After their divorced mother takes a job in Saudi Arabia, fraternal twins Sott and Jason Collins move from New York to Malibu to be with their father Peter, who runs a restaurant there called the Lighthouse. Both boys are immediately attracted to their neighbor Samantha and just as quickly start competing for her attention. Samantha's best friend Jennifer, or ""Stads"" as she's better known, starts developing a crush on Jason. Samantha is trying to stop Murray Updyke's rich father from drilling for oil near the beach, and to impress her, the boys plan to hold a fund-raiser for her campaign. The party is held at the Lighthouse on a night when Mr. Collins is away, and it quickly gets out of control, finally being broken up by the fire marshall. Peter Collins returns to find the mess the boys made. Unsure that he's ready to handle raising the duo, he plans to send them back to New York to live with their grandmother, but a talk with Murray convinces him not to. The money from the benefit hel

Condo developers plan to get rid of the Surf Shack, Murray's favorite place. Samantha thinks something should be done about it, and of course the brothers are always ready to help if it will impress her. They try to scam the developers by posing as corporate raiders but it doesn't work. Murray's dad tells him he will by the Shack, but only if Murray will give up surfing. Finally, the boys talk their father into buying it and putting Murray in charge. Also, Stads has to fight off the amorous advances of a guy she rescued from drowning.

While caring for their father's tropical fish while he's away, Jason and Scott find one of them, dad's favorite ""Goldie,"" dead. To raise the money to replace the expensive fish, the brothers hold a Miss Malibu contest and fix it so that Samantha will be the winner. Emcee Murray crowns Traycee the winner by mistake. Peter returns home early and the boys are desperate to replace the fish. Stads comes though with the new fish at the last minute, but the boys find out that it really wasn't Goldie who died in the first place.

Scott is restoring a 1965 Mustang and Samantha is spending a lot of time helping him with it, causing concern for Jason and Stads. To stop Scott and Sam from going to a car show in Santa Barbara, Stads and Jason make it look like the Mustang was stolen. Scott and Sam get wind of the plot, however, and turn the joke on them. When it turns out that Samantha can't go to the car show, Jason and Stads share a relieved laugh--and then a kiss.

Samantha is chosen by fashion photographer Devon for a photo shoot, but Jason believes that he's just hitting on her. Sam breaks a date with Scott for a session with Devon. Scott watches as the photographer puts the moves on other girls. Samantha is supposed to go with Devon to Paris. At the shoot, he tries to make his move on her, but Scott arrives with a rose in hand in time to rescue her. Samantha forgets about the trip to Paris.