Is ABC honoring Ritter or exploiting him for ratings?

By Ren e Graham, E And Globe Staff, 9/23/2003

John Ritter deserves the tributes that have poured in since his startling death Sept. 11 from an undiagnosed aortic dissection. His smiling face has graced the cover of People, his life and career were remembered in an hourlong "Entertainment Tonight" special (which has also aired numerous times on VH1), and he was honored by longtime friend actor Henry Winkler during Sunday night's Emmy Awards telecast.

But is ABC doing right by Ritter with the decision to continue his show, "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," without him?

Last week, one day after Ritter was buried, ABC announced that the program, the network's second-most-watched comedy, would continue. Beginning tonight, the last three episodes starring Ritter will air. After three weeks, the show will go on hiatus, and then return, probably in time for November sweeps, with new episodes dealing with the death of Ritter's character, Paul Hennessy.

In a statement, ABC Entertainment president Susan Lyne said that while replacing Ritter was never considered, "the more we talked about it, the more we saw the impact of his death -- not just on our family but on families across the country. Here was an opportunity to do something that could maybe break out." Lyne maintains the decision is supported by Ritter's widow, actress Amy Yasbeck.

Somehow, I can't imagine that the fate of a TV show was the foremost thing on Yasbeck's mind as she began the grinding adjustment to life without her husband and the father of their young daughter. (Ritter also had three children from his first marriage.) But ABC execs know it's important to advertise Yasbeck's stamp of approval so that the rest of us won't think them a bunch of ghouls. That was certainly the unsettling feeling some must have gotten watching last week's "A Life of Laughter: Remembering John Ritter." Airing in the Tuesday night "8 Simple Rules" slot, the hourlong show featured clips from Ritter's TV and film roles and comments from his former costars including Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt of "Three's Company"; Billy Bob Thornton, who worked with Ritter on the short-lived comedy "Hearts Afire" and later in Thornton's film "Sling Blade"; and the "8 Simple Rules" cast including Katey Sagal, Kaley Cuoco, Amy Davidson, and Martin Spanjers

First of all, Cuoco, Davidson, and Spanjers, who played Ritter's children on the show, should never have been put on television to discuss a man, whom they clearly regarded with great affection, less than a week after his passing. His loss was still too raw. And no one needed host Diane Sawyer's relentless precommercial break teases promising the details of Ritter's last hours. It began to seem as if the show weren't designed so much to celebrate Ritter's life as to offer an exclusive play-by-play breakdown of his death.Of course, ABC execs probably weren't questioning themselves too much since the show drew 14 million viewers, and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, helped "the network win the night in viewers and the coveted adults 18-49 demographic." With numbers like those, no way ABC, which has been struggling for ratings, could pass on exploiting interest in Ritter for all it's worth. It's an easy bet that tonight's "8 Simple Rules" episode will be the highest-rated in the show's brief history. ABC execs are probably hoping curiosity seekers -- seeking what, one wonders -- in addition to regular viewers will tune in for the next few weeks and then return when the show is revamped. (One can almost visualize the slow-motion montages accompanied by appropriately wistful music advertising the show's return. Ugh.)

TV shows often survive the death of supporting cast members -- the loss of Nancy Marchand, who played Tony's abrasive mother, Livia, on "The Sopranos," is a recent example -- but few shows recover from the loss of its primary star. In the 1970s, NBC's "Chico and the Man" tried to continue after the suicide of star Freddie Prinze but lasted only one more season. CBS's "The Royal Family" suffered a similar fate in 1991 after the death of star Redd Foxx.

If the network heads were smart -- and network heads rarely are -- they would air Ritter's final "8 Simple Rules" episodes and leave it at that. Instead, ABC will try to wrest a few more ratings points from Ritter's memory as they saddle the show's grief-stricken cast and crew with the unenviable task of making lighthearted comedy in the shadow of death.

Renee Graham's Life in the Pop Lane column appears on Tuesdays. She can be reached at rgraham@globe.com