Roseanne: Into That Good Night

Roseanne: Into That Good Night
ABC
May 20, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B

This one-hour series conclusion was co-written by Allan Stephan, Barr, and her daughters Jessica and Jennifer Pentland.  Whether this is how the series or the season should've ended is still subject to debate, especially with a Roseanne revival next year.  But it is entertaining and sometimes moving in of itself.  Of course I don't want Dan to be dead, or David and Darlene to be split up, but I get the point that Roseanne, both Barr and Conner, wanted to rewrite the way life goes.  It doesn't justify or explain the madness of Season Nine, but it's not a bad place to "end."

I'm omitting not only Cole Roberts and the Hazen twins, but also Sandra Bernhard, Martin Mull, and Fred Willard, although I think it's interesting that none of Roseanne's straight friends are included in the baby's homecoming.  Note that Goranson is tagged for the flashback to when Roseanne's writing room was set up in the basement.

Roseanne's final season ranges from two D-s to one B+, averaging out to a C+.  There are still good moments, good episodes, but more rarely than in previous seasons.  In some ways, this show resembles M*A*S*H, a sitcom with serious and even dark moments, running perhaps too long and yet still capable of making me cry as it ends.  (And both shows have a ton of continuity errors of course.)  It'll be interesting to see what happens in "Season Ten," but I expect to be done with this blog before that airs.

Roseanne: The Miracle

Roseanne: The Miracle
ABC
February 25, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
B+

Barr wrote the story that Drew Ogier turned into a teleplay, and it shows what they were capable of when they stuck to the family dynamic and left out the lottery etc.  Yes, Roseanne wants to use her money to help her granddaughter survive, but the episode is mostly about the emotions that this closeknit, if often bickering family goes through when Darlene gives birth prematurely and the baby has a small chance of survival.  (Darlene is still only twenty-eight weeks along, so the pregnancy math on this series remains screwy.)  I cried more than once, partly because I've grown to love these characters again, especially David and Darlene, and it's hard to see them in such pain.  Galecki and Gilbert really step up to the acting challenge, particularly together.  Goodman is of course another standout, as he helps David stay strong for Darlene.  The idea of baby Harris being healed by love is corny, but it's all well done.  I realize not every Season Nine episode could be like this, not without crossing into permanent dramedy status, but I'm glad that they at least made this one.

Rick Fitts played Martin Jackson on Generations, but not on the episodes I reviewed; he was a Reporter on Ellen and is a nameless Doctor here.  Michael Des Barres was also on Ellen, as Nigel the Director, and had played two previous Roseanne roles before his appearance here as Dr. Phillips.  Dann Florek returns as Dr. Rudmen.

Roseanne: Some Enchanted Merger

Roseanne: Some Enchanted Merger
ABC
February 11, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C

Roseanne has a crush on Edward Wellman, Jr. (James Brolin again), to the point that she has daydreams about him in thought balloons.  Meanwhile, Mark gives D.J. bad advice on girls.  I couldn't get into either thread and was leaning towards C-, but I did laugh out loud at the "consummation" montage that includes not only a roaring fire but donuts and a Clinton-Gore victory.  Richard Paul is listed in the IMDB credits again, so I guess he was in one of the daydream sequences.  This is the first of three Roseanne episodes written by voice actress April Winchell.

Roseanne: Lanford's Elite

Roseanne: Lanford's Elite
ABC
February 4, 1997
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This episode manages to be both a little slow-moving and a bit forced, although it's only when we see two clips from the season-one-closer that it's evident how much of the raw energy has gone from the show.  (I tagged Natalie West, even though Crystal doesn't have any lines.)  At the Lanford Country Club, Roseanne meets Edward Wellman, Jr. (James Brolin in the first of two cameos), son of the Wellman family who owned the plastics factory that Roseanne and Jackie used to work for.  He convinces her to buy the factory for $1 million, and then she'll turn it over to the workers.  Richard Paul makes his first of two appearances as an apparently nameless character and doesn't look much different than he did in the early '80s on Match Game.  Allan Stephan wrote the story, but the teleplay is the first of two Roseanne writing gigs for Richard Whitley, while Whitley's partner on the teleplay, Bob Rubin, had played an Audience Member earlier in the season.

Roseanne: Mothers and Other Strangers

Mary's house is full of Shelley Winters memorabilia, a nice touch.

Roseanne: Mothers and Other Strangers
ABC
December 3, 1996
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This Barr & Mort story has Roseanne wondering how Dan will adjust to the changes in her and in their home when he returns for Christmas.  Meanwhile, Bev visits Nana Mary's home and the two of them talk some things out, although Mary can't tell Bev who her father is.  While this episode doesn't exactly get things back on track, it's a hopeful sign, and it's only in retrospect that Roseanne's line to Jerry about "some crazy lady making all this up" is not just about Roseanne Barr but about Roseanne Conner.  Darlene, looking like she's maybe five months along, is again the voice of reason.  As for the other plot, this is Shelley Winters's last TV appearance, although she'd live for almost another decade, and it's a nice one to end up on, she and Parsons showing their acting chops, despite their sometimes cartoonish characters on this show.

Roseanne: Home Is Where the Afghan Is

Roseanne: Home Is Where the Afghan Is
ABC
November 26, 1996
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Not a great episode, but it's nice to have a semi-normal story, written by Lawrence Broch, with much of the cast.  (Dan's absence is emphasized, but we never learn why neither Becky is there.)  Roseanne has Thanksgiving catered but misses cooking, and she's adjusting to the new interior decorations.  Darlene is a nice reality check.  However, the thing of Bev drunkenly outing herself, after saying how awful it is that Scott and Leon want to adopt, is forced.  (I did keep an eye out for Gilbert's reactions though.)  The Prince turns out to have been educated in Texas, so that's equally implausible, if perhaps more comfortable for Varney to portray.

This time Bob Fuller plays a Caterer.  I'm omitting Cole Roberts and the Hazen twins from the overcrowded tags.

Roseanne: Roseambo

Roseanne: Roseambo
ABC
November 19, 1996
Sitcom
DVD
D+

Well, it's not the worst Roseanne episode, but it might be the furthest from the basic concept of the series.  Written by two people who didn't work on any other of my shows (or do much else according to IMDB), this has Roseanne and some of her family accompanying Dr. Bakshi (Iqbal Theba again) to Washington, D.C.  The train is hijacked by multi-ethnic misogynist terrorists from Monistat.  (Yes, a yeast infection joke, and Roseanne defeats one terrorist with a tampon.)  I know Barr would later claim that this episode was a metaphor for her dealings with men in Hollywood, but if she's making a feminist point, why are her mother and sister bigger ninnies than ever?  Not that Mark and D.J. come across much better of course.  (That even Sarah Chalke sat this one out tells you how little of a showcase it was for the rest of the cast.)  The episode almost works as an action-movie parody, but it's too muddled.  It's easily the strangest episode of the series where we're supposed to believe that these are real events in the lives of the Conner family, rather than some strange daydream.

Photographer Scott McKinley played a Party Guest earlier in the season.  Not only does this have Steven Seagal, Don King, and Mike Tyson as themselves, and a professional Hillary Clinton impersonator, but poor Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, whom we last saw as himself on Ellen, plays a terrorist named Louis.  Gary Halvorson had directed the "My Five Dads" episode of On the Television, but he was working with much better material then.  We'll see how he does with his seven remaining Roseanne directing gigs.

On the Television: My Five Dads

On the Television: My Five Dads
Nickelodeon
The Fall of 1989
Parody
VHS
B

Tim Conway, Jr. and George McGrath play TV critics and two of the "dads" of the reviewed show.  (McGrath gripes about the theme song which his other character sings.)  This is a parody of not just My Two Dads but also The Brady Bunch, with a melodramatic girl of about 12 and a wise and wisecracking maid.  And to some degree, it's a satire on family sitcoms in general.  A nice little gem that still holds up.  Director Gary Halvorson would go on to some episodes of Roseanne's final season.