I wasn't too fond of the "Roseanne" reboot last year. I didn't find it very funny, for one thing. I loved the original show and watched every episode (I also watched them again later on TVLAND. They're good enough for repeat viewings). The last season was awful, so they just pretended, in the reboot, that it didn't happen.  They won the lottery and killed off Dan in that last season, so in the reboot, they were back to being poor and Dan is alive.  Since it's years later, they had to add in grandkids and such. They got most of the original cast back, which is awesome.  However, they decided to make Roseanne a President Trump fan (as the actress is in real life). I didn't like that because it just didn't seem to work with her character.

Roseanne was very progressive in the old show that ran from 1988 to 1997.  The show had episodes about workers' rights, abortion, women's rights, gay rights, etc.  Roseanne was a writer who had put her dreams aside in order to raise a family. She may have sounded uneducated, but she wasn't dumb. It made no sense whatsoever that she became a Trump voter.  It would have made more sense had Jackie been the Trump voter, because she was not too bright. Or Dan!  Or Becky...  All of these are working class people, not too bright, who might have voted for Trump. Just not Roseanne, Darlene, or David, or any of the gay characters on the show. It would make no sense.  Politics aside, it seemed contrived, and the jokes in the new show just weren't that funny.  The show was very popular, though, so they renewed it.

Then the real-life Roseanne Barr made some racist remarks on Twitter, so ABC had to fire her.  They decided to continue on with the show, anyway, now renamed "The Conners."  I only watched the first episode, but to me it was depressing, and, again, not funny.  The main goal of a sitcom is to be funny. If it can't pull that off, at least a little bit, then I don't watch it.

They did have to kill off Roseanne because it would have made no sense to have her leave town without her kids or husband.  They should have skipped ahead a few years so that they didn't have to deal so much with her death because that's not a good subject for comedy.  Also, I have to say that John Goodman just looks awful now that he lost weight. It was painful to watch. Apparently, I'm in the minority again, because it got good ratings and has been renewed for season 2.