The Big Family in 7th Heaven

The family originally consisted of five children (Matt, Mary, Lucy, Simon, and Ruthie), but in the third season, Annie gave birth to twins, Sam and David.

Three of the Camdens (Matt, Mary and Simon) moved away from home sometime during the show's run due to real-life circumstances or requests from the cast people that portrayed them. On the show, Simon went to college and Matt married and pursued his career as a doctor far away from the family. Despite these three all being absent from the Camden home at varying points throughout the show, the house is still always full. Lucy never leaves the Camden home during the course of the series (when Lucy marries, she and her husband move into the garage apartment and start to raise their family) while Ruthie left for a short while in the last season to go to Scotland, and the Camdens offer shelters to various houseguests at different points in the show.

Due to a dissatisfaction with the show and the image that was being created for her by portraying Mary Camden, Jessica Biel asked to leave the series and was slowly written out of the show beginning in 2000; after an appearance on an episode in September 2003, did not appear again on the show until the final episode of the tenth season. This is in sharp contrast to Watson and Gallagher, who regularly guested on the show following their characters' departure from the Camden household.