Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Laughing in the Face of Death

My daughter and I watched the return of the new, post-John Ritter "8 Simple Rules..." tonight, and although I had a certain amount of trepidation going in about the laff riot potential of tragic death, I thought the writers mostly managed to mix grief and gentle humor with sufficient, but not excessive, dignity. Whether they'll be able to do it on a regular basis, of course, remains to be seen. Untimely demise isn't particularly savory sit-com fare, but single-parent families are sit-com bread-and-butter, so it seems possible that the Hennesseys might have a future. My daughter's certainly determined to keep watching; she's been eager for the program's return, and cried for a good five minutes when the episode was over. My husband, in standard women-overreact-to-art mode, sought to comfort her by saying, "It's not like anybody really died" ... then had to rethink his strategy. John Ritter may be gone, but at least in our household, his show's not dead yet.

No comments: