John Ritter's final appearance in an original episode of ABC's "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" drew an average of 17.45 million total viewers making it the most watched regularly
scheduled program on Tuesday night so far this season, according to preliminary Nielsen estimates. The episode was the third original this season before the series goes into repeats and production
begins on a new storyline that deal's with the death of Ritter's character.
