Death of Diana Hyland

I remember an episode, Halloween I believe, in which one or more of them is trying to comfort Nicholas and he says something like his "mom was a good mom and good moms just don't leave" their kids.
There was also a Christmas time/type episode in which Tommy was upset because it was his year to receive a special Christmas gift from their mother.

I don't believe they knew how to handle her death and especially how to write it into a series watched by children. It was a different time then and children were more innocent.

In their original airings, Joan was said to be off visiting a relative who was expecting a baby, in those first season episodes in which she did not appear. Diana Hyland even recorded voiceovers for a few episodes, and Tom and Joan had a few phones calls.

When the show reran in the summer of 1977 before the start of the new season, ABC only reran the episodes in which Hyland didn't appear, in an effort to help viewers adjust to life without Joan. The episodes were re-edited to remove mentions of Joan (and in some cases, new material was shot to replace the Tom/Joan phone calls). And a new intro was pasted on to these episodes, one that didn't include Hyland.

Unfortunately, the DVD release as well as the current syndication package use those summer of 1977 re-edits, as opposed to the original versions (we had a thread about this issue a month ago).

Joan's death was addressed frequently in the second season. In one episode, Tom reflects on the darkroom he had built for her. In the mortgage burning episode, he makes a speech in which he expresses his sadness over Joan not being there. In the episode in which Tom marries Abby, both Nicholas and Elizabeth deal with Joan's death in different ways, and in the Christmas episode, as noted elsewhere, Tommy is shown dealing with her death and, at the end, receives the book of poetry that Joan inscribed to him.

When they did one of the reunion movies -- the one dealing with Tom's birthday -- Abby makes a large card decorated with family photos. One of those photos is of Diana Hyland and Joannie thanks Abby for including a picture of their mother.

As for the first season, there likely wasn't time to address her death, as television shows are produced on tight schedules. I imagine that, when Diana Hyland died, those involved with the show were quite shocked and saddened and not sure how to handle it, so they quickly wrote those scenes mentioning that Joan was out of town.

It was heavily addressed in the Christmas episode with Tommy missing her and Tom presents him with a present from her before she passed away. EVERYBODY watching was in tears.

Her death actually made the show. No one was watching it before then. We started watching it to see how the show dealt with her passing.

Somebody posted a link to this article in another thread (http://worldaccordingtomandy.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-older-shows-have-trouble-holding-up.html), and I think it sums of one aspect of this discussion nicely (that is, how the Internet and social media make us pay more attention to these changes).

Another example that happened around the same time was when Jim Davis, who played Jock on Dallas, died unexpectedly. He was explained as being away for a while, and then he "disappeared." The whole issue just lingered for about a year on the show, even though viewers knew Davis had died. Back then, it seemed like that was just one way they decided to handle it, especially if it was early in the series (the case with Hyland and Davis), and they weren't sure if they would recast the role. Dallas producers didn't recast Jock, but they did have someone show up claiming to be him a few years later, so they were able to use the mystery to their advantage. With Eight is Enough, I think they were still trying to keep the show relatively light, with a focus on family, so it would have been difficult to have a death in the fifth or sixth episode.

They previously used the "character is away" storyline more often just as a stalling tactic.

All that said, it seems pretty unbelievable that Joan would die in a plane crash while on a freelance assignment. As I recall, she had just started her freelance photography business in her next to last episode, but she's already flying on assignments?

I disagree. She died after the first 4 episodes and they didn't know how to handle it. So they continued 9 more season 1 episodes and Season 2 began with Abby meeting Tom. At this point Tom talks about Joan and then that later episode where she bought Xmas gift to Tommy before she died. I don't know what you wanted them to do, maybe handle it like Roseanne? I think I only began watching the show in Season 2, so didn't know the backstory 'til later.

Ignoring This Does Not Make It Go Away: This Is Sort Of Running Away From The Problem/Issue.
I Learned About This After My Mom Another Joan Had Passed-On In December 20th 2001. And The
Brown household Was Rocked By This Death No Matter How You May Realize This. After Diana Had Died
It Was Like Joan Wells-Bradford Never Existed. Would They Do That To My Mom Joan Ellen Brown If This Was
A Cast Member. I Suppose Yes: And Would Be Considered So Lousey.

I don't know the episode but there was an incident where Nicholas was lashing out and they realized it was over his mother's death. I think the Dad talked to him about it while he was up in the tree