The story of Roseanne Season 10 is certainly a whirlwind. First the series was resurrected twenty years after the last new episode aired, all the original cast returned in some fashion. The series premiere rating was good enough that ABC renews it for another season just three days later, and then days after the last episode airs star Roseanne Barr makes a rather racist tweet and the show is immediately cancelled by the network president.
In Britain Roseanne was part of Channel 4’s six o’clock spot, where Monday to Friday between six and seven they’d show various sitcoms such as The Cosby Show, Boy Meets World and teen dramas like Dawson’s Creek and Party of Five. A timeslot unfortunately now occupied by re-runs of The Simpsons and horrendous soap opera Hollyoaks. In America however Roseanne was one of the biggest sitcoms around.
The show launched the career of the magnificent John Goodman, while his on-screen daughter Sarah Chalke went on to star in shows like Scrubs and Rick and Morty, and his on-screen son-in-law Johnny Galecki wound up the star of possibly the biggest sitcom of the modern era, The Big Bang Theory.
The new season saw us pick up with The Connor family right where we left them, if like the programme makers you forget all about the previous season where they won the lottery, went on some bizarre adventures and killed off John Goodman.
Although, It’s season narrative has been shaped somewhat by circumstance, single mum Darlene has moved back to the family home with her children, largely due to the fact her on-screen husband Galecki is tied up with his own show, and Becky is directionless following the death of her husband, originally played by Glen Quinn who has sadly passed away since the show went off air.
A large part of the nine-episode series is dedicated to catching up with the characters we knew and loved. There’s an episode where Galecki comes back and another episode which focuses on what to do with Roseanne’s mother, a returning Estelle Parsons, after she’s kicked out of her retirement home.
There’s also a great piece of fan service which involves both actresses who played Becky Connor. Original actress <Alicia Goranson, who returns to the role here, is hired to be a surrogate for a woman played by second Becky actress Sarah Chalke. Their first meeting also gets one of the biggest laughs of the series.
The revival has been done with such care that it feels like we’d never left the Connors behind, which makes it even worse for fans now the show has been cancelled. If it’d been a massive train wreck we could’ve forgotten it and moved on, instead we fell in love again and are now left heartbroken.
There is talk about continuing the show focusing on Darlene, which could work. The revival did give significant screen time to both her and children and given how the series ends it is quite possible to write Roseanne out of her own show. 8 Simple Rules managed to carry on without it’s main character following the sudden death of John Ritter and could go down a similar road.
The question is though who owns the show as it is now? and will Barr let it continue without her? As long as they can keep Goodman and Laurie Metcalf involved it should be fine, they do get the majority of the laughs.
Are you a fan of Roseanne? What did you make of the latest season? And would you watch a show based on Darlene?