MTV2 showed this episode yesterday. Basically, the episode is about a female friend of Shawn's (played by Ariana Richards AKA Lex Murphy from Jurassic Park), who has a physically abusive father. It's arguably, an uncharacteristically "dark" episode (I think it's pretty save to call it a "Very Special Episode") during the pre-college (Seasons 6-7) years of BMW.

I guess my point of bringing this up is do you think that BMW handled a "child abuse" episode better than say, other sitcoms of that era like for instance Full House:
http://boymeetsworldreviewed.blogspot.com/2014/05/episode-4x08-dangerous-secret.html

I bring up Full House (incidentally, another '90s era TGIF show) because it had an episode from its sixth season called "Silence is Not Golden" (coincidentally, a pre-BMW Danielle Fishel is in the episode), where Stephanie's male friend, Charles doesn't want anybody to know that his father is abusing him:
http://www.fullhousereviewed.com/2012/12/14/season-6-episode-17-silence-is-not-golden/