8 Simple Rules.

[Guest tiarnantman]

God I miss it.

Easily one of the best sitcoms ever in my opinion, if not the best. Shame it got cancelled, really, although admittedly it was almost expected due to the annoying overuse of CJ (the worst main character by far).

So, what are your opinions on it?

[Cactus Drags]

Hey, CJ's kinda cool!

No way is it anything close to the best sitcom ever, but it was alright to catch if nothing else was on. Shame abc1 ruined it with their constant fucking repeats.

[Benji]

With no disrespect to John Ritter, 8SR wasn't all that funny until CJ came in, it was a generic kind of comedy anyway (albeit a more amusing generic comedy than others), but when the family dynamic shifted it became a truly great show, the episodes after Ritter's death are some of my favourites.

[Guest tiarnantman]

I know a lot of people agree with you, but, I dunno, I just thought it had a much better TV show feeling during the Ritter days. After his death, it wasn't really '8 Simple Rules' any more. I mean, it was still a very, very good show, but not the same. And I always thought that was mainly due to the CJ character, and Jim/Grampa as well, although to a lesser extent. They were brought in to replace both sides of 'Paul', but didn't really succeed in that. It became less about Kerry and Bridget and their overprotective parents (well, parent) and more about the on-going comedy in the life of CJ, which ruined it, because the overprotective father thing and his relationship with Bridget and Kerry were the things that attracted most of the viewers.

Edited January 10, 2008 by tiarnantman

[IAceI]

It's was alright, I preferred Home Improvement though.

Much love to Kayley and Amy though, they are lovely. However Martin/Rory was just the annoying little brother there to be a brother and wasn't particularly funny at all, plus he ended up with girls waaay out of his league.

I like pre and post Ritter in their own way, they're both good. When CJ and Jim came in it was quite good but the writers went 'sex-reference crazy' after awhile it appeared and they seemed desperate to get some sex reference into every show ever possible.

It wouldn't have lasted much longer without being funny, not sure how a show with so few seasons and actually got cancelled can be billed 'the best sitcom ever' but each to their own.

Still, I'd still watch the repeats if they were still being shown every now and again.

Also I love how in episode 1 Kyle was billed as this rebel who was kicked out of his old school, but he just turned out to be a thick shit.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Speaking of Martin Spanjers, was he not in a Pizza Hut commercial recently? The other day I sat down to watch TV and they were doing one of those commercials for the Pizza Hut doubles and this guy's daydreaming about two babes delivering the pizzas and I swear that's who it was, he was just wearing black rimmed glasses.

[TheTruth]

I liked this show & one of the better sitcoms that were out there, always nice to catch the repeats now & again. I like both post & pre Ritter, but the show turned into something different & felt 'new' in post Ritter.

[thuganomic]

That Kerry girl sure was ugly.

I feel like 8 Simple Rules could've gotten a lot better as it went on, but as it was, it's nowhere near one of the best sitcoms, even one of the best sitcoms dealing with a family. I'd put shows like Home Improvement, Everybody Loves Raymond, and the criminally underrated Grounded for Life above 8 Simple Rules.

[MalaCloudy Black]

That Kerry girl sure was ugly.

You shut your goddamn mouth right now, mister.

[thuganomic]

Hmm....that was to incite a reaction from tiarnantman....but I appear to have drawn out another one. Interesting....

[LexChaney]

It came on one the channels I had on the freeview box over here and I used to watch it before Scrubs and I really got into it after a while. I always loved CJ as he was funny but I remember in one episode were he had a heart to heart with one of the girls about the death of there father and it was something that I wasn't expecting and you saw some kind of a different side to him.

[Adam]

I really liked 8 Simple Rules, shame abc1 got cancelled, I don't think any other channel over here has picked it up, have they?

I preferred it when Ritter was around, too, and wasn't a big fan of CJ (he was alright though). I'm not sure if abc1 ever showed the episode in which Ritter's character actually died, did they? I don't even know how they dropped him from the show when Ritter died, actually, so I've definitely never seen it.

[Hobo]

James Freakin' Garner made this show better after Ritter died.

Especially when he watched Rockford.

[LexChaney]

Couldn't think what channel it was until you mentioned it Corino, yeah abc1 it was pretty cool channel with Hardware and other stuff. It never did show his character die as I remember Cate had a phone call saying that he had died or something like that.

[IAceI]

Well they were shooting an episode when Ritter actually collapsed and died, so I'm assuming it got scratched completely and they started again obviously with the 2-part-no-audience episode where they deal with the death.

Also the death was meant to be he went shopping for milk and collapsed and died in the grocery store I believe.

And since there's no need to start a new thread; how fucking shit was Hope & Faith? The only good thing about that was I could tell everyone how awesome Michaela from Transformers was when we were watching the trailers because I'd seen her in Hope & Faith. It really was a God awful program.

[LexChaney]

Hope and Faith god I watched that as well and it was bloody shit. I can't even think of anything good about it so I'm a loss there.

Edited January 11, 2008 by Lex Luther

[IAceI]

Well, Megan Fox... like I said.

[Guest tiarnantman]

Hope & Faith was horrible. Sure, there was Megan Fox, but the rest? Ugh. And I dunno, I always saw the main characters as sort of rip-offs of the 8SR stars - the Megan Fox character was Bridget with darker hair (although the original actress was blonde as well), the other daughter was clearly a younger Kerry, the son was a younger Rory, the mum was like Kate, the calm, less crazy member of the family, the dad was sort-of like Paul, and the main character (can't remember if it was Hope or Faith) was similar to CJ. Hell, they even had a single grandfather from the mother's side of the family. Perhaps I'm comparing them too much, but I dunno, it seems sort of blatant.

That Kerry girl sure was ugly.

[thuganomic]

Yeah, that's the girl. Ugh. Get her off my screen.

[MyKILLv2.0]

I really liked 8 Simple Rules before Ritter died. Sure it wasn't groundbreaking or anything, but the show itself was funny. However with Ritter passing away, the show was really doomed since the show's concept was the over protective dad dealing with his two different daughter's who were "coming of age". Katie Segal while she may be a decent actress could not fill that role. David Spade obviously couldn't fill that role. I actually thought James Garner COULD have possibly filled that role as the grandfather, but for whatever reason they tried to shift the load onto Spade and Segal.

Oh well, it was good while it lasted. It was much better the a lot of crap on TV now like According to Jim.