When times are good, life is good for the shoe salesman. When times are bad, life is good for the shoe repairman. In the network-TV business, times are not so good. Its biggest hits are aging and atrophying, with no breakout smash among the fall's new shows. So the networks have hung on to several high-profile series, each with a potentially fatal flaw, to see if they can buff them up and get a few more seasons' use out of them. Long-running series always evolve, of course: Law & Order may soon have gone through more generations of actors than Cats. But rarely are TV shows remade as fundamentally as 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, The Practice and The West Wing have been, let alone all in one season. The most drastic retooling starts this week with the first episode of 8 Simple Rules (ABC, Tuesdays, 8 p.m. E.T.) since the death of star John Ritter in September. Sitcoms have lost stars before (recently, an ailing Michael J. Fox on Spin City), but 8 Simple Rules is a special case? a light comedy, with Ritter as suburban dad Paul Hennessy, that suddenly has no dad and little to laugh about.
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机译：当时机成熟时，对推销员而言，生活就是美好的。在艰难的日子里，修鞋匠的生活会很美好。在网络电视行业，时代不是那么好。其最大的亮点是衰老和萎缩，在秋季的新秀中没有突围。因此，这些网络都挂在了几个引人注目的系列上，每个系列都有潜在的致命缺陷，以查看它们是否可以加强它们并从中获得更多的使用价值。当然，长期运行的系列总是在演变：与《猫与猫》相比，《法律与秩序》可能很快经历了更多的演员时代。但电视节目很少能像约会《我的十几岁的女儿》，《练习》和《西翼》的8条简单规则那样，从根本上进行重制，更不用说在一个季节中全部如此。自9月星光约翰·里特（John Ritter）逝世以来，最激烈的重组工作始于8个简单规则的第一集（美国广播公司，美国东部时间星期二，晚上8点）。 Sitcoms之前已经失去了明星（最近在Spin City上生病的Michael J. Fox），但是8条简单规则是特例吗？与里特（Ritter）一起当郊区父亲保罗·轩尼诗（Paul Hennessy）的轻喜剧，突然之间没有爸爸，也几乎没有什么可笑的。
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