out of her mind, while she continues to avoid Maggie. Bailey's old friend, Will, pays an unexpected visit to him and Sarah's loft and brings a lot of excess emotional baggage with him over running away from college, and a pregnant girlfriend named Hannah following him there. In Massacusetts, Claudia's former boyfriend, Jamie Burke, arrives at her school for a visit, but she wants to leave him in the past in order to fit in more with her new friends.

Charlie begins radiation treatment and soon experiences unusual and accompanying side effects. But he won't hear of others trying to offer him a hand with daily tasks. Meanwhile, Bailey's gestures to help Annie find a more decent job only upsets her because she doesn't feel comfortable with someone running her life. Julia gets a new job as a $200-a-week intern at a magazine agency which does little to improve her and Griffin's financial problems after they decide to move into the Salinger garage. Also, Claudia tries becoming more close to Reed during an outing for groceries.

Even a sensitive earthquake can't out-stage the bickering at the Salinger home, except for Claudia, who gets frustrated to a paranoid degree after her siblings ignore her 'emergency plan'. Bailey is furious at Charlie for bursting in to stop his sex with Jill and warning she shows all the signs of drug addiction, but after finding it true and she systematically lies about it, Bailey is prepared to dump her but agrees to help her try rehab. Charlie looses his patience with Kirsten's meddling, not only in the carpentry business offer project she insisted to give him a private loan for but even to choose a new refrigerator, yet lust wins out. Justin is not amused when Julia, having seduced him to dump Libby, now sanctimoniously makes him lie to her until she accidentally finds out.

Bailey tries again to win elder Kate by getting and using concert tickets together, but she keeps bringing in her unsuspecting boyfriend Tom, who actually establishes a friendship with Bailey, who nevertheless decides for once not to be the nice guy, steals a kiss and demands she makes up her mind. After Charlie's now married old friends Mike and Rebecca invite him for dinner, she implicitly seduces him to car sex, yet blames him for warning her not to break up for his sake, while she already gave up on Mike. Sanctiminious Julie fakes documents to steal a waitress job for adults but uses cost and faked age to improve chances as excuses to refuse signing Claudia's entry form for the conservatory's violin competition, then scolds her tutor Ross Werkman for paying and singing himself, but changes her mind realizing it's also a tribute to their late mother.

Bailey considers moving to Philadelphia to go back to college following Joe's advice, but has some complications when Owen does not want to go with him and Charlie tells Bailey about keeping their parental responsibilities. Meanwhile, Julia ponders a choice to moving to Washington D.C. for a magazine internship job and being away from Justin and the rest of the family. Claudia ponders going to Julliard Academy of Music in New York or staying near Todd in San Francisco, where Ross persuades Claudia to take the scholarship and not pass up an opportunity like this. Also, Daphne confides in Charlie about her problems with Luke who wants a job in Texas and leaves no time for her to be with little Diana.

After a painstaking apartment hunt, Charlie finds a spot with his former party buddy, Dudly 'Dud', but Kirsten acts as party-pooper and having to get up not so young anymore changes things anyhow. Bailey finds Jill blindly hostile to all his sensible help when she flippantly accepts 'on therapy independence advice' organizing a school library benefit dance marathon, even after it goes wrong worse then he feared, finally bringing him to berate her inconsistent ingratitude. Will finds cheerleader Kiki as bad a date as Bailey warned. Artie enjoys their hero role after witnessing a store robbery with Claudia, but she gets nightmares and bothers Charlie and Kirsten. Charlie decides to move back in, resigned to his paternal role.

Charlie reacts negatively when Kathleen decides on her own to enter the other half of his life, mainly the family, rejecting even a Hawaiian family holiday offer. When he declares he can't fully love her, that brings her close to suicide. Bailey can cope ever less with Sarah's flirtatious attitude on stage and with her band mates, increasing the strain on their relationship. Worried about Julia's despondence, Charlie sends her back to school. Justin drags her through classes, but she runs the last period, pretending to Justin she'll spend the weekend with Charlie at Lake Taho and vice-versa, while she surprises Griffin in New Orléans. He dodges military academy to spend time with her, which only confuses him further.

Bailey does badly on his SAT test and grudgingly accepts private home tutoring from young new teacher Maggie Beaton. Griffin finally overcomes Claudia's hostility to any rival to Justin, by playing the big brother, only to find jealous Julia upset about being neglected. Kirsten's parents arrive for a pre-wedding weekend, but while about-to-retire dreamer Gene Bennett quickly bonds with Charlie, his wife Ellie must explain to Kirsten how her practical attitude balances out their happy marriage.

Julia becomes intrigued by a writer in her writing class with no apparent block. Julia then discovers that the writer, Adam, is a lonely troubled person who pretends to be a student at CFA and uses writing to channel his personal feelings. Meanwhile, Owen's friend's father makes disparaging remarks about Victor since he happens to be gay. While dating and sleeping with a number of different women in an attempt to purge his pain after breaking up with Holly, Bailey betrays Will's trust when he sleeps with Will's new girlfriend's sister. Charlie gives Daphne a job at the furniture factory as the consultant while Kirsten has her own hands full with her busy schedule. Also, Claudia reconnects with another musician, named Todd, who inspires her to go with her instincts when it comes to music.

Julia confirms she is pregnant, and Justin feels ignored while she torments herself over her options. Sarah declines giving her view, being adopted herself. Grandpa Jacob is left in the dark. Ultimately, Julia makes the decision, and nature ensuring it does not change that for her.

Bailey is delighted that a Mr. Wiliams founded a college scholarship at his high-school and personally picked him as first benefactor a four time $10,000 annually. Yethe doesn't trust it, especially after elaborate questions about his mother during the dinner to meet his benefactor. Then he finds out Williams is an alias for his maternal grandfather Jack Gordon and confronts him. The man admits, but refuses to have anything to do with his four siblings. Catering for glamorous TV producer Kathleen Ishley's birthday party gets Charlie her generous favors, but he keeps her at distance for boring Emily until she makes a scene about waiting for it. Justin offers to help hopeless Julia with programming, but she immediately assumes malice and prefers a tutor. Computer nerd Miller West volunteers, but prefers payment of a more romantic kind, to improve his social position.

Bailey takes over organizing the bachelor party after Dudley has to promise Kirsten to keep it boringly safe. A power-cut prevents the boys and stripper Honey from reaching Charlie, who met his hotel neighbor and colleague groom's partner Monica and agreed to comfort her, yet the ultimate temptation is cured by her offering herself, only that doesn't end his doubts about lifelong commitment. Bailey fears big brother relapsed into serial infidelity. Justin refuses needless contact with clingy Julia, who tricks him with concert tickets and ends up witnessing how he accidentally finds out his father cheating on his mother.

After spending a few weeks in rehab, Bailey doesn't feel as good as he looks to others and is beside himself over his life troubles. Meanwhile, Claudia and Todd accompany Julia and Adam on a drive to Las Vegas when Justin decides to elope with Laura where Julia must decided on where she stands with Adam while the troubled Todd doesn't know how to make his move on Claudia. Tensions between Charlie and Joe over managing the restaurant come to a head when Charlie states that he does not trust Joe because of the embezzlement incident. Also, an unusually moody Kirsten thinks she's going through withdrawal since she quit taking her anti-depressant pills, only to get an even bigger surprise that will change her life and Charlie's.

Bailey's LA trip made him fall behind in geometry badly enough to be temporarily assigned to Julia's (younger) class. Worse, her lazy teacher simply makes her his tutor, but all she can think about is Justin, a recipe for bickering. Charlie and his carpentry partner Gwen sign a dream contract. Only afterward he realizes it means moving to Seattle, a sacrifice none of his siblings is prepared to make. Julia's plan to move in with Justin falls trough. For Claudia it could be a way out of Ross insisting she needs a more qualified violin teacher, but she sabotages that. Ultimately, Charlie sacrifices his dream.

Sarah meets a former friend of her birth mother who tells her that her natural birth father, whom was in fact briefly married to her mother, lives in New York City, which prompts the troubled Sarah to consider traveling to New York to find him, and leaving Bailey. Meanwhile, Claudia's new clique of friends is criticized on a on-line web page, and Claudia suspects the school's disgruntled star basketball player and Alexa's boyfriend, Cameron, is the culprit. At her editor Evan's advice, Julia looks for her present place now in her late parents past as part of a chapter in her work. Daphne reveals that she got fired and asks Kirsten to give her a job at the family clinic, while she also hires a babysitter, named Victor, to watch baby Diana. Charlie deals with Myra, a rebellious girl in the wood shop class he teaches.

Bailey now enjoys dating Sarah, but his public affection and general spontaneity make her feel like a Jill substitute. Justin already has another girlfriend and free-spirited Griffin tires of Julia's meddling in his life, like lies to both parties to make him take a waiter's job Charlie wouldn't otherwise consider him for, leading to mutual frustration and getting fired, like at the bike shop. Charlie grudgingly agrees to Kirsten's dancing lessons but takes offense at her accepting as silly aunt's wedding gift a fortune telling which names a Rob as her true love. A lounge night at the restaurant proves a major loss. Ross starts a fuss about Claudia's bowing arm after a skating rink fall.

The Salinger's grandfather, Jacob Gordon, returns and tells the Salingers that he just wants to spend the holidays with his family and nothing more. But Julia, as usual, suspects there's something more going on with him and that he's hiding some health problems. Meanwhile, Charlie is attempting to overcome his depression about losing Kirsten for good by working more on Grace's feed the homeless project where meets a homeless man he tries to help out, but whom Charlie later finds out that the man too suffers from a mental illness. Bailey is alone when both Callie and Sarah leave town to be with their families. Not wanting to be around his own family, the alienated Bailey seeks a bond with his wrestling coach, Russ Petrocelli. Also, Claudia is still being pursued by Stuart who has a massive crush on her. When Claudia tries to show Stuart that he's nothing more than a friend by giving him a lame gift of trick candles, it backfires when it turns out to be something he wanted.

Bailey rescues Callie from an attempted date-rape and she becomes more dependent on him, in which he breaks a date with Sarah to be with her. Meanwhile, Julia's attraction for Sam grows and she tries keeping him at the house to finish fixing the roof. Claudia is asked to be a writer of the "Love Lorn" column for her school's paper to write about problems with people's love lives and begins to analyze everyone's problems around her, while she herself becomes oblivious to advances from a student named Stuart. Also, Charlie finds himself in an awkward position when Grace wants to be more than friends.

Now Bailey's attitude has convinced grandpa Jake to present himself to the five siblings, his New Hampshire scholarship is on again and Sarah feels betrayed when she finds out. Jake becomes a regular guest, mostly to Claudia's joy, but Julia is viciously hostile, claiming he betrayed mother unforgivably. Sarah's birth mother Robin Merrin suddenly turns up to meet her and seems her only interest now, but announces after a weekend she's off on tour for months. Only after Bailey offers to turn sown the scholarship for her she realizes his love is truly noble and gives her blessing. When Emily finds out about Kathleen at the movie theatre, she dumps Charlie, who can't handle Kathleen seeing an ex, yet has no real answer how that is half as unfaithful as his own behavior.