“The Conners” is fucking depressing

And they are all hard to look at

That’s what usually happens with single people with kids OP, they date other single parents. Lol But, yeah I gave up the show pretty early on. It just sucked and I’m sorry, but they are all gross looking too.

But none of them vote Trump...

Are they all still impoverished?

It started with a lot of promise (after they dumped Roseanne's crazy ass). But it never turned into anything, not really. They stay poor, the kids stay restless and unhappy. I never would believe Dan Conner would be such a shitty provider for his own family (but I guess that's part of the point).

I stopped watching this season.

Roseanne is a nut but I think Sara Gilbert is another evil Ellen.

The first season of the reboot (with Roseanne) was surprisingly good when I rewatched it. The current series sucks.

They really should have let Roseanne apologize and taken her Twitter away from her. She’s nuts but that’s why she’s so creative. The storyline with her being addicted to opioids was such an important topic.

I rather like it.

R8, The backlash was too big for that. mSNBC and CNN devoted an entire weekend of programming to Roseanne’s tweet.

I think it's trashy fun

It's representative of the majority of America. That's how it is outside the cities.

[quote]They really should have let Roseanne apologize and taken her Twitter away from her. She’s nuts but that’s why she’s so creative.

She was a nightmare to work with. The Valerie Jarrett stuff was the least of the problems she caused.

How is that different from the original "Roseanne"? Not being snarky; I'm genuinely curious. I stopped watching after the second season of the original show, but what I saw of it was exactly the dynamic the op describes. Did the show change?

R14 It's not that different. The Roseanne character is dead but everyone is the same or trashier than before.

R13, She was always a nightmare. Stars can get away with anything when their show is #1 except tweeting racist stuff against Obama administration officials apparently.

It's just not funny.

Laurie Metcalf is wasted on stupid half baked storylines. Sara Gilbert is funny only half the time. The other half she's preaching. And the actress who plays Becky, god bless her, is trying her best. But she just isn't strong.

I love Roseanne, but ABC had to fire her. There's no way that Roseanne would have behaved herself even after a well-rehearsed apology. She would have fucked up within a week.

I have to say The Conners has lasted a lot longer than I thought.

R14 When the series was in its original run, you felt this hope that the kids would be okay and have better lives than their parents. But in the reboot you see that they turned out like their parents - working crappy dead end jobs.

It also makes me realize how incredibly lucky I am. Both of my parents are from small towns and both were the first in their families to go to college and get the hell out of said towns. Had things been different I could have been born in a place like Lanford and been stuck there forever.

Such is life in GOP America. Not to worry though. They have MUCH worse planned for us.

[quote] I love Roseanne, but ABC had to fire her

ABC firing her was one thing. Vindictively robbing her of all her rights to the show and characters was quite another. The ultimatum to Rosanne was either surrender millions of dollars worth of intellectual property or everybody would be out of a job. A sacrifice Goodman and the rest never acknowledged at all as far as I saw.

it's a show about white trash america of course it's depressing

R21, poor little Roseanne. I guess she still has her millions of dollars to cry on..

It's like the original show but without any of the fun.

Well, this is the reality for many people in this country. Blue and Red. The thing was the original show had a certain humor/take on the working class family/life that made it smart and funny. Probably because Roseanne herself, while always a bit different and notoriously difficult, hadn't completely lost her mind yet.

There was joy in the original series. Dan and Roseanne didn’t have a lot and they had to work hard, but they really got a kick out of one another and found opportunities to laugh all the time.

The current show wants Darlene to be the Roseanne but there is zero joy. And her acting is actually worse.

Oh, and Jackie is terrible in the reboot. She’s like Barney Fife. The character is now such a dopey goofball that it’s hard to watch.

I haven't watched since the second season. Have the writers ever brought back DJ's wife from overseas? I thought her character was interesting.

Sara Gilbert seems joyless in general. That’s why making her a depressed teenager worked so well in the original show. But she does not have the charisma to be the matriarch.

Interestingly, although Roseanne the person was (at least in the beginning, opinions vary about later in the series) a mediocre actress and obviously strange person, she did well as a character as the center with the others acting/ reacting off of her. It rang true of families where you have a crazy dominant person others work around.

The original show also did the small hopes/ defeats well (lottery season obviously aside). Generally they did not want or dream of very much, so watching even that fall out of their grasp was poignant.

[quote] A sacrifice Goodman and the rest never acknowledged at all as far as I saw

I think Goodman and Metcalf did.

I am forcing myself to watch. Why I'm not sure. Some weird sense of loyalty.

I watch it while doing other stuff. I keep hoping it will get better.

I'm kinda hot for Jay R. Ferguson 🍆

Is Jackie’s son Andy and her ex, Fred, on the show?

How about Roseanne’s fourth kid, Jerry?

I could never get past the change in characterization of Roseanne and Dan in the first season of the revival. The Connors could be tacky and boisterous, but always intelligent and compassionate. Roseanne Connor was a feminist first and foremost and would never have voted for Trump. Dan and Roseanne would never have had racist feelings about their Muslim neighbors even post-9/11. I know a lot of boomers became more conservative with age, but no way those two would. If they wanted to explore that topic they could have had Crystal or Leon or someone like that become MAGA.

Even with Roseanne gone, I can't look at them anymore.

Why is DJ only a recurring character on the reboot?

I’m still watching, I’m not sure why. Nostalgia maybe?

I find the show completely laugh free. Love her or hate her, Roseanne was the heart of the show and is sorely missed.

R34, if I remember correctly, making Dan and Roseanne Trump voters in the revival was Roseanne’s idea because she’s a Trump supporter in real life. The storyline was only dropped after she was fired from the show.

I still watch, probably out of nostalgia too. I kind of feel like Darlene and Jackie got married off in case the show isn’t renewed for another season.

The ratings for this season.

[quote]The current show wants Darlene to be the Roseanne but there is zero joy. And her acting is actually worse.

The problem with the show is that Darlene is really not main character material. She was always at her best as the cynical observer, or when she had Johnny Galecki or Roseanne to bounce things off of. Now that neither of them are there, it's showing the limitations of her character, and her as an actress.

Honestly, Alicia Goranson has always been the best part of this show. They should have built the show around her and her trials and tribulations in trying to rebuild her life after Mark passed. She has the charisma and acting chops that Gilbert lacks.

[quote]I find the show completely laugh free.

I laughed at this show more than any other this season.

The original show was depressing, too, but it had many hilarious moments due to the writers.

The show is trying too hard to be relevant that it has forgotten to be funny. In a couple seasons we've had a story line with a trans child, Middle Eastern neighbors, an immigrant who faces deportation, DJ's interracial marriage, Darlene's trans boss; Mark's diet pill addiction so he can get good grades. In the first episode of the reboot, Darlene made a joke to Becky that college brochures always have a cover photo that features people of multiple races and genders. Well, that's exactly what this show has done. Half the time it watches like an after-school special for grown-ups. Worst of all, it's not funny. It's painful to watch. The same doom and gloom as before, but with none of the funny moments that make life (and the show) bearable.

Here are some of the confusing storylines:

Becky wants to be a surrogate, is rejected for being too old, and a doctor tell her that her eggs are bad. The only purpose of this whole storyline is apparently to bring back the other Becky.

Becky then accidentally gets knocked up. (A very, very unlikely jump-the-shark moment.) There was also an episode about a lesbian couple who wanted to adopt the baby. The storyline went nowhere. The whole point of that sub plot was to show a lesbian couple. (Because apparently the show wasn't gay enough?) Also, one of the actresses was a writer on the show, and maybe she wanted to be on TV. According to the actress who plays Becky, the show received a lot of mail from unhappy women struggling to conceive who felt the unlikely storyline was a slap in the face.

Maybe that's why, the following season, Darlene wanted to get knocked up by Ben, even though she spent the two prior seasons bitching about how she can't afford to move out of her dad's house and she can barely afford the things her kids need. Yeah, a baby will totally solve those problems. The doctors told her that she was too old, and she didn't have a magical conception like Becky. (Who knows, maybe it'll happen next season.)

The character of Becky has had a brain transplant. She was always uptight in the original show. Now she's a sarcastic goofball. The show paired her with a love interest (her college professor) about 20 years older than her. The show paired Darlene's daughter with a love interest (a dumbs) about 20 years older than her. WTF...I thought this was a feminist show.

Jackie never grew out of her Barney Fire character.

DJ seems to appear in only one third of the episodes, and when he does, he has just one line or two. There was that storyline about his PTSD, but it lasted just one episode. Then there was an episode where his family unofficially took custody of his daughter away from him and moved her into Dan's house. How did that discussion go with the actor? We don't really need DJ that much going forward, but we will continue to feature DJ's minor daughter on the show.

The only interesting part of the show for me has been Dan's relationship with Katey Sagal's character. Their relationship seems somewhat natural and not contrived.

This show is all about accepting the bad choices families make and how they deal with them without blaming others.

Love Mark as the smart gay kid desperate to succeed. Mark is the American Dream.

Just wait until they cast JTT as Jerry for sweeps week. All you bitches will set the DVR

R34 that didn’t ring true for me either.

I mostly started watching to keep up with John Goodman, but he seems ill on this show. None of his usually twinkle. I found it very upsetting until I started catching up on Righteous Gemstones, where John is his usual self. Is that just supposed be the character of Dan now, or is Goodman unhappy being on the show?

Becky was written as an alcoholic but she really should have been an opiate cadaver. Dealing with the exit of Lecy because of Fentanyl would have been more reality than a reality show. Darlene should be hopped up on Rexulti.

Michael Fishman was cast when he was really young and he turned out to have no acting talent, unfortunately, though seems like a nice guy.

The revisionist history rem Jackie is ridiculous.

The original when it first started was just about the struggles of a working class family. The mid to late seasons devolved into them being a trashy family and the spin-off is just a continuation of that. I don’t think if you are from a small town and/or lower middle class that it automatically makes you into a trashy family like the Connors. Their choices, behavior and actions do.

[quote]Oh, and Jackie is terrible in the reboot. She’s like Barney Fife. The character is now such a dopey goofball that it’s hard to watch.

She was like that in the original. I still don’t know why they retconned her with no kid.

R37, they never said who Dan voted for. The cast speculated that he may not have voted. I hated that they made it that they voted for Trump because they were going to lose their house. We’re people losing their houses than? I thought the economy was pretty good. They said they researched the vote in the area Roseanne was from and it went for Trump - however, it was no doubt conservative in the 90s. Roseanne fought against that in the 90s. They didn’t automatically go along with the rest of the people in their town. They rebelled.

I remember in the reboot Roseanne talking about illegals and whether Dan would dare hire them. Roseanne of the 90s wouldn’t have said that. Then they had her pro-hitting your kids while in the original she was all against because she was abused and almost had a meltdown when she hit DJ. Just weird. Her feminism also took a backseat. She was playing the MAGA wife catering to Dan for the most part and wasn’t even automatically pro-choice. At least Jackie called her out on it.

Roseanne turned against Democrats when they gave the black guy the nomination over Hillary. Cut to a decade later and Hillary is Satan herself and she’s all pro-Israel after being against it for decades. She ran as the socialist candidate in 2012, even going on Fox News about it and in 2016, she’s a MAGA nut and a gun nut. Roseanne shouldn’t be near a weapon.

They tried to fit in all the pc points. Dan and Roseanne were MAGA, Roseanne an opioid addict, Muslims next door, DJ married to a black woman. It was overkill.

I thought Dan and Roseanne were Trumpers, R3.

“ The ultimatum to Rosanne was either surrender millions of dollars worth of intellectual property or everybody would be out of a job”

It was the least she could do. She’s the one who fucked up by being a racist abusive cunt.

Interesting bit of trivia about Jay R. Ferguson. His mother is an actress and she played Monette/Monica, a Madame and Charlene's childhood friend, on a couple episodes of "Designing Women."

Is Jay R Ferguson still with the show? Unless they reunite his character with Darlene, it doesn't make a lot of sense for him to stick around.

I respect Sarah Gilbert for helping make THE CONNERS a success, and for speaking out against Roseanne's racism. (And for being openly queer.) But she's a very limited actress and shouldn't be the dramatic center of the show. And her storylines are just not very compelling.

[quote]Is Jay R Ferguson still with the show? Unless they reunite his character with Darlene, it doesn't make a lot of sense for him to stick around.

Their characters married in last week's season finale.

Mistake #1.... ever portraying Darlene as straight. Even as a kid you could spot the butch lesbian a mile away. Even LG gave off lesbian vibes.

[quote] I respect Sarah Gilbert for helping make THE CONNERS a success, and for speaking out against Roseanne's racism. (And for being openly queer.)

The word is Lesbian, sweetie, not queer.

From her Instagram.

Lesbian... Les-bi-an.. Lesbian?!

R60 The term “queer” should only apply to trannies and nonbinary people because queer means “strange.”

Never watch this, but they probably should have never fired Roseanne. I don't know why they can't just fine actors, punish them, let them make an apology. Why do they always have to be fired. Then if people still want to protest and it actually hurt the ratings then fire them. She didnt kill anyone, she said some crazy shit on twitter. She can say whatever the fuck she wants. Shes an actor, not the head of the network. Roseanne was Hella funny on the original show and the star of the show, so it's just confusing how it can function organically without her.

You can be pretty certain ABC knew what they were dealing with and the likelihood of her compliance.

Oh Good Lord R61 These 2 should die in a grease fire

R34, you say that Dan and Roseanne would never be Trumpers. But the truth is, the show was originally about Roseanne, and Roseanne is a Trumper. She started out fairly liberal, the show reflected that, and then she became this Trumper. If you had said to most people when the show first came out, will Roseanne the actress become a right winger, most would have said no. But here she is.

The reason Trump won is because there are a low of people who didn’t get a good education, but instead of trying to improve themselves by reading and becoming informed, they just quit trying to make sense of the world, don’t keep up on current events and just let the biggest loudmouth win. A lot of these people are financially struggling, but not all. They just don’t care about learning after they’re not forced to at school any more. They have no intellectual curiosity.

You could make the argument that lower class people like the Connors could easily fall in that group. A lot of those people prior to 2015 were probably Democrats or at least, moderate Republicans. Now they’re rabid fascists. I bet people said the same thing about the former Communists who became Nazis in Hitler’s Germany.

I can never figure out how they act like they're 5 mins from being evicted from their house, but Jackie owns a restaurant and Darlene just bought a house. We all should be that destitute.

I can never figure out how Jackie owns a restaurant yet is able to spend so much time at the Conner household. Does her restaurant close at 2 pm?

R67, Roseanne Conner is a character. She’s not Roseanne Barr.

Roseanne want fired over a single tweet. She was reprimanded repeatedly by ABC and in return thumbed her nose at them. She was asking to be Fire. She could take her paycheck and STFU. No sympathy. They sign moral clauses. They have investors. They looked the other way until they couldn’t do it any longer.

Roseanne’s career should have been over when she falsely accused her parents of molestation and incest. Her father died never forgiving her. She gave four reasons why she led, never taking responsibility. She’s a sociopath.

… and a narcissist.

[quote] But none of them vote Trump...

That's because none of them vote, period.

R67 makes a lot of salient points about sadly far too many people in this country — they aren’t intellectually curious or critical thinkers, and have as tendency to not only blame other people for their own failures and see malicious intent in many of life’s random bumps in the road; but also prefer to complain and wallow in anger and misery rather than attempt to make things better for themselves.

I have several members of my immediate family like this (and indeed they are Trumpets). They aren’t necessarily stupid or poorly educated, but again they are not critical thinkers and look down on people who are more rational than emotional.

There have obviously always been humans that fit this common type; I think one of the biggest things that has changed was the breakdown of the old media structure — mass communications have certainly always been used as instruments of control, but when the dominant narrative was basically center-left(ish) and you had to go much more to the fringe to get the really batshit super right-wing stuff most of the really worst impulses of this crowd were kept somewhat in check. Now they are being inflamed and exploited, to the detriment of everyone, except those at the very very top.

At least DJ didn’t get fat. He doesn’t look so bad.

R44 I would absolutely tune in if JTT was on the show. He was my first crush.

It’s a bummer that Laurie Metcalf went from an Oscar nomination and consecutive Tony wins to this. I get that it’s easy money, but she’s a brilliant actress and you wouldn’t know it from watching The Conners — the writing for her character is so over the top, it’s ridiculous.

Broadway was her main source of quality roles, but the pandemic put an end to that. I’m still sad we will never see her Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I’m a longtime fan of Roseanne. I like her kind of nuts, to watch anyway. She’s a real character and there aren’t many of those left in comedy. I always thought that after they killed her off, they should have just brought her back as if it was someone’s dream. Hell, Dan died once and came back so why not? They could’ve done a whole episode about how she tweets something stupid that goes viral, loses her job at the factory or whatever, and learns some lesson. I thought the way she lost the show was ridiculous, and her former costars are disloyal weasels.

For anyone still stuck on the Roseanne firing: This was not an ABC issue. It was a Disney issue. Disney owns ABC and made an immediate decision that the success of this show could not balance out the risk of a Disney boycott from black customers.

And another reminder that the woman has brain damage and many years of prescription drug abuse.

I loved the Roseanne of the original ROSEANNE.

This new MAGAT character of the last decade? I haven't missed her one bit, frankly.

Recasting could have worked

Poor Mark, in real life, was homeless and died of an overdose on a friend's couch.

So, why did the show do away with character Mark Healy? Unfortunately, the actor who played him, Glenn Quinn, died at the age of 32 on December 3, 2002. The cause of death was an accidental heroin overdose, according to Cinema Blend. Quinn was found on his couch by his friend in North Hollywood, California.

Please, exactly nobody was going to boycott Disney because of Roseanne.

[quote] she’s a brilliant actress and you wouldn’t know it from watching The Conners — the writing for her character is so over the top, it’s ridiculous.

I can see her wanting to spend a few years banking the bucks. If the Conners ends after season 5, she's free to go back to do theater full time and never has to worry about money again.

But I agree, the writing for Jackie is way off on the revival.

[quote] Interesting bit of trivia about Jay R. Ferguson. His mother is an actress and she played Monette/Monica, a Madame and Charlene's childhood friend, on a couple episodes of "Designing Women."

OMG! I had no idea!

Full time theatre sounds ideal! This is my favorite of her theatre roles.

[quote]Broadway was her main source of quality roles, but the pandemic put an end to that. I’m still sad we will never see her Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I saw it -- in fact, it was the last show I saw on Broadway just before the shutdown. The production was only so-so in my opinion but her performance was wonderful.

I've said this in earlier threads about the Conners but making Jackie more wacky just makes me sad.

She wasn't ever dumb/crazy wacky in the original, and she is now, and that just seems like very lazy storytelling. It would have been something to see what Jackie's life was/is with the shadow of Roseanne gone from it. Yes, she would have been sad, but maybe without Roseanne and her mom, Jackie would have found a new sense of freedom.

I bounced on this show early on, what happened to Jackie’s kid and Roseanne’s youngest for that matter? Is Crystal still on?

Bring back Joan Collins!

R87, Jackie was like that during the last few years of the original show. Roseanne always compared her to characters Don Knotts played. I remember in the 1950s episode she was referred to as “wacky Jackie”.

There is so much potential for the show to be great but these writers are terrible. Actors like Laurie are wasted on this. Imagine what talented people like the old Roseanne team could do if they managed to get Estelle Harris back for an episode - maybe a goodbye - next year. I'm picturing a one act play as Bev and Jackie talk about Jackie's childhood, about Bev's life, about Roseanne, etc.

Just the two ladies, with a few minutes of Goodman. None of those not-great kid actors, none of Sara Gilbert's droopiness.

I tried watching it but when I saw they had the corpse of Grandma Walton playing Dan I had to bail

I actually love The Conners. It's one of the funniest shows on TV

R91 Estelle Harris is dead. She was on Seinfeld.

I believe you mean Estelle Parsons.

I also enjoy this show for what it is. The opening with John Goodman sticking out the bratwurst from his mouth makes me want to gag, though. I also can't stand the actor that plays Darlene's son (where the FUCK did they find that kid?). There's still some heart left in the show so I don't mind watching it.

OP, I am so confused why you thought it would not be about lower middle-class people.

Had you not seen the original "Roseanne"? Did you come into this thinking the characters would live like the characters on "Succession" or "Dynasty"?

Once in a blue moon they show a clip from the old Roseanne show. It’s never a clip with Roseanne, so I wonder if they’re not allowed to. Or do they think it’d be tacky to fire the actor and kill off her character, and then use clips of her?

[quote]She wasn't ever dumb/crazy wacky in the original, and she is now

I seem to recall that they started making Jackie act this way in the original series, too, after the first 5 or 6 seasons (sometime after they bought the diner). "The Conners" could've been a great opportunity for them to do a reset with the character back to how she was in the first few seasons of "Roseanne" but I guess they did not feel it necessary.

R99 I really liked Jackie on the first few seasons. The way that she was driven crazy by her mother reminds me of my family.

Just watched the most recent episode with the weddings. DJ was at the wedding but literally had no lines. He's got to be the highest paid extra on the show.

I think Michael Fishman directs some episodes, so maybe he made a deal with producers to do that instead of onscreen work. That's my guess anyway.

Michael Fishman is developmentally disabled, no?

I didn't think Fishman's acting was that bad in the scenes where DJ was angry about them taking in his daughter. Maybe if they gave him more to do so that he could actually develop his craft, he would be even better. After all, how many posts are there in this thread in which people complain about the bad acting of some of the other cast members? If that's the case, surely he couldn't be any worse than they are.

There’s nothing wrong with Fishman’s acting in my opinion. I don’t know if would like to be a regular on the series. I think it’s pointless though to have his own family on the show (wife, kid) and not him.

The character of DJ’s wife is kind of stereotypical isn’t she? A black religious nut.

Fishman confirmed as not returning for next season.

[quote]Fishman confirmed as not returning for next season.

For him to leave the first steady gig he’s had since the original Roseanne, that speaks volumes. The reboot is running out of steam.

He went to college and left acting r108. He never tried to be an actor post Roseanne. He just came back for the reboot

R109 🙄

I stopped watching after the episode with the trans boss who "no one could tell was trans." Please. He was so obvious.

Pandering woke bullshit.

[quote]“The Conners” is fucking depressing

...and, every criticism you leveled is how a huge portion of Americans live: unwed pregnancies at a young age, overweight, impoverished and struggling to get by, broken families.

The ONLY thing common event among that strata of comtemporary American society that has never been covered in any real depth is one sister's husband cheating with the other sister and fathering a child so that their cousins are also their half-siblings.

Thank you, Roseanne @R111. Are you on Ambien right now?

[quote]... It’s just a sad mess of poverty, fucked up people, and broken families.

As Dudley Moore said about sex and violence on TV: "We can get all that at home!"

Dan is a lazy slob. If he had any integrity he would buy a decent life insurance policy and step in front of a bus.

[quote]She wasn't ever dumb/crazy wacky in the original,

Jackie? The last couple of seasons in the original show she was batshit crazy. After she married Fred, the writers turned into a lunatic.

That was the problem I had with the original was that after the first five seasons, the shows whole tone turned more mean spirited and they made Bev and Jackie into nutcases.

With Fishman gone they’ll have to redo the opening credits. Hopefully we won’t have to see Goodman sucking on a breakfast sausage anymore.

An interesting story line would have Goodman sucking on the new Latino neighbor.

Jay R Ferguson - hot or not?

HOT

Kind of like real life huh?

It’s odd that they never gave the actor more of a chance in the new series. I imagine the producers saw enough to know what they were working with, but it’s hard to believe he could have handled a minor but meaningful presence.

Ditto, “Shameless.” Always baffled by that show. Who finds being immersed in the grim world of trashy poor folk entertaining and fun?

This show is facing the same problems that the original show had. At some point, it starts to become convoluted that all of these characters would still be in extreme poverty (all living in the same house?!), when some of them clearly have the smarts to do better.

They seem to think they need to keep them all miserable, when the show at its peak was about a family with financial and everyday family struggles who managed to find laughter and moments of joy.

It’s basically “Darlene” - Darlene was a miserable character. I remember they considered the “Darlene” spinoff of her in college, it never happened.

Darlene was a much more interesting teen than adult. She was mature for her age and was the one destined to escape her parents’ financial fate.

So the idea that she’s still struggling just invalidates the character.

They could have done a Beverly Hillbillies type show, with Roseanne and Dan coming to live wealthy copywriter, Darlene in Chicago.

They could have had Darlene move home to care for her dad and set up the contrasts between her more stable experience and that of Becky.

I found Fishman's comments in r121 to be extremely gracious and well-spoken.

I hope Hollywood rewards him for being a decent sounding person.

The show turned into family friendly crap. Typical lazy sitcom writing. Too bad Roseanne had to go and screw everything up.

I agree. He's not much of an actor, but Fishman always struck me as a good guy.

R129, that would have been funny although they sort of did that with the final season in the 90s.

Can they get rid of Darlene's son too? He is so out of place and annoying.

That son is awful.

R98, they would have to pay her.

A suggestion for this season’s writers: ignore every direction Sara gives you. In fact, do the opposite.

And the show will improve.

[quote]Or do they think it’d be tacky to fire the actor and kill off her character, and then use clips of her?

If she had left on good terms, the series finale of this show would be Dan and Roseanne talking and living life as if she hadn't died.

Or, they could do the reverse of the Rosanne finale where Dan had actually died and the entire last season was a "fantasy" of Roseanne authoring a novel about her life. It would be a real interesting ending for this show to end, once again, with the entire show being Roseanne authoring a novel that imagined how things would have gone had she died, rather than alienating and putting her family through the hell of her addiction.

R124 Shameless could be grim, but, in its defense, it is the only series I can think of that centred a M/M gay relationship pretty much throughout its 11 season run.

Darlene isn’t Darlene anymore. Sara Gilbert doesn’t look or sound like the Sarah Gilbert who played Darlene. She’s had massive lower face surgery (but still couldn’t completely fix the underbite). Darlene was weird looking in a natural way. Sara is weird looking in an unnatural way. And would Darlene have wanted to immediately have sex with David if he’d left her to bring up their two kids alone while he flitted around with hipsters in foreign countries “helping others”? She’d have beaten the crap out of him after reading him the riot act.

I think the reason The Conners couldn’t make it in life is because they all started dropping acid in the mid-late1990s. And they all still trippin

All this complaining about Darlene's son but nothing about that cunt of a horsey daughter? I cannot STAND Harris. Darlene should have knocked her down a few times.

That’s really shitty of the show to axe Michael Fishman when he’s been a regular since he was 6 and he’s now 40. I disagree about his performance on the show. He’s fine. He’s just never written for which is a shame. I wonder if they’ll get rid of his wife and daughter on the show as well. I’m sure it’s all about money, but it sucks to treat someone this way.

I wholeheartedly agree, R143. (They're keeping the actress who plays his daughter by the way.) I'm not saying that Fishman is secretly Tom Hanks but how could they know whether he'd actually be any good or not when they never gave him a damn thing to do? And it never made sense to me anyway: he was an original cast member, so you'd think they would've at least tried to give him an actual storyline of his own. I certainly would have preferred a DJ story more interesting than the endless back-and-forth between Darlene and her boyfriend/ex-boss, a story that got really old really fast.

Didn't Dan reconnect with his step-brother a couple of seasons ago? What the hell ever happened to that story?

Yes, and nothing, R145, as I dimly recall.

Darlene should have come out as a lesbian when she was in her teens. I guess they figured that might turn off viewers, so it never happened. But Sara GIlbert has always had zero chemistry with men. It's ridiculous that men would even find her attractive. Lesbians would, but the vast majority of men would not.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Agree it's shifty. I watched it when I had nothing else to do. Probably won't now.

.,.,

Jesus Christ, they should have left Fishman's character on the show. Having the original cast is the glue that holds the series together not the horrible plotlines. They're chipping away at stuff that should just be left alone.

…and also starring Laurie Metcalf as Barney Fife.

I've never seen it, but I'm assuming from the name the family is of Irish descent, it which case the depression is accurate.

[quote]Didn't Dan reconnect with his step-brother a couple of seasons ago? What the hell ever happened to that story?

Many of the revival stories have been messes but that was a doozy. We were supposed to believe the departed Ed Sr. had remained in Lanford, in the house Dan used to visit, but Dan was somehow unaware of that and had been AWOL from Ed Jr.'s life even though Crystal was still close with the Conners.

Molly's return was similarly weird. The whole point of the Tilden family was that the kids lacked a mother figure and their dad was in over his head, but in "The Conners" there was a Mrs. Tilden who spoke as if she had lived next-door the whole time. Molly's reappearance made Darlene (briefly) tolerable. They should've kept her around as a recurring character.

[quote] I've never seen it, but I'm assuming from the name the family is of Irish descent

Irish Protestant. Catholics spelled it Connor. That’s what my gran said. She could tell catholic from Protestant names because she was from Northern Ireland.

I hate how poorly written this show is. Like R153 said, the writers have no regard for character history and consistency. It's like they just make shit up no matter how illogical or inconsistent it is. I would imagine the audience for this is mostly fans of the original series so the lack of regard for show canon is even more egregious. It's just lazy storytelling all around. Is this coming season the last?

Roseanne's tweet and firing were not ABC decisions. ABC is owned by Disney. Disney execs decided a possible boycott of the theme parks from black customers wasn't worth the risk. So they fired her immediately. That's what happened.

The writing on the Roseanne reboot (one season) was pretty good, I thought. I think several of the writers during that season quit after Roseanne’s tweets…wasn’t Wanda Sykes one of them? They should have gotten them back after she was fired.

"The Conners" EPs Tease the 'Oh S--t!' Return of an OG "Roseanne" Character: Viewers Will Be 'Very Surprised':

I'll stick with the "Married with Children" reruns - thanks.

I’d love for that to be Leon, R158.

The third Shameless cast member joins - Ethan Cutkosky (Carl) plays Louise’s nephew.

I agree. The original Roseanne didn't feel as depressing, and I think it was because Roseanne (and Dan) brought some goofy life into the home and workplace. Roseanne could make a joke about anything and not seem totally down and out, and Dan seemed to keep his head up and just get through things. In The Conners, Dan is just old and depressive, Becky's an alcoholic, Darlene cracks sarcastic jokes like Roseanne did but she seems more bitter to me, less at home. Her daughter hates being alive, her son is always troubled. In Roseanne, the kids had their own lives and seemed annoyed to be poor but it never felt like Roseanne's house might end in a mass suicide and the Conners household does feel that way.

And Jackie went from aimless and self-destructive to syphilis brain.

R161 - Becky and Darlene were Gen X, and I think their characters reflected that generation. What you see in a character like Mark, or in his relationship with Darlene and his anxiety, seems typical (or stereotypical) of today’s generation. I think the problem is Roseanne the original series had humor. The Conners takes itself too seriously. They’ve changed the tone and made the humor darker.

R162 My sister and I are gen X. We're sarcastic and a bit sardonic but not hopeless.

OP Roseanne was like that too. Then in the late 1990s everyone on television got stainless appliances and pottery barn furniture and began reflecting back at America what it wanted to look like but would never be.

It's missing the element of hope due to its premise of the adult children having no option but to live in that squalid home. On "Roseanne", Dan and Roseanne had hope that their kids would do better than they did and on "The Conners" it's obvious they did worse.

It's also missing a center. Barr might be batshit crazy today, but she was indisputably the matriarch of that clan and she set the tone for the show, and the action resolved around her. "The Conners" feels disconnected and treats its setting like a boarding house filled with adults and kids who have nowhere else to go.

And that's depressing as hell.

[quote]It's missing the element of hope due to its premise of the adult children having no option but to live in that squalid home.

Darlene and her hubby are renovating a property to move into.

There is nothing wrong with single parents marrying each other. It's almost always fun with a lot of laughs.

I have a hard time watching people (fictional or otherwise) continue the dysfunctional cycle without any self awareness about their decisions. I haven’t watched the reboot but the original made it seem like the kids, especially Darlene, wouldn’t do that.

I gave up last season. I was rooting for them all, but it just became a pointless exercise.

They were the last TV sitcom I was watching regularly, FWIW.

I gave up last season too. I just can't anymore with the terrible writing and lame sitcom tropes. It hurts the legacy of the original show which was truly groundbreaking.

The least believable plot point is that Louise - a seemingly worldly old rocker chick - would want to give up her independence to live in that filthy hovel with Dan and all those kids.

The reality is that Dan would only be able to pull another homely fattie like Roseanne. John Goodman and Katey Sagal have no chemistry whatsoever, and for all her comedic genius as Peg Bundy, Sagal seems adrift here. Her character has no real point of view.

I love Katey Sagal but must agree: she's wasted on the show and doesn't belong in the mix.

That "seemingly worldly old rocker chick" was working as a manager/bartender at a third-rate Mexican restaurant in a dead rust belt city. She didn't exactly have the world on a string.

But I agree, her character is not a good fit for the show.

Well yeah...being white trash is depressing.

It makes no sense for these adults to be so down and out. Maybe Dan, who was a blue collar worker his whole life. But Darlene had a college education. There are no writing jobs in Lanford, but now that everyone is working remotely because of Covid, there's no reason she couldn't get a great writing job working at home in Lanford, especially when unemployment is at a historical low.

Becky was the promising teenage girl who threw away everything for a boy. She never would have moved into a trailer in the original series. Today, she'd have found a rich old man to marry, and she'd be sitting on a lot of local committees, for the power and the prestige.

This show is now more depressing than funny. And it hits you over the head with its wokeness. After they did the storyline with the 40s women doing IVF and then Becky having an oops pregnancy (for the first time) in her 40s, the show apparently got a lot of letters from women who were struggling with infertility who were upset by how the show made it so easy. To appease these people, the show contrived a story line where 45-year-old Darlene, broke and living at home with her dad and boyfriend, with two nearly grown kids, one of whom didn't like her, goes to a fertility doctor so that she can try to have a baby with her new boyfriend. They found out they couldn't do it, so the pursuing-a-baby storyline ended there. There was another weird storyline in Season 2 where Becky strings along a lesbian couple who wants to adopt her oops baby before changing her mind, all in the a single episode. It seemed like that micro-storyline was contrived to get some lesbians on the show.

And now it's time for the yearly episode about DJ's daughter, but the show has apparently fired the character who plays DJ. This show hits you over the head with its wokeness: Darlene's LGBT son, Becky's illegal immigrant baby daddy, DJ's daughter who is half black, Darlene's trans boss, the Connors' Muslim neighbors. Who new podunk town Lanford was so diverse?. I'm waiting for a Ukranian refugee to show up at Darlene's job.

I follow Sandra on Instagram, and she posted the clip where she comes out to Roseanne and Jackie. Reminded me that the show was once actually funny. I'll give Roseanne this, she had some damn good plastic surgery too.

Darlene's son is horribly miscast. I hope that actor has a backup plan as far as career choices go. And how many more Shameless characters are going to land roles on this show?

[quote] Becky was the promising teenage girl who threw away everything for a boy. She never would have moved into a trailer in the original series.

I dunno…I can kind of believe being dickmatized by Glenn Quinn.

This might be a little bit awful of a thought but I think the show also rings a little bit untrue because if the characters were real, at least Darlene and her kids would be financially stable, and I think Dan would, too.

They're responsible adults. They're intelligent. Dan isn't highly educated but he's clearly a smart enough guy. He would not languish. Darlene would have found some kind of opportunities.

Roseanne and Dan were believably 'stuck' because they were from Lanford, never left, had three kids who they had to support, and they were part of a cycle. But they were not stupid and two of their three kids were too smart to end up like this. They didn't have educations to get them more meaningful work. (Darlene does.) They had little kids and had no real mobility. (Darlene could—she only has the son in the house.) Dan and Roseanne were focused on their kids having better opportunities, and that's where their hope and optimism lay. Darlene had those opportunities and...what is she doing?

Becky—OK, alcoholism definitely could make someone like Becky falter or fail in the way shown on the show.

Jackie...well, old-show Jackie, yes, she'd end up down and out but blue-collar working. New Jackie may be mentally retarded, so OK.

If Dan had a serious health problem and could not work and Darlene decided she had to take care of him and therefore couldn't live somewhere she could get a decent job, I'd buy that. But as it is, she's intelligent and hard working AND choosing the worst-case scenario for herself and it makes no sense.

Did Darlene finish school? Didn’t she get knocked up shortly after going to art school? She dropped out. Dan was angry because he thought one of his girls might make it out. He thought it would be Becky and she turned out to be dickmatized.

So then he thought it would be Darlene, who was more sensible than Becky. Then Darlene threw it all away by not using birth control. .

But wasn’t Darlene’s acceptance into “a writing program” stupid? I don’t think she even finished high school

Does it really matter anymore? This once sometimes great show has changed storylines, acted like characters never existed and or do things so uncharacteristic that it's obvious all these people are just there for a paycheck. It's shit.