Season Five of
Party of Five marks the fifth birthday of Owen Salinger, youngest member of the orphaned Salinger clan. Having been previously played by twin infants Brandon Porter and Taylor Porter, Owen is now portrayed by a single child actor, Jacob Smith--and, unfortunately, has also been revealed to have a learning disability. Elsewhere in the San Francisco-based Salinger household, 29-year-old Charlie Salinger (
Matthew Fox), legal guardian of his younger siblings, is left to raise his baby daughter Diana alone when his irresponsible girlfriend Daphne (Jennifer Aspen) takes a powder. Charlie and his 20-year-old brother Bailey (Scott Wolf) later engage in a nasty custody battle over little Owen, but eventually Charlie allows Owen to live with Bailey and his girl friend Sarah (
Jennifer Love Hewitt). Meanwhile, although 19-year-old Julia Salinger (
Neve Campbell) is still the wife of Griffin Holbrook (
Jeremy London), she enters into an affair with Ned Grayson (Scott Bairstow), the violent-tempered boyfriend of Julia's Stanford roommate Maggie (Heather McComb). And musically gifted 15-year-old Claudia Salinger (
Lacey Chabert) is busily cooking up strategies to break out of boarding school and return home. As the season draws to a close, Charlie moves in with his former fiancée Kirsten (Paula Devicq), whose marriage to Dr. Paul Thomas (
Tim DeKay) is on the rocks; and, balking at the notion of marrying her live-in boyfriend Bailey, Sarah prepares to leave for New York. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide