Esteemsters
Daria and Quinn Morgendorffer start at Lawndale High, having recently moved from Highland, Texas. Quinn is immediately accepted but Daria, being somewhat plain and unfashionable, is ignored. In a psych evaluation Daria is diagnosed with low self-esteem and forced into a class to correct this. The teacher is annoying, but Daria makes friends with fellow-outcast artist Jane, who helps them out of the class, embarassing Quinn in the process. Daria also manages to annoy her family at a children's restaurant and a Sci-Fi convention.
Daria helps airhead-cheerleader Brittany out in art class, and in return, she invites Daria to a party. Quinn is also invited to the party, as are many other popular people. Daria doesn't want to go, but Jane convinces her to with the incentive that she'd be able to embarass Quinn. Janes older brother Trent gives them a ride, and Daria manages to get Jane in past the security guard. The party is stupid, and they meet Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer, who takes them on a tour. Jane heads off on her own, so Daria finds and embarasses Quinn in front of her "boyfriends" who end up fighting over her. Then they all get a ride home from Upchuck.
After meeting with friends who are thinking of college for their toddler, Helen and Jake enroll Daria and Quinn in a college prep class. As an assignment, they are to go to a college of their choice and see what life there is like. Helen and Jake take Daria and Quinn to Middleton, their Alma Mater, and give them a tour. Quinn ends up being voted Keg Queen of a frat party and getting them kicked out. Daria writes some essays for money, and Helen confiscates it. Quinn is also eventually accepted to Manatee College in Florida, which has no classes and is expensive.
After their coffe-house was broken into, Mr. O'Neill takes Daria's criticism of the shop for a suggestion--turning it into an internet cafe. Daria and Quinn end up volunteering to raise money, Quinn by selling phone-cards, and Daria by selling chocolate. Daria drags Jane into it, with the promise that she can bring a camera, and they end up NOT selling to Mrs. Johansen, an obese woman with hypoglycemia. After being called to the office they explain to Ms. Li, the principal, that the chocolate would have killed her. Quinn rakes in tons of money with the phone cards, and Daria ends up having to read at the cafe. After three failed performances, Daria walks up to the stage and reads a story entitled "Where the Future Takes Us," in which a character named Melody Powers kills communists, Bolsheviks, Cubans, and others. The school's football team breaks into a riot.
Helen and Jake won't take Quinn to the Mall of the Millenium, a super mall 100 miles away from home. Daria mentions this in economics, and Mrs. Bennet ends up sending the class on a field trip to said mall. There is a one-way mirror in a focus-group room, so the staff bribe the students with coupons. Daria gets a coupon for the doodad shop, and Jane gets one for a haircut. Quinn goes to the mall with her friends from the fashion club, and ends up being spotted. Jane scares the hair-stylist. Daria ends up being embarassed by the people from the doodad shop when she ends up being their 1,000,000th customer. They surprise her with ballons and a bag full of doodads, and take her picture, hanging it in front of the shop.
Two "talent scouts" from the Amazon Modeling Agency come to Lawdale High looking for potential models. Quinn is thrilled at having been chosen to take a special class, and although Helen and Jake aren't happy about it, they let her. Daria and Jane tag along to keep an eye on her, and Trent shows up, saying he needs to get used to being around models. Part of the class involves the girls rubbing guy's chests, and Quinn is uncomfortable, so she goes to the bathroom. Ms. Li comes in and stops the class, and Daria makes a phone call. At an assembaly the next day, men burst into the auditorium, claiming to have been invited by Ms. Li (Daria's phone call), and are searching for soldiers. Quinn is upset because she thought they would have said she won a modeling scholarship, but it turns out that Kevin won.
Daria's science class is forced to pair up and condition mice using possitive or negative reinforcement. Daria and Kevin are a pair, as are Upchuck and Brittany. Daria tricks Kevin into watching the pigskin channel so he won't screw the project up, and Daria builds a maze. Upchuck blackmails Brittany into being his slave by showing her a picture of her and a quarterback from a rival school in the backseat of a car. Quinn hits on Kevin nonstop, and Brittany becomes convinced that Daria wants to steal Kevin, so she takes her mouse and gives it to her brother Brian, who tortures it. Daria turns the situation around by using an example catering to Ms. Barch's hatred of men, and gets an A. Kevin gets a D, and both Brittany and Upchuck fail.
Quinn gets Daria to take over a babysitting job, having accidentally booked a date for that night as well. Daria doesn't want to, but goes anyway, rather than stay at home for couple's therapy "focus on teens" night. The babysitting job is with the Gupty children, Tad and Trisha, who are perfect little angels who don't watch tv or eat sweets. Daria calls Jane and has her come over and help her with the kids, eventually deprogramming all the angelicness their parents had taught them and turning them into little monsters. But not in front of their parents. Daria uses what she learned about it in a project for Mr. Demartino, an experiment in mind-controll deprogramming subtitled "My night at the Gupty's."
Brooke, a fashion-club applicant, gets a nosejob. Quinn says it's cute, but doesn't make a fuss about it, and Quinn and Sandi argue about Quinn's shallowness. Quinn thinks she needs plastic surgery, so she goes to see Dr. Shar, a female plastic surgeon who convinces her that she needs plastic surgery, and says Daria does, too. It turns out that Quinn could be made into a supermodel for 6 G's, and Daria for even more could be made to look like Quinn. Dr. Shar gives Daria a bust augmentation sample kit, and Jane jokes about Quinn taking up a collection, which she takes seriously, unlike everyone else. Daria tries to tell Quinn that she looks fine, but Quinn doesn't believe her. Then she finds out that Brooke's nosejob collapsed.
Daria and Quinn come home late, so Helen makes up a list of rules including a strict curfew. Quinn breaks curfew by going on a date, and Helen finds out when she gets caught lying about being at a study group. She holds a family court, and Daria and Quinn get grounded for a month. At school, lots of people think Daria is being subjected to mind-experiments, so Jane takes Jodie to Daria's house to prove that she's okay. Daria sneaks out to a roller-hockey game, and when she comes home and is caught, she works out a plea and gets off on parole.
Daria and Jane are at Jane's house when Trent and Jesse make a bunch of noise in the basement and her scuplture breaks. She goes downstairs and upon finding out that they're going to Alternapalooza that weekend, she scores a trip for her and Daria. Quinn and the fashion club, as well as the three J's, Mack, Jodie, Kevin, and Brittany are all going to the concert as well. Quinn and the FC, as well as Brittany, get sidetracked by outlet shopping and never go, much to the chagrin of those around them. Daria gets embarassed several times along the trip in front of Trent, who doesn't notice. The Tank, the van Daria, Jane, Trent, and Jesse are riding in, breaks down, so Jane and Jesse go to get help and Daria and Trent talk. Jane comes back and fixes the tank with her glue gun, but the concert is over so they head home. Helen and Jake had been, ahem, "busy" all weekend, and when asked about the festival, Daria and Quinn look at eachother and walk off.
Jake's eye bursts a blood vessel, so the Morgendorffers go camping in the woods with no trace of civilization (phones, etc.) with them. In the evening they tell scary stories, and the next day, after eating Psychotropic berries, Jake, Helen, and Quinn go crazy and have to be lifted out to have their stomachs pumped. Meanwhile, Jane and Trent have to go to a family reunion. They arrive and are treated like outcasts. The next morning they hijack Aunt Bernice's rental car and leave. Daria tells Jane about their trip at the end. Then Jake gets the helicopter bill and bursts vessels in BOTH his eyes. Daria "Mom, get the painkillers! Quinn... get the camera!"
Tommy Sherman, an egotistical, sexist, racist, JERK former football player is getting a safe goal post named after him, because he used to hit his head on the regular ones and get hurt. He propositions or insults everyone he meets, including Daria, calling her a misery chick. Jane jokes that maybe he won't live that long, and then the goalpost collapses on him and he dies. Jane goes home, needing some time to herself. Just about everyone in school (Brittany, Kevin, Mr. O'Neill, and Quinn) ask Daria for advice on how to deal because she's always miserable. She goes to Jane to complain, and Jane criticizes her for not caring enough, and explains that everyone wasn't calling her miserable, they were saying that she thinks. Jane was avoiding Daria, trying NOT to think. Daria tells Jane it wasn't her fault, but points out that he wasn't a nice guy. The next day, Sandi comes to Daria for advice about her cat and Daria charges her ten dollars, and says to Jane that next time it would be twenty.