You call this a John Ritter show? Not once in the pilot episode of 8 Simples Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter did he trip over a couch! Not once did he overhear someone discussing a plumbing problem and assume they were talking about sex! Not once did he threaten Felipe with a cleaver!

All right, so I wasn't really expecting the last of these, but it really couldn't have hurt the show. Despite what the title implies, this sitcom doesn't involve a father trying to secretly date his own teenage daughters (which at least would have been bizarrely fascinating for at least one episode), but rather about a father who has apparently never talked to his children and now has to supervise them. The whole premise comes across as completely bizarre. The parents are allegedly married, but the parenting arrangement, as they describe it, sounds like the mother has had custody for the past 15 years. I guess in this world parents can't see their children and work at the same time. Fine.

So the show has a blatantly unrealistic premise, is free of physical comedy, and isn't the incest comedy it bills itself as. Is it good enough to overcome these problems?

Not even close. As mentioned previously, ABC is intent this season on producing the most inoffensive pablum they can generate in the name of "family comedy." I'm not sure why they think this is the way to save their network from its ratings coma, and, frankly, I think we as a viewing public should be insulted. I guess the idea is that we're not capable of working a full day at work and still be able to appreciate and enjoy a program that requires us to think at all. The small part of me that remembers that I own something like 2 shares of Disney stock clearly hopes this to be true, but the larger part - the part that enjoys watching televison - would really like to think that the viewing public can certainly handle quality programming, no matter how brain-numbing their daylight activities may be. Of course, the pilot of 8 Simple Rules got great rating, so I guess ABC was right. Great.

Rating: D (The Very Definition of Mediocrity)

Topics: sitcoms, television

The season's just starting, but looks like we alredy have a strong contender for "Worst Individual Scene." The opening "comedy" sequence of Life With Bonnie is horrible. Really horrible. Everyone's overslept! One of the kids is pretending to be sick! Dad can't find his shoes! Mom's sweather is too tight! The wacky maid is nowhere to be found! Mom falls down while having the kids stretch her sweater! Funny!

I've been hearing for months now that ABC's stated policy for the fall season is to produce an unwavering slate of MOR, thoroughly unoffensive, complete familiar programming, but I wasn't really prepared to see it quite yet. This opening segment makes Dharma and Greg or Mad About You seem edgy and avant-garde. It's trite, clichéd, and extraordinarily unfunny.

Which is why I was very surprised when I found myself laughing out loud five minutes later. After the painful family comedy sequences, we get to see Bonnie (yes, this is one of those shows in which everyone seems to use their real first name) hosting her morning talk show. I read that this show was developed around this premise, and it's really a shame they didn't keep to their initial focus better. The talk show bits, from what I've read, are largely improvised and feel like a talk show gone awry. The guests quickly become drunk; Bonnie makes fun of them; the sidekick disappears. All-in-all, it feels like a good talk show segment. Not one of the vaguely interesting celebrity interviews, but one of the "Johnny laughing at a human figure with an axe in its crotch" bits. It's a good premise, and I'd be perfectly happy to just watch that for a half-hour.

But throughout the genuinely entertaining morning show, they cut back to the family comedy bits. One of the children and his friend are forced by the maid to fold clothing. "I think we're going to be late for school," sez one. "That depends on how good we are at ironing," replies the other. Man, this is painful stuff.

And it doesn't get any better. Instead of sticking with the morning show, we get Bonnie on a date with her husband and a boring doctor couple. She doesn't like socializing with them! They fight! Funny. I suppose bickering counts as entertainment these days (at least juding by the success of Everybody Loves Raymond and its ilk), but this is witless, dull, annoying bickering. Then there's some schmaltz. Just what this show needed.

Overall, the show has promise. One can only hope that post-pilot retooling focused on increasing the improv talk show bits. And perhaps they could remove some of the children. Especially the one that looks like Bruce Davison. Seeing a three foot tall Bruce Davison man-child is not something I need to see on a semi-regular basis.

Rating: C- (1/3 Good, 2/3 Aggressively Bad)

Topics: sitcoms, television