Television Review: 7th Heaven

By Betsy Wallace and Marjorie Kase

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What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this generally wholesome family drama always offers great opportunities for families to discuss issues that affect both parents and kids, including hot-button topics like premarital sex and pregnancy. Therefore, parents might want to think twice before allowing younger kids to view the program.

Families can talk about the issues posed by each episode. Ask teens what they perceive the consequences of each character's actions to be. What would they do in similar circumstances? Do they agree with the values the show espouses? Is it more or less likely that a minister's children would get into tricky situations as teenagers?

7TH HEAVEN charts the highs and lows of the large Camden clan. One of very few TV dramas designed specifically for the whole family, the long-running series provess that family programming can be highly successful. Although at times the Camdens -- Dad and mom, Reverend Eric Camden (Stephen Collins) and Annie (Catherine Hicks) and their kids Matt (Barry Watson), Simon (David Gallagher), Mary (Jessica Biel), Lucy (Beverley Mitchell), Ruthie (Mackenzie Rosman) and twins Sam and David (Lorenzo and Nikolas Brino), and countless other family members -- come across as overly skilled communicators, the show attempts to inject some reality into their interaction. Through the course of the series, the kids undergo growing pains as they mature into young adults. Some marry, have kids of their own, or leave the nest. There are bouts of rebellion, sibling rivalry, and the occasional stray friend that the Camden kids bring home for advice from their preacher dad.

The series insists on dealing with timely social issues (homelessness, hate crimes) as well as the difficult situations kids and teens encounter as they grow up (premarital sex, drinking). As a consequence, sometimes 7th Heaven feels like a morality play, and the dialogue and acting seems stiff. But viewers see how the Camden family, together with friends and spouses, work through their problems -- even those that seem insurmountable -- and ultimately find solutions.