Mum's Monday: 8 Simple Rules

As it is now new on Comedy Central, I thought I would write down my thoughts on this feel-good TV.

When I first see this listed in the TV guide I was intrigued as to what it was about. I soon found out it was about the Hennessy family, Paul, the dad (John Ritter), Cate, the mom (Katey Sagal), Bridget, the eldest daughter (Kaley Cuoco), Kerry (Amy Davidson) the middle child and Rory, the youngest son (Martin Spanjers). To give it its full title ‘8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter’. The story lines were clear and with a likable family, this made this nice to watch.

After initially watching it and despite liking it, there was a short while before I watched it again, by this time the dad, Paul wasn’t in it. My first thought, “he had left the show”, or, “I had missed the divorce storyline”, however, as I continued watching the show I discovered he had passed away. Unfortunately, I heard John Ritter who played Paul had actually passed away so young, leaving a hole in the show. Then sometime later, I watched the devastating episode; this was extremely sad to watch. This episode was filmed without a studio audience and was respectful to the situation.

Despite this tragedy, the makers of the show were, it seemed determined to carry on with it. So now they bring in Grandpa Cate’s dad Jim Egan (James Garner). Now we have whole new different storylines, with the shift in the family, we see Jim talking with Cate about her wild childhood ways. This is consistent with previous storylines as we have seen a little insight in to it, especially the one where Paul and Cate take the kids to Florida during spring break. It works but I can’t help feel that the show lost something more when they lost Paul.

Another new character they bring in is C.J Barnes (David Spade) he is Cate sister’s son, she had illegitimately before she married his step dad. He doesn’t get on well with Jim, as he is wild and erratic sometimes and I often wondered why the character was bought in, there is one storyline however, that ties it all together with the title. Bridget and Kerry go to a bar; they are under age but Bridget has a plan. She takes C.J.s identification and gives Kerry a fake one. Bridget gets talking to, as she later finds out to be a policeman and they do a runner. Bridget however has given him her home phone number.

This turns out to be one of the best episodes of the series, as the policeman only knows Bridget as C.J. I should point out Bridget and C.J are both blonde and waving an ID about Bridget could have got away with taking it. That same night C.J is sent out to collect medication but is distracted and ends up in, what we can only guess is a Gay bar. He doesn’t want to talk about it when he gets home. At the end of the episode after many phone calls and wrong numbers, the policeman turns up at the house and says he is looking ‘A gorgeous blonde, C.J’. C.J. quite rightly says he has never seen him before. The look on everyone’s face is so funny.

Where this show would have gone, the route it would have taken if they hadn’t lost Paul we don’t know but it was a great idea for a show before and they made the best of a tragic situation. Sadly, I feel the show came to an end before it was intending to but nothing lasts forever.

R.I.P John Ritter (1948-2003)