The producers, writers and cast of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter were being congratulated by the critics today (Wednesday) for mounting a tasteful one-hour special dealing with the death of John Ritter's character, Paul Hennessy. (He died of a heart attack at the grocery store.) Associated Press writer Frazier Moore called it a "lovely episode" that "rose to the sad, unsought occasion." Matthew Gilbert in the Boston Globe congratulated the writers for avoiding "gauzy flashbacks" and montages and suggested that the most jarring element of the show was the commercial content, "taking us from family sorrow to promises of side-splitting laughs from Will Ferrell in Elf." Alessandra Stanley observed in the New York Times that it "was done as tastefully as television permits, blending scenes of sorrow with wry touches of comic relief." As expected, the episode delivered an enormous audience -- a 14.9 rating and a 22 share -- giving ABC a rare win for the night.
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