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.