‘Roseanne’ is back without missing a beat
It was as if “Roseanne” never left.
Writers were astute enough to address Dan Conner’s death, which closed the 10th season two decades ago, by having him wake up to Roseanne’s delight at the dawn of last week’s revival on ABC (Channel 6).
Roseanne’s delight is often the key to the show’s success. Actress and character revel in Roseanne’s quick, biting, funny ripostes. The new series has her laughing at the end of the opening credits, this time because she licked food her granddaughter was filching from her plate.
The main key remains reality. Yes, the Conners, for all their baiting, bickering, and backbiting, discuss their gripes and genuine issues more than most families, but their ragtag existence, pretty much happy with what they have, their relaxed ways, their not striving to be a model family or a have a showcase of a home, their ability to recognize and ridicule fakers, and their coping with matters that may actually arise in real life attracted American audiences in the ‘90’s and deserve to attract them now.
I cannot watch most sitcoms. They are insipidly preachy and try way too hard to seem cool and modern. “The Big Bang Theory” is funny enough to get my attention, even though by now I would like to see the characters mature as well as age. “The Middle” has most of the qualities of “Roseanne” and can keep me amused. Most other network comedies, including “Modern Family,” “The Goldbergs,” and “Black-ish” leave me cold and headed to Netflix, Hulu, or to work on my blog.
“Roseanne” held me for the entire hour its two episodes aired and made me laugh out loud several times. I think it’s because the show is not only better written than most, better acted than most, smarter than most, and more fearless than most.
“Roseanne” doesn’t care about knock-down, drag-outs. No one has to be nice all of the time. Or even totally civil. Even by subtracting those two banes of modern existence, partisanship and political correctness, “Roseanne” found ways to introduce personal political points of view, e.g. The Donald Trump election of 2016, by allowing some rancor but never asking either side to apologize or capitulate.
Gratefully, “Roseanne” doesn’t have the gooey soft center you find in most other shows.
Instead, it has real sentiments and real family dynamics.
What other show could handle a grandson’s dressing to his taste, which happens to be bright colors, skirts, and glittery accessories, with ease while never ignoring any side of the situation?
“Roseanne” provides the boy with acceptance while noting he will be considered a freak and probably be beat up. Most shows would stand with the boy’s ground and label as evil any detractors or bystanders who might thing the kid weird, which he is. Happily individual, but weird in a great Conner tradition. Or they would lecture the boy on convention and find a graceful but strict way to force him to conformity.
Not “Roseanne!” It tells the boy he’s weird and lets him do what he wants.
It also shows the self-knowledge and wisdom of the boy. He can take care of himself. He can show a bully a knife, not because he intends to use it, but so the bully could think he might. His comeback line to Dan once the school insists he no longer arrive armed, is one of the more priceless of the excellent barbs and retorts in which the series glories — “He (the bully) has a peanut allergy. I can take him out with a granola bar.”)
I know. Murder is suggested. By a child, yet. Could that be funny? Yes!!! “Roseanne” constantly shows it can deal with the unusual or the difficult. In addition to Mark, the grandson’s quirk, it smartly addresses daughter Becky’s decision to be a surrogate mother for the kind of couple that is perfect to be a Conner family foil.
Since “Roseanne’s” debut, social media sites have been going to town about Roseanne Barr’s personal politics.
To me, anything anyone does off camera — even Kevin Spacey or Garrison Keillor — is immaterial to my enjoying work as an actor.
I know. This compartmentalizing and lack of care about fitting neo-Puritan strictures makes me as much of a rebel as the crossdressing grandson.
All I care about is “Roseanne” is funny. As Roseanne Conner, Roseann Barr is funny.
She also lives up to something she told me 30 years ago, when she was on the brink of fame and had not conceived a television show. She said what audiences see on stage is a comic persona, as it is with Phyllis Diller or Lucille Ball, and not the person playing the persona.
Barr heads an exceptional cast. Soon after filing this column, I’ll be heading to Broadway to see Laurie Metcalf in “Three Tall Women.” Metcalf earned a Tony last year for “A Doll’s House, Part II” (included in the Arden’s 201819 subscription series) and was nominated for an Oscar for her wonderful turn in “Lady Bird.”
Besides Metcalf, there’s John Goodman, who is a master of the unexpected and spot-on line reading; Sara Gilbert, who shows her acting ability matches her speaking ability from CBS’s “The Talk;” and Lecey Goranson, who is so brilliantly dense, defenseless in the wake of Conner onslaught, as Becky.
For 10 seasons, “Roseanne” was a winner. It’s a winner again. his or her
‘Will and Grace’ falters
“Roseanne’s” comeback, to my mind, is superior to “Will and Grace’s,” which, though decent, doesn’t have a renewed spark and seems a tad self-conscious and out of ideas in its scripting. It also hasn’t quite learned how to move Megan Mullally’s Karen to the new series.
Next up on the revival character is “Lost in Space,” which comes to Netflix on Friday, April 13 with Toby Stephens, Parker Posey, and Molly Parker leading the cast. The show will be set in the 2050’s.
Other shows worth noting in the coming week are Saturday’s HBO movie, “Paterno,” with Pantheon star Al Pacino playing the successful Penn State football coach in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky scandal; Ken Lonergan’s series adaptation of E.M. Forster’s “Howard’s End” coming Sunday on Starz with Matthew Macfadyen and Tracey Ullman in lead roles; tomorrow’s “Legion,” (10 p.m.), an FX entry related to Marvel’s “XMen” books that has added interest because its show runner is “Fargo’s” Noah Hawley; and Wednesday’s four-part “National Treasure,” on Hulu, which follows up last year’s cutting edge look at a beloved star facing serious sexual abuse charges with a totally different story about a black girl who is abducted on the night before she is to be adopted by a white family.
Of course, tonight might create a few basketball thrills if Villanova can top Michigan to take home its second NCAA national championship in three seasons.
Strong lineage on ‘SNL’
While NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” can be proud of how many important stars it introduced to television and movies, I doubt there would be much argument that the greatest assemblage of talent appears among the show’s first two casts or that the cast member who accomplished the most in the long run is original cast member Bill Murray.
Begging some apology from Delco’s Tina Fey, Murray may be the only “SNL” star to have an extensive and continuous career that spans 40 years and includes starring roles in favorite films such as “Stripes” and “Groundhog Day,” challenging work such as “Lost in Translation” and “St. Vincent,” and unexpected successes that deserved more attention, such as him playing FDR in “Hyde Park on Hudson>”
Murray has also appeared liberally on television series and makes regular visits to “SNL.”
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