After a few recent intimations on Twitter from America’s famed “working-class domestic goddess,” ABC Entertainment announced Tuesday that Roseanne will return to its home network in 2018 for an eight-episode revival with the original cast reprising the entire Conner clan.
The groundbreaking ABC sitcom starring Roseanne Barr and John Goodman about a struggling working-class family in a fictional Illinois town ran for nine seasons (1988 – 1997) and was hailed by critics as a realistic portrait of American family life. Able to put a comedic gloss on a household’s relentless grind to coexist and make ends meet, Roseanne vaulted to become America’s most-watched television show in 1989-90 and remained in the Nielsen top four into the mid-90s.
In the years after the series wrapped on May 20, 1997, a 2002 TV Guide index ranked Roseanne as the 35th greatest TV show of all time. Netflix and several other buyers were in the running to purchase the revival before ABC closed the deal to keep the series in-house.
The upcoming midseason reboot will feature Barr and Goodman, plus returning cast members Lecy Goranson (Becky), Sara Gilbert (Darlene), Michael Fishman (D.J.) and Laurie Metcalf (Jackie). Sarah Chalke, who succeeded Goranson as “Becky” after season five, will rejoin the cast in a different role.
Conversely, the BBC reports that The Big Bang Theory‘s Johnny Galecki–who played Darlene’s longtime boyfriend and eventual husband, David Healy–will be unavailable to appear due to commitments with the long-running CBS sitcom.
Early disclosures indicate the show will take place in the present day, with Barr tweeting on April 29 about the prospect of a rebirth: “of course I want to do a reboot of Roseanne-new political reality in our country will make for some great jokes!”
News of Roseanne‘s reinstatement comes amid a spate of confirmed revivals that will be ready to watch in the season ahead. Other “Gen X” favorites like Twin Peaks (Showtime), Will & Grace (NBC), The X-Files (Fox) and more are hoping to defy fanbase expectations while wooing a chunk of the millennial crowd in the process.
Despite Barr’s predominantly leftist politics, Roseanne’s no-frills and working-class ethos may heal a fraction of those freshly wounded from ABC’s cancellation of Tim Allen’s Friday night sitcom Last Man Standing. Thus far, over 100,000 of the defunct show’s approximately 8.1 million former viewers have signed a Change.org petition this week to help save it.
“Last Man Standing” stands out in the sea of network television sitcoms,” the petition reads. “It is a show that appeals to a broad swath of Americans who find very few shows that extol the virtues with which they can identify; namely conservative values. The show is about more than politics though, it is about family. In fact, politics is only a secondary part of the show, but one in which many Americans can readily identify.”
ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey says “business and scheduling reasons” justified the show’s cancellation, citing the network’s decision to forgo sitcoms on Friday night as the primary rationale. Nevertheless, the move rang curious for its timing in a post-election era filled with discussion inside the entertainment industry about tilting aim toward middle-class and blue-collar audiences.
Roseanne shouldn’t have trouble connecting with this slice of the public if the new incarnation stays faithful to the atmosphere of the original series. Way back in the age of basic cable and landline telephones, Roseanne was more than just a highly-rated sitcom with an “in-your-face” matriarch. The series also earned its renown by fearlessly confronting delicate personal and social issues like domestic violence, child abuse, abortion, alcoholism, financial hardship, professional failure and much more.
It was a complicated show that’s pitch perfect for our increasingly complicated times. With the bulk of the show’s old writers and producers reported to be locked-in for the next chapter, let’s hope they can skillfully marry the past to the present.