Maverick's James Garner on 8 Simple Rules for 4 episodes

[Pavan]

James Garner has taken on what is likely to be one of the toughest roles in primetime this season.

The veteran actor has been tapped to guest star in four episodes of ABC/Touchstone TV's "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter," taking the sitcom through the tricky transition from a show that revolved around the travails of a harried dad and newspaper columnist played by John Ritter, who died of a heart ailment last month, to a new focus on a family coping with the sudden loss of its patriarch.

Garner will play the father of Katey Sagal's character, the widowed Cate Hennessy, who comes to support his daughter and three teenage grandchildren as they grapple with grief and the harsh realities of becoming a single-parent family. Garner's character will be recently separated from his wife, who has not yet been cast. The grandmother character will appear in at least one or two episodes but is not likely to appear in all four with Garner.

Production on the first post-Ritter episode, which will run an hour, is set to begin Monday. A Touchstone spokeswoman stressed Wednesday that many details of the story line are still being hammered out, as is the final version of the script. Garner's four episodes are expected to run consecutively.

After notching huge ratings for the airing of the final three episodes completed by Ritter for the show's sophomore season, "8 Simple Rules" went into reruns this week. The first Garner episode is expected to air in the first or second week of November, during the sweep.

ABC and Touchstone brass declined to elaborate on plans for the post-Ritter transition. It's understood that producers are trying to secure return appearances by some of the guest stars who appeared on the show last season, a list that includes Larry Miller, Cindy Williams and John Ratzenberger.

Garner, who most recently appeared last year in the short-lived CBS Supreme Court drama "First Monday," launched his career as the star of ABC's irreverent 1957-62 Western "Maverick." In the 1970s, Garner earned five consecutive lead drama actor Emmy nominations (and one win) for his role as offbeat Detective Jim Rockford in NBC's "The Rockford Files."

Garner is repped by Writers & Artists Agency and longtime manager Bill Robinson.

[EricIdlefan]

It is never, ever, easy replacing the original, especially since they are now gone, and I love James Garner but if I was him, I would be working with a very, very, heavy heart!!