List of A Different World episodes

Everyone returns to Hillman for the start of the new school year, including newlyweds Dwayne and Whitley. A discussion of the Rodney King police brutality trial leads to the Waynes' recount of their honeymoon in Los Angeles, which coincided with the riots that ensued following the verdict.

Guest stars: Sister Souljah and Gilbert Gottfried. Debbie Allen makes a uncredited cameo appearance as a maid cleaning Bill Cosby's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tempers flair, anxiety increases, and Dwayne and Whitley are separated as the Los Angeles riots begin around them. Freddie's summer transformation from a peace-loving hippie into a suit-wearing law school student impresses Ron but shocks Shazza.

Ron mediates Dwayne and Whitley's conflict over whose belongings will go and whose will stay in their new apartment—and gets his own room downstairs. The underclassmen engage in a stepping challenge, hoping to promote unity.

After Terrell is accused of taping a "digit ho" sign onto Charmaine's back during math class, a mock trial tests the students' attitudes on gender harassment and threatens Terrell's future at Hillman.

Kim has trouble dissecting her first cadaver in anatomy class, but fellow medical student Spencer Boyer helps her regain her confidence. Ron offers Kim support at home, but can't shake off his attraction to Freddie. Whitley goes on an overnight business trip, leaving Dwayne home alone for the first time.

Whitley convinces Dwayne to spend their savings on an expensive painting, but her professional life takes a wrong turn and the painting is later stolen in a home invasion. During a couples dinner Ron, Kim, Freddie, and Shazza try to work out their differences with each other.

Guest star: Tom Wright.

Work pressures have Dwayne showing less romantic interest in Whitley, who calls in her problem to The Montel Williams Show — unaware that Gina has organized a dorm-wide viewing party. Freddie also struggles with the need to reveal to Kim her relationship with Ron.

Whitley's mother shows up for Thanksgiving with an apparent new fiancé, whose motives Whitley doubts, while Dwayne's mother likewise shows up unannounced; the fighting that ensues leads to the mothers being embroiled in a local protest for Haitian rights and being hauled off to jail. Waiting for their children to show up with bail money, the jailed mothers-in-law are shocked to learn of the recent blows to the family finances; each makes up with her child after expressing the grief she had felt over the circumstances of her only child's wedding. Revealing that he knows Freddie is cheating on him with Ron, Shazza breaks up with her.

Dwayne takes on the difficult task of mentoring two teenagers from rival gangs.

Guest stars: the rap duo Kris Kross, who also perform the song "It's a Shame."

After her clothes were stolen in the home invasion, Whitley buys an expensive suit for a job interview with the intention of returning it. But she stains the suit before she can, does not get the job, and is forced to file for unemployment. Charmaine's long-distance relationship with Lance ends with a missed train and a phone call.

Guest star: Alaina Reed Hall.

Whitley takes a position teaching rebellious students at a school in a low-income neighborhood, eventually breaking through to them by teaching them African-American history not contained in their outdated textbooks. Lena's burgeoning relationship with Dorian may be threatened when he reveals that he is practicing abstinence.

Guest stars: Marla Gibbs, Marques Houston, Romeo Jones, and Marquise Wilson.

Disappointed with how her year has gone, Whitley determines to plan herself the best surprise birthday party ever by prying Dwayne's plans out of Kim. Meanwhile, Charmaine and Terrell take desperate measures to pass their French midterm exam.

Ron and Mr. Gaines purchase a nightclub together, but the cancellation of the opening night act threatens to send Ron into financial ruin. To save the day, Mr. Gaines calls in his four nerdy but talented grandnieces—Faith, Hope, Charity, and Henrietta.

Guest stars: Bebe Drake-Massey, Aries Spears, and the original members of the R&B quartet En Vogue, who also perform the song "Free Your Mind."

Dwayne develops a grammar-baseball video game and sells it to Kinishewa, who not only buys the concept but offers Dwayne a job in Tokyo. Whitley finds out she is pregnant. The mothers-in-law and Mr. Wayne come to prepare Dwayne and Whitley for the move, then proceed to get drunk after discovering their first grandchild will be born in Japan. Ron and Dwayne have a falling out over Ron's input in creating the video game. When Ron contemplates suing Dwayne, it causes Freddie to question their relationship. Freddie gets her articles published in the Hillman legal journal and, after many tries, Kim finally says "yes" to Spencer's marriage proposal. Everyone gathers together at The Pit to give the Waynes a surprise farewell party the night before their departure. Ron and Dwayne reconcile in the final scene of the series.

Guest stars: Diahann Carroll, Bebe Drake-Massey, Patti Labelle, Josephine Premice, and Harold Sylvester.

Dwayne is convinced to apply for a summer job at Kinishewa...and is surprised when his ex-girlfriend Kinu shows up as the interviewer. But when he doesn't get the position Dwayne wonders is his breakup with Kinu was the root cause.

Guest star: Alisa Gyse Dickens.

Gina, Dorian, Lena, Charmaine and Terrell participate in a dance marathon fundraiser for Amnesty International. Ron offers his nightclub to host the event, but organizer Freddie is unconvinced that his materialistic approach to promoting is the right means to achieve her ends. Whitley agrees to look after one of her students for the weekend, and she proves to be as much of a handful at home as she is in the classroom.

Guest stars: Aries Spears and John Marshall Jones.

Strapped for cash, Whitley and Dwayne opt to share a cabin with Mr. Gaines and his wife, in an attempt at a long-delayed honeymoon. The Gaineses have a major fight over Vernon's distant relationship with their son—whom he left in charge of The Pit in his absence—and refuse to share a room, throwing a major curve into the Wayneses' plans for a romantic weekend.

Guest star: Bebe Drake-Massey and T.K. Carter.

While preparing for a history assignment on the only meeting between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, Terrell and Charmaine are physically threatened by several local residents, causing Terrell to take drastic measures that could spell the end of his matriculation at Hillman; Spencer proposes marriage to Kim as often as four times a day without receiving a clear "yes."

Lena receives a visit by her friends from Baltimore, including ex-boyfriend Piccolo, which causes a rivalry with Dorian and a rift in Lena's other relationships.

Guest stars: Shaun Baker, Monica Calhoun, and Tupac Shakur.

When famed singer-actress Lena Horne comes to campus, Whitley mounts an elaborate tribute with her students, but Kim is struck by Whitley's inability to pay similar respect to Ms. Horne's contemporary, Mr. Gaines.

Guest stars: Lena Horne, Marques Houston, and Romeo Jones.

Gina, Lena, Charmaine, Dorian, and Terrell rent an off-campus apartment from a grumpy older man who turns out to be a reclusive, former professional baseball star. He is inspired to consider attending college, particularly after seeing an old flame who is now a professor. Gina's abusive ex-boyfriend returns to try to establish contact anew, frightening her and infuriating her friends.

Guest stars: Billy Dee Williams, Leslie Uggams, and Edafe Blackmon.