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Young, urban newlyweds Paul and Jamie Buchman try to sustain their marital bliss while sidestepping the hurdles of love in the '90s.
“Never marry anyone more neurotic than yourself.”
1995
Jamie is enthralled by it, Paul doesn't remember it, Murray didn't see it, and Ira laughs at it--another night and the day after in the Buchmans' lives. Meanwhile, Paul finds employment at the Explorer Channel.
After a four year wait, the Buchmans finally have dibs on a parking space in a nearby garage, but still no car.
A long wait at the bus stop leaves time for the Buchmans to take a Cosmopolitan marriage test. (Clip show).
Inspired by a Martha Stewart idea, Sylvia organizes a high-noonish tag-what-you-want lunch for her family, complete with a shoot-out in the kitchen with Jamie.
At first, Paul has only a vague notion he knows who Jamie's interview at City Hall is with, but he figures it out and complicates matters when Jamie and Fran are about to land an important account.
Yoko Ono is in town for some film happenings and Paul tries to do something different for the Explorer Channel with her help.
With Murray around, the Buchmans are no dinks, so when Lisa demurs they are obligated to hire a professional to walk Murray. And Murray seems to prefer the newcomer to Paul.
Three lies, two shows and a realization as Jamie and Paul figure out ""why it will never happen"" to them, or so one is led to believe when their new friends turn out to be not quite what they pretend to be.
Paul and Jamie are obliged to spend New Year's Eve apart for the first time, but strange happenings in Times Square have a will and a way all their own.
Paul and Jamie try to time a love-in-the-afternoon rendezvous back at their apartment, but his family shows up at the most inopportune time, with Debbie springing a big surprise: she's gay.
Jamie throws out her back during adventurous sex on the floor, leaving Paul to help out with her duties at City Hall while also trying to get his father to an optometrist's appointment.
A night of cascading dreams of Paul and Jamie's, featuring ostriches, ducks and a party with the frug, with lots of interpretation and a poem (and a half) by Henry Gibson.
Ira resumes gambling, wins a lot, hands out generous presents and then takes a $4,000 bath--no problems for him, but a couple for the Buchmans.
Paul and Jamie embark on an organic fertility enhancement program with Mark's help, plus a day off at a fancy local hotel at Fran's suggestion.
Jamie tries a new look with interesting consequences, while Ira feels betrayed at the love game, let down by his quality wingman Paul, who digs himself a big hole discussing beauty.
The saga of a daisy-chain of favors, triggered by the young daughter of Ira's girlfriend wanting an autographed picture of the mayor, and complicated by Paul and his fancy new camera.
After talking to Fran, Ira and Mark the Buchamns realize that their friends are in a big fight due to Fran & Ira's recent relationship so Jamie decides to take everybody to dinner to straighten things up between everybody. Lance Brockwell decides to candidate for town major, so Jamie and Fran become the campaign managers. However, Jamie is not happy due to Paul's belief that Giuliani would be a better major. When Jamie asks Paul to make a campaign commercial, it turns out to be so great that everybody gets on Brockwell's side for which Paul is not too happy for.
The next step in the Buchman baby saga is trying to find out if Paul is the reason Jamie is unable to conceive. They rush to the hospital, but everything seems to be trying to stop them. First, they must wait for their neighbors to come to the elevator and then, when their car gets stolen, Paul must do his 'sample' all over again which is also interrupted by a car chase on tv which results to be Buchmans car chased by the NYPD bomb squad.
Jamie undergoes a minor diagnostic procedure and is quite smitten by her doctor so as Fran. Meanwhile, Paul's job is on the risk when the head people from his office find out that he did a commercial for Brockwell, due to crashing his contract rule. When Hollis walks in on Ira and Paul talking, Ira presents himself as Paul's agent and later saves Paul's job at the Explorer Channel.
Jamie tries to plan for a weekend getaway in Pennsylvania Dutch country, but Paul is preoccupied with his current documentary project about a weed to be interested. Meanwhile, Fran and Mark decide to get on the getaway that Jamie planned. Paul gets too stressed with his job and keeps on fighting with Hollis which leads them both to a surprising reaction of their boss.
Nominated once again for the Silver Sprocket, a reluctant Paul is coaxed into a tuxedo by Ira and expects to attend the ceremony with Jamie at his side to counter the weasels from the Explorer Channel and find new connections for new jobs. Of course, things don't quite work out that way.
After a week's reflection and ignoring Ira's emphatic advice not to, Paul decides to tell Jamie about his walk around the block with a female filmmaker he met at the Silver Sprocket Awards, except Jamie blurts out first the matter that has been on her mind all day: Berkus came on to her.
Ira and Lisa try to engineer the Buchman reconciliation, except it proves easier to resolve the scheduling conflict between Burt and Sylvia's 45th anniversary party and Lisa's engagement party.
Paul and Jamie take a walk through the park to talk their differences out by themselves. They succeed, and return to their apartment, where Jamie springs a surprise on Paul.
1998
Paul tries Viagra and spends the day hiding the obvious effects while he searches for Jamie, who is stuck on the streets of New York wearing nothing alse then a towel.
When Paul gets his tonsils taken out, his pretty nurse makes Jamie jealous. Meanwhile, Mabel says her first word.
Jamie's ex-boyfriend dies and leaves everything to her. Debbie has second thoughts about marrying Joan.
To satisfy her need to mother, Lisa adopts a cat with attitude. Jamie learns the benefits of a ""nooner.""
To help their communication problems, Dr. Sheila recommends that Paul and Jamie not talk to each other for the rest of the day.
Paul and Jamie go to L.A. to try to get superagent Gardner Malloy to represent him. The life of luxury makes them reluctant to go back.
Jamie and Paul have a full house for Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile, Mabel may be allergic.
When Paul inadvertently injures Hal, he hires the nurse who attended to him after his tonsil removal. Jamie hates her, which leads to a fight. To end the argument, Hal suggests the British tradition of burying the fight.
Mr. Wicker goes out of town and asks Paul and Jamie to tend his rooftop garden. Mabel loves another baby's rare toy.
To save the store, Ira plans to give away a car to the person who keeps their hand on it the longest. Since he can't afford it, he wants all of the contestants to be ringers.
Dr. Lee helps Paul and Jamie get away to a much-anticipated honeymoon while Lisa cares for Murray.
Paul and Jamie spend an unsettling trial night in the suburbs.
The couple learns that Jamie will be in bed with Mark McGwire via virtual reality.
Uncle Phil goes back to high school. Lisa gets breast implants.
Sheila declares Paul and Jamie cured. However, Murray is still traumatized by the earlier puma attack, so Paul and Jamie enter him in a dog show.
Jamie's dress is ruined by a dry cleaner who is unwilling to make restitution. Paul has a dream where Einstein gives him a partial solution to the millennium bug. He needs to have the dream again, so he can get the rest of the solution.
Paul and Jamie discover the extra comfort of sleeping apart. Marvin is wrestling part time and Ira becomes his manager.
Ira finds a note in some old pants that remind him of a date made twenty years ago but he doesn't remember with whom. Paul and Jamie steal Burt's decrepit car so they can ditch it, since he won't sell it.
Paul accidentally runs over Jamie's mother. While she is in the hospital, her estranged husband visits.
When Debbie compiles Buchman and Stemple family trees, she learns that Paul and Jamie are actually cousins.
Mabel's first real film is a biography, looking back at her family's twisted history.
Mabel's first real film is a biography, looking back at her family's twisted history.
1994
A wave of heat and the death of climate device rushes Paul and Jamie to find a refreshment. They go out on the streets of NY, but find out that there it's even worse. Jaime convinces Paul that they should runaway from the town and have dinner in a restaurant by the sea where they used to eat. But, while borrowing Fran's car, Jamie gets upset to find out that Fran got her old job...
The war of the Buchmans and the Conways is fully engaged as rumors fly about the apartment building going co-op. Meanwhile, Murray and Sophie, Conway's dog, find true love and then some more.
After Jamie's dearest uncle dies, Paul, Jamie and Lisa find themselves together on his funeral. But, when Jamie convinces Paul to make a speech, he insluts her entire family with uncomfrontable notices. However, Paul soon realizes that he is the one who is upset, because Jamie insists that her uncle Van's ashes would be in their house until they find a better place for him.
The Wickers have a big fight and Mr. Wicker moves in with the Buchmans. Meanwhile, Jamie finally succumbs to an eye exam, where she finds out that she'll have to wear glasses. But, to decide between between glasses and contact lenses is so hard that it seems to be mission: impsossible.
Arranging an appearance by a former Yankee player for Buchman's Sporting Goods annual midnight sale, Jamie gets her PR juices flowing. But Paul is left feeling uncomfortable, for more reasons than one.
Jamie works around Paul's opposition to having a TV in their bedroom, and hotwires an additional cable outlet with Fran's help. The resulting complications ultimately lead to a city-wide blackout.
Fran's birthday party is the setting for Jamie's unexpected encounter with an ex-boyfriend, and the saga of who dumped whom dominates her evening. The cab ride home provides two interlocking perspectives of the evening's events.
Jamie's perfect Thanksgiving feast involves a buffet for ten and five turkeys, thanks to Murray and the extremely friendly neighborhood grocer Kim.
As the Buchmans' sex life waxes and wanes, Lisa snags a pair of free dinners, Fran loses a window office and Ira acquires a silent partner.
A bad day in the Big Apple leaves Jamie unwilling to go out to see a feel-good movie, but Paul talks her into an evening out, if only to meet Ira's new girlfriend.
Paul is one of six documentary filmmakers selected by PBS to turn the camera on themselves for 15 minutes, and in his case, it turns into a big surprise.
Paul's ideas on how to meet and engage the opposite sex are tested by Jamie in a hypothetical encounter, while Ira has a very real encounter with Jamie's friend.
The saga of the three months leading up to Paul and Jamie's wedding, what with the invitations, the reception menu, the dress fittings, the band selection, the rehearsal dinner and the remarkable goings-on of the night before the wedding.
The saga of the three months leading up to Paul and Jamie's wedding, what with the invitations, the reception menu, the dress fittings, the band selection, the rehearsal dinner and the remarkable goings-on of the night before.
The tale of Murray's showbiz career, spawned by a walk-on appearance in a commercial directed by Paul, advanced by an eager agent, leading all the way to an audition for a series.
Paul finds it very difficult to deal with the considerable ego of a legendary TV star, until help arrives in the form of a tip from a surprising quarter.
Jamie goes up to Connecticut to keep her dad company, and the home-alone Paul gets quite giddy enjoying his role as ""Lord of the Manor.""
Paul's Canadian adventure gets off to a bad start and Jamie's pitch to a client does likewise while Lisa's day is smooth sailing after she accidentally snags her sister's purse and more.
Paul and Jamie use his parents' non-refundable package for a holiday in the Caribbean, telling tall tales in multiple languages.
Marianne returns from Luxembourg, sans her husband, but with ""more money than Canada,"" eager to finance Ira's new catalog business with an interest-free loan, but his silent partner finds voice to veto the deal.
The saga of Paul's birthdays since meeting Jamie, going back and then forth, recounting the disasters and the strange tale of a bottle of Grandfather Port.
Jamie is obliged to work on an advertising campaign with ex-boyfriend Alan, a graphics artist, who has recently published a comic book about an evil queen in outer space. But the queen's looks and exploits sound like anything but fiction to Jamie.
Unable to buy her an anniversary present, with or without everyone else's help, Paul hands Jamie a slip of paper entitling her to a magical night. Things take a decidedly unusual turn after that.
Unable to buy her an anniversary present, with or without everyone else's help, Paul hands Jamie a slip of paper entitling her to a magical night. Things take a decidedly unusual turn after that.
1992
Paul and Jamie Buchman are newlywed adjusting to life together in Manhattan. When only after 5 months of marriage Jamie complains that their sexual life is not like it used to be, Paul decides to come earlier from his job so they could spend a nice evening alone. But, their scheduled evening goes awry as each assumes the other had cancelled their dinner plans with friends.
To Paul, a couch by any other name is not a couch, especially if it is a divan, a settee, or worse, a love seat. Jamie is determined that their first major purchase to be jointly made and when dragged to the department store, Paul manages to hyperventilate. When they hang out together in the store, Mark discovers to Paul some informations that he probably shouldn't ever find about.
Paul and Jamie enjoy a quiet Sunday with nothing to do except decide what to do. However, they have to decide whether to see a movie, take in a parade or get to the museum before their friends' Sundays' intrude.
News of his ex-girlfriend visiting New York first fills Paul with excitement, followed by guilt, culminating in blithering idiocy after he invites Jamie to Riff's to meet her and Jamie accepts.
An unexpectedly long visit by Jamie's parents, Gus (guest star: Paul Dooley) and Theresa Stemple (guest star Nancy Dussault) turns her into a raving lunatic who bribes Lisa with cold cash and cab fare into sharing the experience.
Paul's film about Yankee Stadium is rejected by PBS the same day Jamie snags a major advertising account, turning her celebratory bash into a defeat party.
Paul is suddenly reluctant to use the subway because a former fellow film school student turns up as the token clerk at his station.
Planning their last will and testament together brings up the subject of Paul's old bachelor pad, which he now sublets to Cosmo Kramer (guest star Michael Richards). Jamie wants Paul to get ridden of his apartment, but Paul is against that. They get into a fight, which results by Paul deciding about the future of his apartment and Jamie getting ridden of her t-shirt from her past (which she later wants back).
On a trip to Connecticut to spend Thanksgiving with Jamie's parents, Paul and Jamie are doing fine, Mark and Fran begin to fight, while Selby and Lisa are just friends. However, on the return journey, everything is different.
The Buchmans get off on the wrong foot with the neighbors across the hall, Hal and Maggie Conway (guest stars Paxton Whitehead and Judy Geeson), and each subsequent step to improve relations. However, that decidion seems to be making the matters worse.
The story of how Paul and Jamie met is told, beginning with a chance encounter on a Sunday evening by the newstand, followed by Paul's hard work to locate Jamie. Jamie breaks up with her boyfriend and is feeling strange. Paul appears in her office bringing her clothes and as time passes, they go on a dinner date...
The Buchmans find their new once-a-week maid, Masha (guest star Beata Pozniak) a big help, but she is heartbroken that her affection for ""Mr. Paul"" isn't being reciprocated.
Producer Jamie gets to hire the director for a new spot for the New York City tourism campaign and picks Paul so they can work together. However, they soon find out how much togetherness is too much.
An escape to the country side doesn't immediately cure Jamie's blues, but once it does, she wants to stay in the country permanently, make apples, till soil and run a Chinese restaurant.
After unwittingly revealing a secret about a bride to her father on her wedding day, Paul badgers Jamie into telling him one of hers, and is soon sorry that he did.
What should a couple do when trapped in their bathroom on Valentine's Day? Paul and Jamie show the way--painting toenails, giving mutual facials, and using antacid tablets as food and more.
An extremely energetic and eccentric billionaire wants Paul to make a film about him. Meanwhile, Paul hires a new editor/cameraman who is anything but energetic.
Paul's father has his 15 minutes of fame following an incident with Regis Philbin that embarasses Paul. Events progress to a point where Paul is being viewed by the entire city as an over-reactive son.
Jamie thinks that Lisa and her new boyfriend, Michael (guest star Charles Shaughnessy) are moving too fast in their relationship. When Lisa and Michael decide to move in together after a week's acquaintance, Paul tries to stop Jaime, but she is unable to stay uninvolved.
Jamie's new client is a former TV star, Diane Caldwell (guest star Barbara Feldon) idolized by Paul and Ira in their childhood. They quickly revert back to their old ways and compete for star attention. But, Ira charmes Diane before Paul and gets to spend a night with Diane. But, next day, everything is about to change when Ira finds out the truth...
Jamie hires an ex-boyfriend, Sherman (guest star: Rick Rossovich), to paint the apartment and is a bit annoyed when Paul is not concerned by the prospect of her old flame being alone with her. When Paul comes home from his job, he finds Sherman and Fran together in their bed having sex, because Fran is stressed over her move-out from Mark's apartment. So, Paul talks to Mark about their marriage. Jamie and Paul try to get them together back, but they decide to get split.
At the Buchmans' first anniversary party, love blossoms between Warren and Connie, while Paul tries to turn back the clock. However, there is no love between the now separated Fran and Mark.
1993
Lisa takes Murray out for a walk and returns with a dog that obviously isn't him. Meanwhile, Paul and Jamie contact the cops and everyone else joins in the hunt for the real Murray. When they finally find him they also encounter people that own the dog Lisa brought home that turn out to be totally different than them.
Phone calls, noisy neighbors and an invisible mouse being chased by Murray are some of the distractions that Paul and Jamie face while struggling to find romance during a long-awaited evening toether.
A suspected heart attack sends Paul's father to the hospital, leaving his mother home alone, until Jamie tries to score some much needed ""points"" with her mother-in-law.
An evening out at Riff's sees Paul complaining about his meddlesome new producer, and Jamie venting about her same old credit-grabbing boss, who happens to be seated nearby.
Paul is anything but pleased with Jamie, who has too much free time on her hands, and uses it to cut his hair and his film, improving on the original cut.
Paul's shooting schedule leaves it all up to Jamie to go out trick-or-treating with his seven-year-old nephew, whose extended two-hour visit Paul forgot to mention to her.
What brought Paul and Jamie together? Was it fate or a big coincidence? Jamie's belief that it was fate annoys Paul to no end, especially because Jamie is spending more time with Lisa than with him.
Jamie suspects a surprise party waiting for her at home. However, that's not what has been arranged for her birthday by Paul, who gets separated from her on the subway en route to the surprise.
A free weekend in Atlantic City has been mysteriously arranged for Jamie & Paul and Fran & Ira, by Ira's ex-wife as it turns out, now a casino hostess who wants Ira to sign divorce papers.
An unemployed Jamie is envious of Paul, whose work is something he loves to do. Meanwhile, Paul feels betrayed by his producer Lou, who is now tampering with Paul's latest labor of love.
Lisa acquires her 15 minutes of fame under a pseudonym in her shrink's book, and Paul is caught in the middle of the sibling squabble that follows when Jamie takes exception to being called Lisa's overbearing sister.
The death of a Paul Buchman affects Jamie and Paul quite suddenly, leaving them without cash or credit. Meanwhile, Paul is morbidly curious about his namesake.
Jamie and Paul must endure two months of separation when Paul has to shoot a film in Chicago, returning only for the weekends, weather permitting.
Fran tells Jamie that she may be pregnant, and Paul finds out from Ira that Ira may have gotten someone pregnant, but neither realizes that it is Ira who might have gotten Fran pregnant.
Paul invests in a startup venture, bringing out a virtual-reality system with Ira, after a demo but without consulting Jamie, who reacts calmly to his actions, both real and imagined.
A Valentine's Day story that begins with Jamie and Paul at Rockefeller Center rink side and moves back three years to the day they finally moved in together and ended up engaged.
Jamie's fortune cookie predicts that bad luck will follow the guilty, but Paul is convinced her luck is being visited on him even as they head for a party at Yoko Ono's place.
Jamie and Paul are horrified to discover that Paul has unwittingly handed over their revealing homemade video to the Family Network, instead of a documentary about a zoo.
The Buchmans find letters written by former tenants of their apartment chronicling a World War II love story that Jamie feels parallels her and Paul's.
Jamie and Paul refuse to take sides in an incident between their mothers, while Lisa plays both sides to her advantage. Meanwhile, Murray is found to be suffering from his own mother problems.
The night before Jamie returns to school she worries that Paul might not support her fully. In the morning before Jamie leaves, Paul realizes that he has forgotten to mail her registration.
Althrough he is pretty disturbed by Jamie's lenieny to her younger school college, Paul accepts to hang out with them on a blind date that Jamie organised for Nick & Fran. But, while talking about an idea for a movie about the fastest cook on the world, Paul discovers that the waiter at the Riff's is no one else than Mark, Fran's ex-husband...
Jamie is suffering from sleeplessness because she drank four cuffs of tea full of coffeine while learning for a test. All furious, Jamie urges Paul to spend the night awake with her that leads them to an all-night adventure in the building, from the basement to the rooftop, which ends with a tango together with John Astin, if that's who he really is.
Paul finds Mark working in a local store. After he meets the owners of the shop, Kim & Tammy, Paul finds out that Mark is learning to pray Zen. While Mark is trying to make him join him in pray, Paul finds out that he lost his wedding ring. Worried about what will jamie tell him, Paul rushes to the house to find him.
The real marriage anniversary arrives and Jamie gives Paul a gift - swiss military knife - and receives a gift from Paul - a machine for making sugar products. Both disappointed with their gifts, they go to a store where it turns out that they have totally different opinions about children. Then, when they have lunch with Paul's sister, the Buchmans try to entertain Susan's son Nah while she's on the phone. Paul realizes that having kids is nothing different than having a dog, but Jamie has totally different opinion...
Paul Reiser
Paul Buchman
Helen Hunt
Jamie Buchman
John Pankow
Ira Buchman
Cynthia Harris
Sylvia Buchman
Louis Zorich
Burt Buchman
1997
The first day back from the hospital finds Paul and Jamie still figuring out how to care for their daughter and what to name her, until help arrives in the form of Jamie's mother.
Jamie kicks off a letter-writing spree by penning one to her infant daughter to be read on her 18th birthday. Ira and Joan join in on the fun, while Paul goes through draft after draft.
Jamie stumbles upon a strange cure to Mabel's crying fits, while Paul valiently tries to catch a few winks before an important meeting with a Belgian distributor.
The search for a preschool for the three-week old Mabel cannot begin soon enough, but has to compete for attention with the coupon fraud trial of Uncle Phil, and an odd caper involving Jamie and Ira.
Jamie resents being tagged with the dime-store psychological cliche that is postpartum depression, and almost wrecks the wedding plans of a stranger. Meanwhile, Paul directs a charity production of ""The Pirates of Penzance.""
The Buchmans find a baby-sitter they are comfortable with, but Paul and Jamie's first evening out by themselves begins with Paul not in his pants and ends on an even more unusual note.
Paul and Jamie grapple with the pressure of having sex for the first time since Mabel's birth, but their therapist seems not much help.
Paul and Jamie meet a new neighbor, Sarah, a divorced mother of three who manages to teach Jamie a more casual style of parenting. Also, Paul and Jamie conspire to set up Sarah on a blind date with Ira.
Paul and Jamie try to help each other get through the excruciating process of ""Ferberizing"" the baby--they must allow the child to cry herself to sleep without comforting her. The psychological and moral implications of this are discussed and debated at length.
Jamie is reluctant to stop breast-feeding exclusively, but she knows it's time for the baby to learn to feed from the bottle, while Paul is excited to be able to feed the baby for the first time. Meanwhile, Jamie's upset to learn that her mom is dating a much younger man, a dancer from ""Lord of the Dance.""
When Paul gives a speech at a college, he's shocked to discover that Jamie lost her virginity to the visiting professor. It's a comedy of errors as the professor believes Paul is angry and wants to do the professor harm. Meanwhile, Ira meets a woman who flirts with him only to get better burial plots.
It's the first plane flight with the baby and Paul and Jamie take separate planes--they're told it's not uncommon for new parents to do to avoid orphaning a baby in the event of a tragedy. Paul takes Mabel and winds up using her to lead a passenger revolt on the plane to demand less heat in the cabin. Meanwhile, Jamie's looking forward to a break from mothering, yet she ends up mothering everyone.
When Paul and Jamie feel that their current therapist, Sheila, isn't quite helping out, Paul and Jamie see another therapist, Sydney. They love Sydney enough to "break up" with Sheila--that is, until they find out that Sydney's hour of therapy is too expensive. Meanwhile, Paul grapples with how to get his father to stop suffocating Paul socially.
Jamie decides to go back to work, and everything says to go back to work. There's only one problem: she doesn't want to and tries to get herself fired. Meanwhile, Paul confronts the newspaper journalist who wrote an article filled with errors about ""Buchman.""
Jamie discovers that Paul was married before--if only to get an old Russian woman U.S. citizenship. Jamie's upset that she is, indeed, the second Mrs. Buchman. Meanwhile, Paul is an umpire for his father's senior-citizen baseball game, and a fight erupts between father and son over a call.
When Paul innocently flips a coin to make a decision, Paul's former producer overhears a conversation that puts Paul and Jamie in the limelight with the tabloid program ""Hard Copy."" Also, Ira finds that he's the prime suspect in a paternity case, and Paul's parents try their luck in Atlantic City.
Paul's birthday party turns into an event worthy of a detective mystery when Maggie and Hal suspect Buchman party guests of stealing a prestigious painting from their adjacent apartment. Meanwhile, Marvin gets into a growling match with Murray.
Paul, Jamie and Ira decide to make a baby video. However, Paul starring as the Sandman frightens kids and turns them off to the concept. Meanwhile, Paul's parents tell him he has a half-brother.
Paul convinces Jamie to quit her job. Joan is posing for ""The 20 Most Eligible Bachelorettes in New York"" for a magazine and Debbie is jealous. Paul, Jamie, Ira, Joan and Debbie go to Riff's, where a fire breaks out while Paul is in the bathroom. Ira saves Ursula's life while Jamie, Debbie and Joan run out, leaving Paul in the bathroom. Joan asks Debbie to marry her.
Paul tries to pick a Mother's Day present for Jamie, but Ira and Marvin have better ideas: a rocking chair and a message displayed on the Times Square video screen. Sylvia is jealous of Jamie's gifts and fakes injury to steal attention.
Paul's life flashes before his eyes when he takes a spill in the shower.
Paul and Jamie act as matchmakers for dogwalker Nat and babysitter Arley. Meanwhile, Ira tries giving up sex, and Paul makes a discovery about Jamie when they go to a sleep clinic.
Paul and Jamie search for a full-time nanny, and Paul finds one in the form of Nancy Bloom, a caterer he inadvertently got fired from the production of a documentary about "The Making of Titanic."
1996
With Mark Devanow in Europe, a pregnant Jamie and Paul have to look around for a gynecologist, and Debbie tries to set them up with her girlfriend. Meanwhile, the elder Buchmans finally get to meet Debbie's ""friend.""
Jamie tries to stay awake, avoid coffee and continue to manage Brockwell's campaign. Meanwhile, while Paul is trying to figure out how to use a sizeable grant that has come his way, his Uncle Phil asks Paul and Ira to visit him in Brooklyn.
Months after setting it up, Paul and Jamie decide to keep their appointment with the therapist Fran referred them to, but doing so delays Paul's shoot of his parents' reminiscences, with some interesting consequences.
Having chosen the residents of Apartment 11-D as its parents, the baby in the making deals with musical interludes and parental cooing, and with lots and lots of choice moments from their years together. In other words, a clip show.
Filming of Paul's documentary takes him and Burt back to their old apartment building for the day, and events conspire to make Paul late for an appointment at Joan's office to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time.
The Stemples arrive at Paul and Jamie's for a two-day visit, armed with a surprise, and another soon follows.
The Buchmans decide the time and place of their grand announcement, but the leaks start early during Thanksgiving week.
While Ira counsels against it, Paul contemplates abstinence until July. However, Jamie has other ideas and talks Paul into a trip upstate where they chance upon a dessert item with magical powers.
Paul so likes playing the mystery man at a local gym that he talks Jamie out of working there, whereupon she hands over her free pass to a homeless acquaintance from the neighborhood.
Jamie finally lets her coworkers and Lance know about the baby, while Ira, turning money man and producer for ""Buchman,"" actually managers to produce a narrator, at least in voice.
A politically incorrect Jamie pays the price for commenting about Ryan's ability as a budding violinist, while a simmering Paul works up the nerve to confront their therapist about her overcharging ways.
The perils of engaging Paul and Jamie's handyman are visited upon Lisa, whose fiance is more than willing to finance Paul's over-budget documentary project.
Nat's sister, an astrologer, is in town and agrees to do charts for Lisa, Ira, Paul and a very reluctant Jamie.
The Buchmans promise to name their baby, if it's a boy, after Paul's ailing Uncle Phil, then find out his real name. Meanwhile, Paul is suddenly sure of the baby's sex.
Paul's great-uncle Marty dies on camera as he is being interviewed for ""Buchman"" and his cryptic last words lead to a few unexpected disclosures among the Buchman clan.
An enforced bed-rest of two to three days for Jamie means that Paul has to attend to her every need, and also deal with lack of heat in their apartment AND a kidnapping.
To escape Jamie's baby shower, Paul hits the road with Ira and Marvin in the latter's van, but his urge to tell insensitive jokes quickly leads to trouble.
Paul talks an unwilling Jamie into quitting her job at the mayoral campaign, but he is less successful in dealing with an exotic bird that flies into their lives.
A very pregnant Jamie insists on helping out at David (Paul's cousin) and Jared's new coffee shop, with disastrous results. Meanwhile, Ira and Paul help a pregnant woman on a bus.
Paul and Jamie flunk out of a birthday class that Joan has managed to get them enrolled in. Meanwhile, ""Buchman"" is being held hostage by the elder Buchmans.
Paul and Jamie are advised by their lawyer to select guardians for the baby in case of their death. But, to their astonishment, rejections pile up. Meanwhile, Jamie is flattered by the attentions of an 18-year-old Bobby Rubenfeld.
Theresa and Sylvia vie for the new crib honors, with predictable consequences. On another front, Paul wins big at poker but is paid off by Marvin in the form of specially-priced household chores.
As Paul's documentary gets a surprisingly good review at a film festival, Jamie thinks she is going into labor. So they rush to the hospital, only to find out it was a false alarm. This happens several more times, until it's finally for real.
Jamie runs into an old flame in a cab on the way to the hospital. Meanwhile, Paul gets a grand tour of the innards of Roosevelt Hospital courtesy of a film star. And, oh yeah, the baby arrives.
