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  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Are the Camdens genuinely selfless people who want to help improve the lives of others in the name of the Lord, or a bunch of busybodies who have no sense of boundaries and a total lack of respect for other people? Or are they just so nosy because they have little fulfillment in their own lives that they have to find trouble in others?
    • Are the Camdens - or any character, for that matter - complete Jerkasses who only care about their own needs and wants?
  • Anvilicious: The parents' speeches about the moral lesson of the episode often run on very long.
    • An episode that had an anti-smoking aesop portrayed anyone who would smoke as being stupid, mean, and rude. The smoker even burns down a house, which is treated as Laser-Guided Karma.
    • "Vote," an episode about voting (aired near the 2004 presidential election), had a minutes-long Character Filibuster amongst Martin, Ruthie, and numerous random students of different races, ethnicities, and religions. Also, Eric and Annie frequently tell people to vote (an earlier episode somewhat foreshadowed this, as Eric once threatened to kick Robbie out of the house because he isn't registered to vote). And at the end of the episode, almost every character says "Vote" in individual cut shots.
    • Eric's reaction to all his children, and later Matt personally, upon finding a marijuana joint in the house in "Who Knew?".
    • Actually, pick any Very Special Episode this show has; subtlety will be thrown out the window to get the message across.
  • Arc Fatigue:
    • Lucy's almost one-sided feud with Roxanne because she believes the latter is trying to steal Kevin from her.
    • Mary's descent into "decadence" over the first quarter of Season 5 before being Put on a Bus.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Lucy. Either she grew up to be a mature, helpful mother and minister or a whiny, self-absorbed clone of her mother.
    • Simon. Fans either loved his angst and thought of him as The Woobie, or wished he'd shut up and were glad when he was written out of the show in Season 8.
    • Is Ruthie an adorably precocious child and the Only Sane Man in the family, or a spoiled, mouthy brat who gets away with her behavior by virtue of being a younger member of the family?
  • Broken Aesop: Quite a few of the show's lessons don't hold up to scrutiny.
    • Season 3's "Johnny Get Your Gun", where Eric and Annie tell 7-year-old Ruthie she's not allowed to play pretend anymore...because it might lead to her confusing fantasy with reality, and then killing someone. Really.
    • Another example would be "Tunes". In the episode, the show attempts to have an equality message about women, though in the process, the message itself becomes muddled because the show also intermixes a "rap music causes misogyny" message in the same episode. In short, 7th Heaven states that women should be equal to men, which in itself is a great message, and that hip hop shouldn't be listened because of the message it conveys about how to treat women. However, while an equality message would work if the episode were written better, the message becomes broken twice over because of the way female characters were written in the past, as well as its rap message. In earlier seasons, Lucy and Mary were depicted as boy crazy, and later became shrill stereotypes of female characters in later seasons (though both were exalted because they were great mothers and wives), while many career women were frequently depicted as selfish, rude, uncaring, and often in the wrong. Additionally, John Hamilton (Matt's then-roommate/friend) calls out a doctor after the latter asked him to simply put rap music on during a surgery, calling it "prejudicial" that the doctor would assume him, being black, would be all for it; Matt also states that people shouldn't listen to hip hop because it causes more ignorance about the plights of women (to be specific, he says "Ignorance is the enemy"). However, that statement becomes cracked because the whole episode is basically an excuse to rip on rap listeners and the hip-hop genre, thus the show becoming prejudicial towards them, and if the writers did their homework, they would know that there are numerous female rappers and tons of women who listen to rap music themselves. As a result, the writers come off as both ignorant and prejudicial towards both women and rap listeners.
    • In most episodes, Annie and Eric attempt to teach their kids that they can't get their way because they want to, and have to work towards it. However, at the same time, in numerous instances, both are granted their wishes without much work or in Real Life, wouldn't happen. For example, in "Red Tape", when Annie attempts to return her daughter Mary's (wrecked) sweater to the store, the cashier states the store doesn't offer returns, but after Annie gets angry and tells the woman off for the said policy, the cashier gives a Character Filibuster about the decline in American department stores (because of shoplifting and the like). After, Annie realizes her mistake but still asks the cashier for a refund, which she graciously gives her, completely disregarding the store's policy.
    • What about how frequently Eric, a reverend, gets involved in police business with their consent, though in Real Life, this would be a big no-no (especially in domestic matters). Really? And the show still promotes that you can't get everything even if you ask for it? Or maybe the Aesop is that kids cannot always get what they want, but adults can.
    • A season 9 episode involving poverty and hunger tried to convey the message that "hunger can happen to anyone". However, as a recapper on Television Without Pity pointed out that the message seems to be that "it's poor people's fault that they are hungry; that despite being well-groomed and owning expensive clothes, hair and skin products, and jewelry, people can still be so poor that they can't afford to eat for days at a time; and people only want food because it will improve their social standing or get them good grades." This is part of the review.
  • Critical Dissonance: Mixed with Critic-Proof. The show was often met with scorn by critics, but many viewers and more faith-based critics enjoyed the show, propelling it to being the WB's number-one show for many years.
  • Funny Moments: The Season 9 episode "Vote" has numerous characters hearing "Blah, blah, blah" every time Eric or Annie say an extremely long Character Filibuster.
    • One episode has Annie try to get tickets for her daughter and spends hours on the phone when she yells at it. Just at that moment, a spokesperson comes on the phone and tells Annie that the concert is sold out. The rest of the conversation goes something like this:
    Annie: "So you mean to tell me that I wasted the entire afternoon trying to get tickets to this concert just for you to tell me you're sold out?"
    Spokesperson (enthusiastically): "Yes, you have!"
  • Glurge: Infamous for this. While the show ostensibly advocated for Christian values, viewers also noted the show's tendency to debase other viewpoints, with the show becoming increasingly conservative over time.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Mary's referring to Buffalo, NY, as "Siberia", since December 2022... When her parents announce to Mary that they are sending her away to live with her grandparents in Buffalo, NY, she refers to that place with "Siberia". Come December 2022, the cold hit that town so hard in Real Life, that dozens of people died.
    Mary: So what's "best for everyone" is to ship me off to Siberia to live with old people?!
    • The Season 4 episode "Talk to Me" (involving Eric counseling a young girl who had been molested) falls into this after the release of a recording in which Stephen Collins (who played Eric) admitted to having sexually molested 3 young girls.
    • The Season 4 episode "Yak Sada" includes a well-intended storyline in which the Camden women protest the social standing of women in Afghanistan. Given that this episode aired in 1999, it's downright bizarre watching the reverend have to pause and think to come up with the group repressing them - the Taliban.
    • The (1997) Season 2 episode "I Hate You" opens up with Simon asking Eric where he was when he heard John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, because he considers this the world's greatest 'Where were you when...' question. This comes back to bite him in the butt when 9/11 came around only a couple of years later...
    • Allison Mack here portrayed a character who cut herself. In 2017 and 2018 it was revealed Allison was a victim and an accomplice of a sex cult that branded women with Keith Raniere's initials, and was a very broken person.
    • Lucy's storyline where she miscarried twins becomes twice as depressing when her actress Beverly Mitchell revealed that she herself miscarried twins in 2018.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Martin's introduction has him skulking around the Camden house and then, bizarrely, coming inside and helping himself to food despite not knowing anyone there. His actor Tyler Hoechlin later played Derek on Teen Wolf, a character infamous for his habit of stalking teenagers and appearing in people's rooms with no warning.
    • The episode “Gossip” that guest stars the Olsen Twins has Ashley Olsen’s character named Sue Murphy.
    • David Gallagher would later star as Riku in Kingdom Hearts II, a game that features Tifa Lockhart, a character who owns a bar called “7th Heaven.”
    • In the Season 5 episode "Losers," while her parents are asking Mary why she isn't at work, one of Eric's sarcastic suggestions is, "Business closed down for an epidemic?" Fast forward to the COVID-19 epidemic of 2020, and that's a perfectly logical question.
    • Both Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks starred in a Star Trek film, sharing screen time with William Shatner.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Many fans thought Annie crossed it when she threw the twenty-something Matt and Lucy and the then underage Simon and Ruthie out of the house and forced them to live in the unfinished (read: no furniture or plumbing) garage apartment until they agreed with her opinion that Mary coming home was a good thing. Ironically, Mary eventually became The Scrappy and general "disappointment" of the Camden family in later seasons and Annie would pretty much cringe if you even mentioned her name.
  • Narm: Notable examples include:
    • The episode "Sin..." has Simon getting suspended for three days from school for... using the middle finger. Also, Simon wangsts over thinking he's not Annie's son anymore because of the gesture. Plus, Annie stating that using the middle finger isn't "part of nature", insults the people who use it as not "clever" or "smart", and also a "guy thing," something reiterated by everyone in his family. But the real funny moment of the episode... the dramatic strings and multiple jump cuts on Annie and Matt's faces when they see Simon and later, Ruthie flip the bird.
    • In "Who Knew?", Annie reveals that she smoked pot in college and Eric, and the show, acts as if she just admitted some deep, dark secret about her past. Later on, when Eric finds out she told Matt about her past drug use to try and get him to admit to bringing home a joint, he compares it to her having told him about their sexual history.
    • Camden house guest Jane going up to Eric's parents and telling them that she's married to their adoptive son George comes off as random and hilarious, plus confusing on the part of the parents.
    • The Season 1 episode "Last Call for Aunt Julie," in which she was revealed to be an alcoholic and then underwent detoxification, is simultaneously overacted and underacted, giving it a laughable feel to it.
    • A literal student court at the kids' school having to either expel or simply punish Mary for her actions in Season 4. Though there is a principal there, it's still pretty silly.
    • One episode focusing on Ruthie's sort-of boyfriend Peter and his divorced parents begins with his father doodling PARIS <3 VIC on his arm with a marker and declaring as he does, "Paris... loves... Vic. And why shouldn't she?" It's behavior that would make more sense coming from the early-teens Peter than it does from a grown man.
    • One episode has Eric and Annie hosting a dinner party. They happen to oversee two of their guests kissing, which gets them so worked up that they sneak off to the basement to have sex. The way they discuss it is nothing short of narmy.
    • There was an episode where Annie "cursed" a man over the phone (It Makes Sense in Context), with the man going over to the Camden house to lift the curse from him. What adult acts like that?
    • Two words: Adult relations. This phrase was used in the last two episodes of season 5 to describe sex. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • The high school gym incident, for Mary. Even years after said incident, her parents and siblings will never let her (and the audience) forget that Mary covered the gym with toilet paper because of basketball. Most people would just forgive and forget, but not the Camdens (at least for the "forget" part).
    • For Dr. Hastings (Aunt Julie's husband), his involvement in Matt's near-death during birth. Being an inexperienced intern at the time, he nearly killed Matt during the delivery (he luckily pulled through, though spent a month in the ICU). Even though Eric and Annie do forgive him, and the incident did lead to Dr. Hastings becoming a better doctor, Eric will occasionally drop that little incident into conversation, though Dr. Hastings doesn't seem to mind anymore.
  • Padding: Each episode contains shots lasting almost a minute of people doing mundane chores (especially Annie putting groceries in the fridge), Happy the dog walking around the house, exterior shots of the Camden house (or other Glenoak buildings), cars driving down Glen Oak roads, etc.
  • Pandering to the Base: What some assumed the show creators were doing — essentially crafting a show to appeal to a demographic that most other shows have nothing but venom for.
  • Retroactive Recognition: To the point where many of the guest stars were more famous than the stars of the show.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Back when he was first introduced to the show as Lucy's future husband, fics doing this with Kevin were a dime a dozen. Here's an example. The trend died down a bit after season 8, thankfully.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Kevin wasn't liked as Lucy's boyfriend by the fans initially.
    • Simon's girlfriend Cecilia (Ashlee Simpson) wasn't too well-received among fans either.
    • Simon's later fiancee, Rose, even less; this was probably due to her being an Alpha Bitch and controlling of Simon.
    • Many viewers dislike Lucy, seeing her as very bland, self-centered, and whiny. Additionally, she could be seen as being too jealous or too dependent on men (especially in earlier seasons).
    • Many dislike Ruthie as well, and see her "cute" antics as bratty. Also, her tendency to be the Only Sane Man of the family is extremely annoying, especially later when most of the family consists of adults. Fans also often wondered why she seemed to get much more material favors by her parents than her siblings (in a family with 7 children, living on a minister's budget, mind you): she was the only child that went to private school, and she got to go to Scotland for half a year.
    • Robbie is not certainly loved by the fans due to him taking Mary's place in the family and for being a meddling Jerkass.
    • There are many fans that dislike Annie for reasons listed in the Unintentionally Unsympathetic section below.
  • Seasonal Rot: Many fans thought the show started going downhill around the time Season 6 started. Ironically enough, Season 6 was the last season to feature the entire original cast.
  • Sweetness Aversion: Some viewers have criticized the program as too saccharine for its own good. Check the IMDb user reviews for further proof.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: Likely unintentional; every time someone criticizes the main characters (pick any), it could elicit this trope in the eyes of either fans or haters of the show. An example being in Season 6, when Lucy tells Robbie's date about her family and their frequent problems, which quickly freaks the woman out and causes her to practically run away from Lucy.
  • Tear Jerker: For a show full of narm, there actually were some truly heartbreaking moments:
    • The death of Annie's mother in Season 1. Her father also passes away in Season 8 and it at first seems like narm, until you realize the actor who played Annie’s father passed away in real life.
    • The ending of the episode "Lost" has a Heartwarming Moment by reuniting a kidnapped child and his family, but shifts into Tear Jerker territory when the usual ending credits are replaced with photos and details of actual missing children.
    • The entire plot of "Nothing Endures But Change," which is made even more heartbreaking when you learn that its plot (Lucy loses a friend in a car accident) is based on Beverley Mitchell, the actress who plays Lucy, losing a real life friend in a similar accident.
      • For extra tearjerker points, read "Heaven Sent," Mitchell's memoir about said real life death, in Chicken Soup for the Teen Soul.
    • Chandler's breakdown in "Smoking" is also pretty sad, though it may border just a bit too close into narm territory for some.
    • On the Put on a Bus episode for Mary (Mary was turned into a bit of a troublemaker to facilitate Biel's departure), Simon and Lucy tell her that they care for her very much and want to help her in any way because they look up to her. Then Ruthie's turn comes up, and she basically lays into Mary for being a selfish sister who has let her down and angrily leaves the room. The fact that the What the Hell, Hero? speech comes from the precocious youngest sister is startling and moving (and probably mirrored the writers' feelings as well).
    • Charlotte Kerjesz's story of being a Holocaust survivor and losing her entire family. Not just Simon's reaction after hearing about it offscreen, but the lady herself telling the entire 7th grade class. Even the bigot of the week and his son are tearing up. It helps that the account was very Based on a True Story.
    • "Simon Camden"/"The Kid is Out of the Picture." The first half is a mix between funny and heartwarming as he talks about his family and their adventures/misadventures in life, love and friendship... but the second half has him discussing, in detail, what happened between the 7th and 8th seasons. He committed accidental vehicular manslaughter and is completely haunted by his experience, and he wants to deal with his feelings with a safe buffer of distance between himself and home. The story he's telling is his way of expressing the love and gratitude he feels for his family, and how much he's going to miss them even though he needs to get away.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: Mary, in the eyes of some. Check the Unintentionally Unsympathetic section below and Character Shilling above for full details, but Mary was basically sent to Buffalo for being normal (somewhat, anyway). However, her struggles at trying to find a job, getting married early without fully thinking about the ramifications, as well as her minor experimenting with drugs and alcohol makes her more sympathetic to the teen audience that the show targets. All the while, the show attempts to demonize Mary, though it becomes more and more harder to side with her family than with her.
    • Not to mention that Mary is legally an adult and that her parents technically have no right to force her to do anything, no matter how badly she's acting.
    • "Bye" puts Mary on a bus to New York to live with her grandparents for her reckless and irresponsible behavior, which is considered more of a Felony Misdemeanor by most counts (see Series Page). Although Mary does some irresponsible things (leaving her baby cousin out alone is definitely a major one), these acts are closer to what many normal teenagers would do (e.g. drinking a beer, doing drugs, not paying things on time).
    • "Last Call for Aunt Julie": When Aunt Julie is revealed to be an alcoholic, Eric and Annie detox her at home before she goes to rehab. But almost everyone, especially Mary, act like jerks to her, denouncing her as a "loser", despite being under the influence for much of the episode. It makes Julie more sympathetic than any of the main characters as a result. While the family's behavior would be justified if this had happened on a recurring basis, the family ultimately prove themselves to be jerkasses when someone drinks in front of them once.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Annie during her Took a Level in Jerkass period. An example would be the episode "Regrets": Annie's father Charles reveals to her that he had a daughter while in high school with his then-girlfriend, and gave the child up for adoption; the woman has recently come forward and wants to meet Charles. After the revelation, Annie's behavior could be compared to a five-year-old meeting their baby sibling for the first time, and wanting to remain the only child: denying the woman's existence, holding her father at a cold distance, and trying to satisfy herself by thinking that the woman is not who she says she is (which is even more irrational considering that the woman is an innocent person in all of this, and Annie never met the woman before the conclusion of the episode). Eventually, Eric sets her straight and Annie accepts her half-sister, Lily.
    • Lucy in Season 7, when her paranoia is played up. When Kevin joins the Glenoak Police Department in Season 7, he is assigned to a female partner, Roxanne, of whom Lucy is quickly envious. The problem is that Roxanne only has brief feelings for Kevin, but gets over it after about an episode, but Lucy continues to voice her disdain for Roxanne for half of the season. More over, Lucy's jealous behavior is portrayed as normal in-universe, though many audience members could see that Lucy was wildly insecure about her relationship with Kevin with little justification for it, to the point where Lucy demonized Roxanne to appear normal by comparison. Also, Kevin doesn't seem to have a major problem with Lucy's irrational dislike for Roxanne, who had tried her best to get along with her.
    • Speaking of Annie's father, she's utterly horrible to him and his new girlfriend. It's especially bad as the woman is nothing but nice and friendly, making repeated efforts to get along with her. While it's understandable that Annie might be uncomfortable with her father dating someone new so soon after her mother's death, she just comes across like a bitch, especially with her Insane Troll Logic that they're responsible for Mary's accident. Nevermind that she's the one who stormed out of church in a snit because they dared to attend, prompting Mary to chase after her and not check for traffic before walking out into the street.
    • She's similarly nasty upon hearing that Eric's counseling a woman (it would seem that Lucy inherited her irrational jealousy tendencies from her mother). Despite the fact that he's no doubt done this countless times, she instantly decides that this woman is pursuing her husband and proceeds to be a complete bitch to both of them, even rebuffing the woman's efforts to assure her that she isn't. It's capped off with her sanctimoniously declaring to Eric "I know I'm not wrong", self-righteously giving Eric permission to continue counseling the woman—something in which she has no business interfering—and lastly, demanding Eric's apology for doubting her if/when the woman makes advances to him.
    • Eric’s behavior towards Chandler in season 7. The writers seem to want us to sympathize with Eric and dislike Chandler for ‘stealing’ Eric’s job at the church. Never mind that Chandler is completely innocent in this as they needed to hire somebody to do the sermons and church work while Eric was recovering from his surgery so the church could stay open and functioning for the community. Besides that, it’s hard to feel any sympathy at all for Eric when he’s such a massive Jerkass to Chandler for half the season.
  • Values Dissonance: Out of universe example. For conservative Christian viewers whose morals match up with those of the Camdens, there's no difference, but for the casual viewer... oh, yeah. Some subjects, such as gun control, anti-smoking and drinking, and no sex before marriage, would turn off any viewer that wouldn't bat an eye at any of those topics.
  • Wangst: Latter-day Simon. But then again, almost all the main characters fall into the trope (especially the teen characters when they say their "lives are over" because of some minor thing, e.g. not dating someone at the time or not able to drive at age 16).
  • The Woobie:
  • Earlier seasons Lucy had some very sad moments (e.g. "Nothing Endures But Change", in which her best friend dies and she is guilt-ridden about it).
  • Mary not only got kicked out of the house in Season 5, but her character is easy to commiserate with because she was set up to be successful (as an Academic Athlete) but then never allowed to experience any real success and ended up being The Unfavorite in later seasons.

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