Darn money and contracts; Season 4 should have never happened!

I mean how many times can you "re-launch" a show during one season? And why did they need to re-launch at all? Fredie Prinze might have taken his own life, but they had a great cast involving Della Resse, Scattman Crothers, and Jack Alverson. They didn't need some 12 year old kid to replace Prinze. They cast proved in the last two epsiodes filmed in season 3 after Prinzes death that the formula would have worked with the three of them and nobody else. I mean if you got to continue to do the show, then do the show right. Don't just throw in a Mexican boy so Ed can call someone "Chico," it wasn't needed.

I actually watched the fourth season when it was on TV Land and it had some moments, but it was really bad. Della Resse who was the antongist replacement for "Chico" in the third season due to Prinze's own drug problems starts becoming buddies with Ed and it got so bad that Della finally just threw her hands up and quit or didn't renew her contract or whatever it was. Then in a fit of desperation they threw Charo on the series, and did musical numbers for a few shows. They did throw in a good two-part episode to finally explain what happened to Prinze's Chico and then Charo left and they decided to find a female Freddie Prinze - a seventeen year old runaway named Monica. The last episodes with Monica are painful to watch, as even Alverson seemed to just play Ed as a sad, regretful old coot that had just given up -- much like the rest of the cast for real. One episode near the end, where Monica and a bunch of girls open a car wash in Ed's garage was the final straw as an ending scene is just Ed by himself in his office at night after the wash closed and he and Raoul (who Ed started calling by his real name by then) reflect on certain things. The next episode guest starred Alice Ghostly accusing Ed of being a 'peeping Tom' and the show ends on a flat note. Even though I never watched the show after Ritter died, I think Eight Simple Rules went out better than this.