History Series / StepByStep

* StalkerWithACrush: ''The entire series is set up by Frank being this.'' Specifically, after Frank learned (presumably during a appointment at her salon) that Carol would be taking a vacation, he proceeded to [[https://www.hulu.com/watch/7a06ccad-8368-42f3-869c-5d9bccb1bb53 collect all of her trip information from her travel agent, and then purchased both the same flight and hotel, with the explicit intention of courting her.]] Needless to say, whatever Frank did afterward was enough to talk Carol into a shotgun marriage. But it gets worse: when Carol starts having second guessing her decision on the grounds that theirs may be only a physical attraction, Frank's response is to '''confess his actions to Carol's face.''' Even more disturbing is that [[StalkingIsLove Carol takes this as a genuinely romantic gesture which removes both her own doubts and Frank's token "guilt".]] Frank then plots to ''fabricate a normal relationship in hopes of hiding the affair from their children, which Carol quickly and happily agrees to!'' The final kicker: Frank then ''outright asks Carol how long people date before they engage/marry!'', confirming a complete lack of understanding regarding how stable/healthy relationships actually work. [[SarcasmMode Yeah, real nice catch there, Carol.]]

* {{Adorkable}}: Mark, especially once he hit puberty.

''Step by Step'' is one of the many TGIF comedies on Creator/{{ABC}} that aired during the 1990s. Although at least partially designed as a vehicle for young actress Staci Keanan (and carrying along with her even younger costar Christopher Castile from their previous series ''Going Places''), star billing for the show went to Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers as the parents Frank Lambert and Carol Foster. These two played a couple who, ''[[Series/TheBradyBunch Brady Bunch]]''-style, marry and merge their two households. In an intentional subversion of ''The Brady Bunch'', however, their respective children know and dislike each other already, and [[BlendedFamilyDrama forging a single happy family unit out of the conflicts]] so engendered drove many of the show's earlier plots. Even so, like its spiritual predecessor this DomCom employed just about every trope in the book.

* MyBelovedSmother: Carol starts to become a mild version of this trope to Mark when he starts getting older, which annoys and embarrasses him as he wants to be more independent.
** It does come in handy on occasion, like when he couldn't say no to his friends even though he wanted to and she came to his rescue by refusing to let him.

* StrawFeminist: Dana became one quite a few times. (Several times, she recruited Karen and Al to join with her.)
** This was basically her schtick. One time she tried to get a full-blown feminist group going, but it was derailed by Cody's hotness.
** Dana was, however, portrayed more sympathetically than other examples of this type, and even came out on top on some occasions.
** [[DefrostingIceQueen She does start to mellow out]] when she begins dating J.T.'s friend, Rich.

* TelevisionGeography: The show is supposed to take place in Port Washington, Wisconsin, north of UsefulNotes/{{Milwaukee}}, but the lack of accents and local flavor (beyond a few mentions of landmarks and a couple of copies of the ''Ozaukee Press'' here and there) suggests otherwise.
** Although the accents were a whole lot more accurate here than they were in ABC's last pair of sitcoms to take place in Metro Milwaukee, and in real life, the "Wiscaaansin" accent isn't all that pronounced until you go further north in the state.
** But they did know that Port Washington High School's mascot is the Pirates and had school letter jackets for the appropriate characters with the true logo.

* CousinOliver: Lilly, the new child added in later seasons.

* ConspicuousCG: In the intro sequence, the ocean you see at the end is CG and superimposed over the parking lot of Six Flags Magic Mountain (which doubled as the fictional theme park for the intro).

** The opening does, however, hilariously suggest Port Washington has a theme park, complete with roller coaster. The closest coaster that could even be applicable is about two hours away in Gurnee, Illinois (also not on an obvious ocean coastline, mind, and not even close enough to Lake Michigan to count); the park was actually Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA (with the [[ConspicuousCG parking lot covered up by the CGI ocean]]). (It should be noted that Time Warner held half of Six Flags at the time; they ended up acquiring the whole company in 1993, but sold it off in 1998; they still however have licensing agreements in place regarding Warner-owned properties.)

'''''Step by Step''''' is one of the many TGIF comedies on Creator/{{ABC}} that aired during the 1990s. Although at least partially designed as a vehicle for young actress Staci Keanan (and carrying along with her even younger costar Christopher Castile from their previous series ''Going Places''), star billing for the show went to Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers as the parents Frank Lambert and Carol Foster. These two played a couple who, ''[[Series/TheBradyBunch Brady Bunch]]''-style, marry and merge their two households. In an intentional subversion of ''The Brady Bunch'', however, their respective children know and dislike each other already, and forging a single happy family unit out of the conflicts so engendered drove many of the show's earlier plots. Even so, like its spiritual predecessor this DomCom employed just about every trope in the book.

* BookDumb: J.T. and his friend Rich are not very good at academics

* BookDumb: J.T. and his friend Rich.
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Karen. Al in the later seasons.

** J.T. and Mark.
** Frank has his moments. Karen and Dana too, sometimes.

* CousinOliver: Lilly.

* CuteBruiser: Al.

* TheDitz: Karen.

* DumbassTeenageSon: J.T.

* GenericGuy: Brendan, the youngest of Frank's kids. Aside from being chubby, he was a non-entity and didn't have anything interesting about him. He got a pretty bad case of a certain [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome TV illness]] and vanished.

** Also, Al. She's hot-tempered, rude, and rebellious - but she does have a moral center. Although she continues to be self-assured in later episodes, the negative aspects were toned down somewhat in later seasons.

* LittleMissSnarker: Al again.

** Carol, especially in Al's eyes early in the series. At one point in one of the first episodes, Al tearfully announces she's running away because she can't cope with her mother's overbearing behavior. This is quickly averted, however, as she sees that Carol will fill a much-needed mother role – one left behind when Al's biological mother ran off, never to be seen again – quite well
*** Later on in the series after Mark becomes a teenager, he begins to see Carol as this, going far enough to ask Frank to ban her from his basketball games. This of course leads into Carol disguising herself so she can go anyway, and getting caught of course, leading to a heart-to-heart between mother and son.

* LovableAlphaBitch: Karen. Extremely popular, vain, shallow, ditzy and only interested in fashion and boys but arguably the sweetest out of the three girls.

** On one episode Dana goes to one of the toughest bars in town against her stepfather's orders and gets in trouble. Whereupon Frank and Cody, come to rescue her [[BackToBackBadasses jointly]] beat up [[BashBrothers every ruffian]] there in a BarBrawl and take her home (also an arguable CrowningMomentOfAwesome).

** When Mark and a couple of his friends (one of whom is the fat kid from ''Film/KindergartenCop'') settle down in the garage to watch a pornographic video called ''The Naughty Nurses'' - and Frank and Carol return home from a car trip early.

* TheOtherMarty:
** Mark Foster was played by Jarrett Lennon in the unaired pilot, full episode [[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x409ohs here]].

* OutOfOrder: The season 6 premiere was aired as the ''last'' episode of that season, leading to inadvertent ChuckCunninghamSyndrome and RememberTheNewGuy situations, as Cody's absence and Jean-Luc's presence went unexplained for the entire year.

** In the pilot, Frank accidentally blurted out that he and Carol were already married.

* StereotypeFlip: This show flips the stereotypes of the BrainyBrunette and the DumbBlonde. Dana and Mark have light blonde hair and they are the smartest people in the family, Carol is blonde and a capable, competent mother (though a bit flighty and neurotic at times), Al has dark blonde hair and is very quick-witted. All the brunette characters — Karen, JT, Cody, Rich, and even Brendan (as implied once in season 6) — are BookDumb or ditzy and genereally not very smart.

* StereotypeFlip: This show flips the stereotypes of the BrainyBrunette and the DumbBlonde. Dana is the snarky and brainy sister, who is very close to becoming a Straw Feminist. Karen is not always ''dumb'', but she mostly seems to only think about boys, clothes and her appearance. But unlike what you might think, Dana is the blonde and Karen is the brunette.