Roseanne: Lies My Father Told Me

Roseanne: Lies My Father Told Me
ABC
March 29, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

While there are good things about this episode, whose story is by Rob Ulin and whose teleplay is by Eric Gilliland, I don't feel that the tonal shifts are as well handled as they would've been in Season Five or even Season Four, keeping this from a B+ or even A-.  At the end of the previous episode, Dan came home from committing his mother, Audrey, to a mental institution.  In this episode, he blames his father and even gets drunk so he can tell his dad off, but Ed isn't home, so Dan ends up wrecking the living room and scaring Crysal and Lonnie (Kristopher Kent Hill in his last appearance).  Crystal later tells Roseanne in an offscreen phone call that Audrey's mental issues predate her marriage.  It's difficult and painful for Dan to accept the truth, but he goes to talk to his father and they make up.  Unfortunately, this is the last we'll see of Ed, and I'm going to miss how Beatty and Goodman act so well together.  Meanwhile, the older kids' attempts to make D.J. think he's going crazy like Grandma Conner are funny, but I'm not sure how well they work as comic relief, coming across as overly tasteless under the circumstances.

I'm reluctantly omitting Estelle Parsons from the overcrowded tags.

Roseanne: Past Imperfect

Roseanne: Past Imperfect
ABC
March 22, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

David Raether wrote this story where Fred finds out that Jackie has been with about 60 men, while Fred has been with three women (presumably counting Jackie).  He has trouble coping with it but Roseanne of course finds a way to make him accept it, by reminding him that he and Jackie are in love and had a baby together, and she lies and says that Jackie said he was the best.  On a personal note, I'll say that watching this as a 26-year-old who'd only kissed one guy besides my then about to be ex-husband was a very different experience than watching it in middle age.  (Although my total is still much closer to Fred's.)

The other thread is about Dan's father being late with an alimony payment and Dan confronting his dad (Ned Beatty's penultimate appearance in the role), before going to pay his mother the money himself.  It was weird to see Ed and Crystal again, because it feels like they belong to a completely different era of the show, and I wished that, as good as the Fred & Jackie plot was, that more time had been spent on this plot.  Still, the next episode will focus more on Dan's family.

Future Roseanne writer Bob Nickman here makes his first onscreen appearance, as the Waiter.

Roseanne: The Wedding

Roseanne: The Wedding
ABC
January 15, 1991
Sitcom
DVD
B

The wedding goes forward, despite Dan's disapproval, especially when he finds out that Crystal is pregnant.  (I remember calling it when I first saw this episode, as soon as they said that Crystal kept going to the bathroom.)  He does come around eventually.  Jeff Abugov's script again offers drama and comedy, the latter including the awful pink bridesmaids' dresses that of course haven't improved with age.  Note that Crystal's recounting of her marriages does not match what we heard in the first season.  Also, the title is retrospectively plain, considering how many more weddings would be on this somewhat soap-operatic sitcom.

Lynn Ann Leveridge appears as Lucy and would return as an unknown character.  Kristopher Kent Hall takes over the role of Lonnie, which he'll keep for three years but only four more appearances.  And, yes, Crystal and Anne-Marie (Adilah Barnes) remember each other from high school.

Roseanne: The Courtship of Eddie, Dan's Father

Roseanne: The Courtship of Eddie, Dan's Father
ABC
January 8, 1991
Sitcom
DVD
B

After a slow start, this episode with a story by Bob Myer and a teleplay by Don Foster and Joel Madison, offers a fine blend of comedy and drama.  As the title suggests, Dan's father Ed pays a visit, bringing gifts, including a VCR, which causes Darlene to remark that the family is "leaping into the '80s."  (By this point, it had been about a decade since VCRs were accessible to the upper middle class, and they'd been trickling down to the middle middle throughout the '80s, but, yes, there were still some working class families that couldn't afford them in '91.)

Roseanne decides to matchmake Crystal with the guy who owns the camera shop at the mall, until she walks in on Ed and Crystal kissing passionately.  Then she tries to matchmake Jackie and the camera guy, but mostly so she can get them to leave so she can find out what's going on.  It turns out that Ed and Crystal have been seeing each other since they were at Thanksgiving the year before last.  (This episode is specifically set in January.)  In fact, they're engaged.  Dan does not react well, although Roseanne is supportive.  The episode ends on a cliffhanger, but as the next episode is called "The Wedding," I think we know how this will turn out.

D'Anne Avner, who plays the Woman in the Coffee Shop, would return in an unknown role.

Roseanne: We Gather Together

Roseanne: We Gather Together
ABC
November 21, 1989
Sitcom
DVD
B

Danny Jacobson wrote this Thanksgiving episode, which juggles a lot of guest stars:

• Ned Beatty as Ed Conner gets more to do than most of the guest stars, from flirting with Crystal to arguing with Dan.
• Stephen Dorff makes his last appearance as Jimmy Meltrigger; they didn't really do much with his character, even less than they did with Chip.
• Luke Edwards makes his last appearance as Lonnie Anderson, with less to do than that; I can't remember if there's a Lonnie #3.
• J.J. Johnston, who's Jay Bryant here, had played a nameless man on The Bob Newhart Show and a Helicopter Pilot on M*A*S*H.
• Estelle Parsons as Roseanne's mother Beverly fights more with Jackie this time, especially about Jackie becoming a cop.
• John Randolph makes his last appearance as Roseanne's dad Al, the character soon killed off (I forget what season).
• Ann Wedgeworth, still looking good years after Three's Company, makes her only appearance as Dan's divorced mother Audrey, much later replaced by Debbie Reynolds!

I would've gone with a B-, but the various threads do come together in the end, and Goodman particularly impressed me, not just with Beatty, but with Barr.  (His "I've got a crush on you" shows why this character is so lovable.)  Also, replaying the Jackie & Beverly argument with just Dan's face during the closing credits is inspired, a fresh perspective on the scene.

Roseanne: Father's Day

Roseanne: Father's Day
ABC
February 7, 1989
Sitcom
DVD
B

Lauren Eve Anderson wrote this episode where we meet Dan's father Ed (Ned Beatty, perfectly cast).  Ed is a likable guy but a bit of a know-it-all, and he grates on Dan, partly because Dan can see Ed in himself.  (And later we'd learn a darker background to Dan's parents.)  Roseanne has some laugh-out-loud lines, but it's Goodman who steals the tag scene, by deliberately rambling like his father.  Note that Dan's age is shifted here, to 1953, with his mother pregnant again in '56.  (Did the baby die?  Dan doesn't seem to have any living siblings.)

Jackie is absent for the first time, but we do see Crystal and get a sense of her chemistry with Ed.

M*A*S*H: Dear Peggy

M*A*S*H: Dear Peggy
CBS
November 14, 1975
Dramedy
DVD
C

This Fritzell & Greenbaum story has a nice opening scene in the officer's hall (or whatever it's called), but as it goes on, it makes less and less sense.  One minute Margaret is helping the camp try to set a jeep-stuffing record and then the next she's being gung-ho about something with Frank.  Father Mulcahy goes against his policy of not writing to patients' families before the conditions are stabilized, just to please his superior (Ned Beatty).  Koreans are trained to work in the OR, but their English lessons, from both Frank and Hawkeye, are meaningless rote, as if no one around is actually bilingual.  Another episode that needed a rewrite, and that's not even counting that Hawkeye refers to Nixon as the Vice-President, presumably prematurely.

Jeff Maxwell (Straminsky), Bobbie Mitchell (this time Lt. Cage), Kellye Nakahara (Yamato), and Dennis Troy (this time as an MP) return.  This is the first of thirty-one M*A*S*H episodes Burt Metcalfe directed.