Dr. Mark Sloan has a knack for getting into trouble, negotiating the twists and turns of mysteries and solving crimes with the help of his son, Steve, a homicide detective.
Cast:Dick Van Dyke , Barry Van Dyke , Victoria Rowell , Charlie Schlatter , Michael Tucci , Scott Baio , Delores Hall , Kevin McNally , Shane Van Dyke , Anne Lockhart , Charmin Lee , Kim Little , Joanna Cassidy , Susan Gibney , Lynda Robertson , Harry Lennix , Carey Van Dyke , Lee Newman
Dr. Mark Sloan is to be the guest of 'honor' as Man of the Year at the Roast, where comedians makes merciless fun of him in the Jokers Club.
When a businessman runs through the streets to shoot an apparent nobody in clear daylight, Steve is puzzled.
Now Susan his run off to Oregon with a chiropractor, Jesse suffers babysitting Amanda's rascal CJ. Mark is delighted to meet in BBQ Bob's Chuck Greer, who once saved Steve's life in Vietnam, and accepts minding for a while his daughter Barbara, who also proves a handful. Steve discovers he has been assuming the identity of the wealthy Ralph Eastman, as he ran from a clothes shop chased -both in their underwear- by an unknown man who recognized him. Both Sloanes are surprised to hear she knew her dad wanted her off his hands for several days, not knowing he's offering mobster Tommy Toussaint to repay a fortune he embezzled two years earlier- they find out when the crook kidnaps Mark and Barbie...
When bright med student Quinn Montgomery, whose formerly rich family from Miami was ruined, learns during midterms that his penniless lover Holly Harris is pregnant, which would ruin his wedding plans with heiress Jennifer Warner, he arranges her death with poisoned Chinese takeaway and sets up a stooge. Once Amanda points out the supposed suicide or accident is fake since there's no gelatin in her stomach, so her food had to be spiked, Mark Sloane starts investigating every single detail till he knows enough to set a trap...
While Jesse is jogging he sees smoke coming out of a garage, breaks the door but is too late to save Frank Baumgart, the apparent suicide victim.
Dr. Madison Wesley asks Mark to help Lisa, her great love's daughter, whom she found OD'd, into a prime rehab.
Gangster 'Mr. G', a perfect Mark Sloan lookalike, is released from jail; his gang has moved business to California, and rented a Malibu beach-house.
Mark is brought in shot, Jesse saves him -while student Alex Smith does his rounds- by removing the bullet, but he has temporary amnesia; no, that's lookalike mobster John 'Mr. G' Gotti: the real doc walks in with Steve, but soon Mr. G knocks him down and takes his place; his daughter finds Mark locked into the closet, but the mobster walks into a trap at his girlfriend's. Steve is just in time to prevent a sniper casing a fatal accident in Ponyland, discovers the daughter is working as administrator on the wellness center project and helps Mark set a trap...
Radio shock-jock Denise Steiner declares on a TV show 'in jest' she would have to kill her birth mother, who abandoned her after birth, if she ever found her after all of these years.
Mark matches wits with a beautiful jewel thief who is being framed for murder.
Claude Campbell, the hospital's janitor, is looking forward to play Santa Claus again, but Mark diagnoses him with terminal cancer.
Mark accepts a friend's invitation for a 'free' cruise splitting the medical duties with Jesse and Amanda. Barely aboard, they must save multimillionaire Robert Brantigan who got a triple dose ampule of insulin.
The whole gang, plus Alex Smith and Amanda's rascals, are invited to observe the shooting of an episode of "Frontier Dad", a family series about Wild West hero Dash, starring Carl Simpson.
The three doctor sleuths are celebrity guests in cooking shows on the Cuisine Channel; Amanda even has a passionate relation with a star chef, René Fontineau.
When Jake Caldwell brings in his wife to the hospital, Mark learns it's Caroline, another woman besides the spouse Gloria he already knows, and Jake is in fact a bigamist.
Steve's new house has its security system installed by a shady home security mogul, who claims that his rival has been sabotaging his computer.
Mark and Steve go fishing; when they return they find med student Mickey Hoving, who was house-sitting, murdered, according to his wife Jill who is sitting next to him but unharmed by armed robbers.
Despite his clumsy and willful appearance, his honesty gets Steve picked in a TV dating program by candidate Lily Wilson.
Steve's retired colleague Dave 'Hawk' Hawkins is murdered while undercover in the resting home Sunny Meadows.
While US Marines Captain Paul Davis, Lieutenant Richard Martinelli -an MP- and Lieutenant Jean Romanski are eating at BBQ Bob's during Jesse's shift, a fourth, Captain Hank Thomas, bursts in saying "You'll all be sorry" and shoots himself in the head. Steven has barely started his investigation when female NIS agent Warrant Officer Hannah Bernstein bursts in and claims the case for the military, illegally, yet he gentlemanly accepts to collaborate; even after they know he used the wrong hand base commander Colonel Lucien Chandler orders her to close the case as suicide, but she continues helping Steve 'on her own time'. They discover some suspicious things, such as an affair between one Davis, the colonels adjutant, and his wife Susan Chandler, and Mark figures out how everything fits together.
Wheelchair user Saul Singer has a car accident but Mark gets him by ambulance to TV presenter Drew McIntyre's trivia quiz "Through the Roof" where he is breaking the earnings records.
Self-accompanying singer Danielle Marsh (Helen Reddy) has her own grand piano flown over from New York claiming it's the only thing that calms her grave nerves, and moves in with the Sloans until her concert.
When a girl cop is brought in wounded, Jesse patches her up and dates her, but as Amanda finds and brings her out, she sets him up for a staged scary ride.
Two weeks later, Brett Hayward murders Dr. Hjortsberg, the plastic surgeon who created his present identity, knowing him as patient Eddie Dagabosian, and as such harbors a grudge against Madison, with whom he moves in, but Steve's LAPD team finds the drugs the killer 'stole' in a nearby dumpster. Meanwhile a 'Dr. anonymous' publishes a sleaze bestseller book version of the Community General sleuths, entitled Big City Hospital, for which half the staff mistakes Jesse, even Amanda. Although everything goes wrong now in Madison's life, she resents Mark for running a check on Brett, which finds little, even suspiciously so. Steve questions in vain the real, clueless Eddie, a fence in prison. Brett cleverly arranges Madison to seem gone mad, but the Sloanes get back to Eddie and work out his past connection with Madison and ...