Roseanne: Body by Jake

Roseanne: Body by Jake
ABC
May 10, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
C+

I don't know if it's Mackenzie's direction or the script by David Forbes, but this episode feels off, despite its potential.  Bev fractures her pelvis and it turns out that, one, it was by falling off the bed while having sex with Jake, and two, she's never enjoyed sex.  Meanwhile, Fred confides in Dan and for some reason Mark that he wants to propose to Jackie, but he instead suggests they live together.  The scene where Fred tells off and humiliates Bev is one that I remember at the time finding less funny than shrill on her part and cruel on his.  The tag is tone-deaf, going for shock value and throwing character and plausibility out the window, when Bev walks into her living room in a dominatrix outfit.  Still, there are moments, especially with Roseanne's reactions, that work very well, and this is certainly not Season Nine or even Season Two's murder-musical bad.

Louisa Abernathy had also been a Nurse on the show four years earlier.

Roseanne: I Pray the Lord My Stove to Keep

Roseanne: I Pray the Lord My Stove to Keep
ABC
May 3, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

Pat Bullard wrote this episode with Kevin Abbott and plays Deliveryman #1, as an appliance company keeps accidentally delivering stoves to the Lunch Box.  Meanwhile, D.J. claims he's hanging out with his boring friend George (Joseph Gordon-Levitt again), but he's actually going to church every day.  The Conners do their best to deal with this change, and David offers to give up the nose-ring that Darlene talked him into.

Another Zappa kid appears in this episode: Dweezil as a guitarist in the tag.

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: Labor Day

Roseanne: Labor Day
ABC
March 8, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Miriam Trogdon wrote the teleplay based on a story by Rob Ulin.  Jackie goes into labor and much time is spent on who's going to be in the delivery room with her, Fred or Roseanne, before they're both allowed in.  In the credits, we see Metcalf with her real baby (whose father, Matt Roth, had played Fisher).

Jeannetta Arnette, probably best known for Head of the Class, was Detective Green on Three's Company and is the Nurse here.  Tom McTigue makes his second and understandably last appearance as Jackie's Doctor.

Roseanne: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Roseanne: Don't Ask, Don't Tell
ABC
March 1, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

Berg & Zimmerman wrote the teleplay based on Michael Borkow's story and it's worth remembering that this was at the time controversial and ground-breaking, simply because a lesbian kissed Roseanne, not with mouths visible to the audience and not reciprocally.  Watching it now, I think an off-the-cuff line (by Nancy) about a male "accountant with pierced nipples" is more shocking, as is Mark's line about Becky wanting to "ride" her ex, but it was the kiss that made this infamous.

Nancy has been dating her new girlfriend, a stripper named Sharon (Mariel Hemingway, who would return once more) for three months but has hesitated to introduce Roseanne and Jackie to her, very different from when she went out with Marla.  Roseanne (in a line I'm sure Barr loved delivering) points out that Nancy's girlfriends tend to be gorgeous blondes, while the boyfriends look like Arnie.  The four women go dancing at a gay bar, although Jackie, now in her ninth month of pregnancy is very uncomfortable.  Sharon gives Roseanne a friendly kiss, which Roseanne isn't sure how to deal with, partly because it makes her realize she's not as cool as she thinks she is.

As for Becky's ex, Dean Bates (David Allan Donah) returns and David tries to make Mark jealous for Becky's sake, but then it turns out that Dean is giving Darlene a lift back to Chicago.  Nothing more happens with this plot, not even a line pay-off in the tag or something.  My guess is that this episode went through many drafts, especially when there were ABC censors to placate and then defy, and some things got lost in the shuffle.  Still it's an interesting dynamic watching the two Healy-Conner couples together.

Lois Bromfield, who plays the Blonde Who Cruises Jackie, wrote five earlier episodes and played a different character.  Beautiful stand-up comic Laura Kightlinger has a nice little role as the Bartender but I don't have room for her in the tags.  This is the 600th B I've given to one of my shows.

Roseanne: Don't Make Room for Daddy

Roseanne: Don't Make Room for Daddy
ABC
February 15, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

Abbott & Fromstein wrote this episode where Fred sues Jackie for custody of their unborn baby.  It's interesting that his side is shown, but Jackie's reaction is understandable, especially as Roseanne points out, she's still emotionally scarred from her relationship with Fisher.  Becky takes Jackie's side, while Mark and Dan sympathize with Fred.  David, whose masculinity is questioned not only by Mark but by D.J., gets caught in the taking sides trap, until he learns how to play the sides against each other.  In the end, Jackie and Fisher reconcile, thanks to Dan offscreen.

Tony Edwards makes his second appearance as a Customer, although it was a different workplace in '91, while Customer Rob Elk previously played Joel.  Tom McTigue would return as Jackie's Doctor.

Roseanne: Everyone Comes to Jackie's

Roseanne: Everyone Comes to Jackie's
ABC
February 8, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B+

This Borns & Gandolfi story manages to be soap-operatically juicy, as several storylines explode, and laugh-out-loud funny.  Gilbert in particular is at the top of her game, showing what so much of this season has missed, but the rest of the cast is solid, too, including Goodman, who again shows what happens when Dan stops controlling his anger.  He blames David for living with Darlene in Chicago, but Roseanne tells a different version of their own second date to show that Darlene isn't as blameless as he thinks.  There's a throwaway line where Dan, in his anger, tells Fred he should sue Jackie for custody, which Fred will take seriously in the next episode.

Roseanne: David vs. Goliath

Roseanne: David vs. Goliath
ABC
February 1, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

Roseanne exploits the situation of knowing that D & D were shacking up in Chicago by making David do lots of housework.  He isn't comfortable lying to Dan, who considers him an "almost son."  He tells the truth (omitting that Roseanne and D.J. knew) and Dan kicks him out.  Roseanne pressures Jackie into letting David move in until she can guilt Dan into letting David move back, but instead Dan is guilted into hiring Mark at the garage that Dan manages for the city, the one where Fred works for him.  Meanwhile, Jackie refuses to take money from Fred to help with her baby, so he storms out.  She feels guilty about upsetting him and she figuratively cries on David's shoulder.  He thinks she's hitting on him, which amuses her a lot.  The tag is a well-done Graduate parody, costumes and movie dialogue and all.

Roseanne: Busted

Roseanne: Busted
ABC
January 11, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B

Amy Sherman wrote this eventful episode.  Dan and Roseanne both try to reconcile Becky and Mark, going over to the bachelor paradise apartment of Mark's friend Royal (Ahmet Zappa giving a nice understated performance on an episode that plays tribute to his then recently deceased father; Ahmet would return in another role).  Dan wants to move in, while Roseanne on her visit finds that one, Mark blames himself for being too stupid for trade school, and two, (thanks to Royal's confusion of the Conner sisters) David is living with Darlene in Chicago.  Roseanne and Mark drive to Chicago so she can confront D & D.  Meanwhile, Becky blames Roseanne but Dan helps her see that it's her own expectations of Mark that she has to deal with.  Roseanne brings David home, to Darlene's relief, since she and David have been fighting, but Roseanne doesn't tell Dan the truth yet.  Meanwhile, in a throwaway line, we find out that D.J. is still a monster on the hockey team.

Roseanne: Suck Up or Shut Up

Roseanne: Suck Up or Shut Up
ABC
January 4, 1994
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This episode, with its teleplay by Borns & Gandolfi, based on a story by someone who didn't work on any other of my shows, is mainly notable for its celebrity cameos.  Florence Henderson plays a local businesswoman (also named Florence) that Roseanne sucks up to for the restaurant, although it becomes a challenge when D.J. quotes Roseanne's mockery of the woman's weird son.  (Henderson was then 59 but didn't look it, so I guess it's just plausible she could be the mother of a preteen.)  And in the tag, Anthony Geary and Genie Francis appear as Luke & Laura, and the Becky switch is lampshaded.  The other plot thread has Mark getting fed up with school but Becky, on Roseanne's advice, pushes him until he leaves her.  It seems like such a waste that Mark was sent to school, while straight-A Becky is working at Bunz.

Selma Archerd, who had acted with Henderson before, on the "goat" episode of The Brady Bunch and in A Very Brady Christmas, here has her first of two Roseanne roles, as Lucille.  Note that Chuck is currently the Lobo bartender, and again I have to omit Pickens from the overcrowded tags.

Roseanne: White Trash Christmas

Roseanne: White Trash Christmas
ABC
December 14, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

Lawrence Broch's first of eight Roseanne stories and William Lucas Walker's first of five has three plot threads.  In one, Roseanne and Dan decide to defy the critics in the neighborhood and make their Christmas decorations tackier than ever; this mostly works but lacks a nice pay-off where we can see more of the final result, rather than just bits and pieces and "telling not showing."  In the most serious thread, Dan and Roseanne give Becky a check for a semester at community college, but she wants the money to spent on Mark taking a course so he can work in a garage.  When she and Roseanne clash about this, Becky gets a job as a waitress at Bunz, which I guess is like Hooters.  Meanwhile, Bev takes D.J. to see The Nutcracker in Chicago, and D.J. finds out that David is living with Darlene.  There's a nice scene with Darlene and D.J., where it's confirmed what I suspect elsewhere, that they're closer, despite their fights, than D.J. and Becky are.  Again, a B+ was tempting, but besides the lack of a dazzling Christmas display, I just don't think Chalke can sell the fights with her parents the way Goranson could.  (She's like a nice girl who's ticked off, while Goranson's Becky had seething anger and bitterness that could be tapped into.)

Roseanne: The Driver's Seat

From the Cops parody in the tag

Roseanne: The Driver's Seat
ABC
November 30, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

James Berg & Stan Zimmerman's first of two Roseanne stories has Roseanne worrying about losing control, of the restaurant as Leon stages a "bloodless coup" and of her own temper, as she repeatedly hits D.J. after he steals and wrecks the family car.  Barr's acting is particularly good here and I almost went with a B+ but I felt like the "idiot customer" sequence didn't really work.

Male Customer Alex Cole previously played a Prisoner.  Cop #1, Joe Minjares, was a Roseanne Cop before, while Cop #2, Ben Thomas, would return as Second Cop.

Roseanne: Thanksgiving 1993

Roseanne: Thanksgiving 1993
ABC
November 23, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

In this Borkow & Gandolfi story, everyone comes home for the holiday, except Darlene, who pretends she's visiting David in Michigan.  Nana Mary is pretending dementia to upset Bev, but then she coherently tells everyone that Bev was pregnant with Roseanne when she got married.  (The real wedding date was in June 1952, while Roseanne was born in November 1952.)  Meanwhile, Mark and Dan clash, to the point of fisticuffs, because Dan resents Mark not being able to support Becky.  And Roseanne invites over Fred, who does some of his great eyebrow reactions, as when Mary hits on him.

I'm reluctantly omitting Michael Fishman from the overcrowded tags.

Roseanne: Guilt by Imagination

Roseanne: Guilt by Imagination
ABC
November 9, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B+

Pat Bullard, who'd later write three more Roseanne episodes, in one of which he'd play Deliveryman #1, and his collaborator Stevie Ray Fromstein, who'd played Bill earlier in the year, based this teleplay on the second of five Roseanne stories by Lois Bromfield, who had appeared as one Roseanne character already and would be another the next year.  Like the previous episode, it's laugh-out-loud funny but also real and insightful.

Vicki Lawrence appears in only the opening scene, but her role of Phyllis Zimmer has long-reaching consequences, into even the series finale.  Phyllis is the girl (I think referred to once before) that Dan slept with when he and Roseanne broke up in high school.  She invites Dan out to lunch and flirts outrageously with him in his office.  Nothing happens but Dan is flattered by her attention, and turned on enough to come home and passionately make love to Roseanne all afternoon.  Jackie is caught in the middle, when she's not a very good liar.  Meanwhile, Dan tells Fred to call attention to Jackie's ears, which she's insecure about, so Fred buys Jackie earrings, saying he's been thinking about her ears.  As Roseanne observes, "That's very flattering from somebody who's seen you naked."

Fabio makes an appearance in the tag as Roseanne's romantic fantasy.  This is the first episode without either Darlene or David, as the focus is more on the adults, but D.J. does get a good scene with Dan.  And we never hear how Fred and Jackie's date went.

Roseanne: Homeward Bound

Roseanne: Homeward Bound
ABC
November 2, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B+

Michael Borkow's first of five Roseanne episodes is the best of this season so far: hilarious and touching, in more ways than one.  Yes, it's impossible to talk about masturbation without innuendo accidental and deliberate, as Borkow's script demonstrates.  Twelve-year-old D.J. is at that age, and the family has to deal with it when he starts spending hours in the bathroom.  Meanwhile, Darlene comes home for a visit and is reluctant to talk about her success at art school in Chicago, when David has been skipping school for two weeks and isn't doing much with his life.  David ends up telling Dan and Roseanne that he's moving to Michigan to be with his mother, who's going to try to change.  But the tag reveals that David has moved in with Darlene in Chicago.  This would have fallout down the road, but even as a standalone the episode is solid.

Roseanne: Be My Baby

Roseanne: Be My Baby
ABC
October 19, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

Rob Ulin wrote this story that has Dan and Roseanne getting irritable with each other after three months of trying to conceive, only to find out that Jackie is pregnant from her one-night stand with Fred.  I wish more time had been spent on Fred & Jackie, but this remains a Roseanne-centered show.  In any case, there are some funny moments, including Bev's reaction and Fred's (his offscreen).  Note that Roseanne is now 41.

Roseanne: A Stash from the Past

Roseanne: A Stash from the Past
ABC
October 5, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

Kevin Abbott's first of five Roseanne scripts has Roseanne finding pot in David's basement bedroom.  He lies and claims it's his, but only because he thinks it's Darlene's.  (Darlene appears in a phone conversation and does a good imitation of her mother.)  It turns out it's Roseanne's pot, abandoned when she was pregnant with Becky and planned to stop.  Dan, Roseanne, and Jackie end up smoking the stash but don't enjoy it.  It's ironic that Jackie speaks of being all alone, without a husband, boyfriend, or children, when that's shortly going to change.  Note that Dan is now 42.

Roseanne: Party Politics

Roseanne: Party Politics
ABC
September 28, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

Miriam Trogdon's first of five Roseanne scripts takes awhile to set up, but it's fun to see the alliances and rivalries come together, like Darlene and D.J. teaming up, with David not taking their side till he's mad at Roseanne, who gets Fred on her side because he wants to go out again with Jackie, who still doesn't want a relationship.  (Dan doesn't really get involved in the scheming.)  Unlike the Who's the Boss? episode called "Party Politics," we don't actually see anything of the party (in this case, Jackie's housewarming) beyond preparations.

Roseanne: The Mommy's Curse

Roseanne: The Mommy's Curse
ABC
September 21, 1993
Sitcom
DVD
B

This episode by Eric Gilliland introduces Fred, played by Michael O'Keefe, who was two different characters on M*A*S*H back in the '70s, although he was only 38 at this point.  He'd be in 34 more Roseanne episodes, although I can't tell if Fred ever got a last name.  Fred is introduced as Dan's friend and employee, whom Jackie has a crush on.  Roseanne pressures Jackie to ask Fred out, since she hasn't dated in the last six months.  Jackie reluctantly goes through with it and ends up having a one-night stand because she's not ready for a relationship.  Fred wants more and I, then 25 and dealing with a separation that would soon become a divorce, definitely wanted more of this cute, sweet, funny character.  (He was probably my strongest crush of the time, even more than some of the Whose Line Is It Anyway? men.)

The episode is mostly about Roseanne trying to get Bev to be a silent partner and then feeling guilty about it, till Bev sells her share of the restaurant to Leon.  So two threads are set up that will impact the next two or three seasons.  Note that this episode is not only lacking Darlene, understandably, but D.J. doesn't even make a brief token appearance like last time.  This is the 300th of my 1990s shows.