Roseanne - Season 8

We are just a month away from the return of new episodes of Roseanne (season 8 excerpt) on ABC! Last week I finished season eight, and now must try and blitz through the final season in time for the series premiere next month! If this is the first Roseanne blog you are viewing here dear reader, then you can catch up on past season recaps by clicking here.

-It’s time for the job roll call. Roseanne (Roseanne Barr), Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), Nancy (Sandra Bernhard) and Leon (Martin Mull) are still holding down the fort at The Lunchbox restaurant. Like last season, the restaurant takes a little more of a backseat this season and is only featured in several episodes. Also like last season, Nancy is only sprinkled in a few episodes this season as well. I am all for that as less is more with her character, as the show went overkill with Nancy in her first couple seasons on the show. Darlene (Sara Gilbert) is still in college in Chicago and pops in every other episode as a result, while Becky (Lecy Goransen & Sarah Chalke, more on that in a bit) references having a job at one point in the season, but does not specify where. Dan (John Goodman), Mark (Glenn Quinn) and Fred (Michael ‘O Keefe) are still at the city garage, but a new opportunity comes across their desk late in the season. David (Johnny Galecki) references working part time at a pizza shop, but bails on that late in the season to spend one episode training at a Disney World-esque theme park that turns out to have some dark characteristics that leads to David bailing on that too.

-If you recall last season, Roseanne was midway through her pregnancy when the season ended. With the offseason break, it feels like Roseanne’s pregnancy is dragging on endlessly to the point that family members make some 4th-wall-bending gags referencing just as much. I did find it fitting that Roseanne has her kid on Halloween. If you thought that was the last pregnancy of the series, you are dead wrong because late in the season Darlene and David find out they are having a kid too and shortly thereafter get hitched in one of the most memorable episodes of the series!

-In a bizarre twist, Lecy Goransen returns to portray Becky after taking three seasons off for college. I always preferred Lecy’s portrayal of Becky more, but I am guessing the production staff did not want to give Sarah Chalke’s version of Becky the complete burial and they had her comeback for three random episodes this season as Becky. It takes a little adjustment adapting to the Becky-swapping but eventually I was acclimated to it by the end of the season.

-I referenced in the previous season recap that the writers of Roseanne must have been big fans of Friends because they referenced it a couple of times last season. The writers continue to shed some form of appreciation to Friends again this season when Dan concludes his favorite classic sitcom is a lot like a 1970s version of Friends, and Roseanne later goes on a tirade stating it is impossible for the cast to eat anything and look as good as they do. I stated last season the writers must have borrowed a page out of Friends by dumbing-down Mark to make him the Joey Tribianni of the cast. I thought it was impossible for them to make Mark even more of a tool, but I was proven wrong in grand fashion this season when Mark gloats about his Scrabble skills and later gets jealous in the Disney World episode when he goes on a rage when he presumes Goofy is making a pass at Becky.

-This season marks the final appearances of Fred and Crystal. Fred was a huge character in the previous two seasons and it was jarring to see him only in a couple early episodes this season and never referenced again. I thought they could have kept something going with the uncomfortable divorcees dynamic between him and Jackie constantly passing their kid over to each other in an early episode, but it was not to be. Crystal has even more of a depressing sendoff. Crystal was a huge supporting character in the first four seasons of the show, but she only appeared on a handful of episodes in the previous three seasons. Her decreased presence on the show is baffling considering she is married to Dan’s father. Her final appearance is on the season premiere where she gives Roseanne a baby shower gift and only has one line of dialogue.

-Aside from the pitiful sendoffs to major supporting characters my other gripe this season is there is a midseason lull filled with too many gimmick episodes. My theory is the writers were getting a little burnt out this late into Roseanne’s run and decided to do a few episodes they had on the backburner for awhile. There is a 1950s black and white themed episode filmed in the fashion of Leave it to Beaver that did not win me over. It may have been a fresh satire when it originally aired, but seeing it for the first time in 2017 comes off as a spoof I have seen countless times. There is also an episode that did not work for me which features Dan jamming out with Blues Traveler, who were kind of a big deal when this episode aired in the late 90s.

-I did not mind the two-part Disney World episode as the first episode is primarily the Connor family annoying the passengers and staff on the airplane ride there and the second episode is the family taking on the rides and thrills of Disney World like only the Connors can. I felt dirty for liking these episodes however when I was doing my background research for this blog when I discovered that episode aired shortly after Disney acquired ABC and it forced most of the hit ABC shows of the time to incorporate Disney World themed episodes.

-Other quick highlights of mine this season is when Jacki and Roseanne team up to get a stereotypical older-cranky manager type fired from his job in three straight episodes. Another stellar episode is when the Connors throw Becky and Mark a party in their trailer and guilt-shame Becky in the process in order for Becky to improve her life. The dangers of the Internet are revealed this season when David connects Jacki up to the Internet (and with AOL of all services!) and she instantly succumbs to its addictive qualities in another killer moment. I am happy for Leon finding happiness this season when he marries Scott (Fred Willard). Roseanne’s ideas for the ultimate gay wedding do not sit well with Leon, but luckily the wedding winds up going off without a hitch!

-Darlene’s wedding was a very special episode that leads to a grand three episode finale for the season. Dan was not a fan of how quickly the wedding came to be, but him and Darlene eventually talk out their differences in a touching scene and the wedding is a success…..until Dan has a heart attack during the reception. The next episode features the family coming together and being there for Dan while he recovers in the hospital. All initially seems well in the season finale when Dan comes back home, but when Roseanne confronts Dan about cheating on his new hospital-ordered diet Dan looses it and the two have THE ultimate fight of the series thusfar. It was goosebump-scary how intense the two got into it, and such a downer to end the season on a cliffhanger that had me thinking the Connors may be heading for a divorce.

-After a couple seasons with no extra features, season eight has two extras. One is a video commentary with Roseanne and Michael Fishman doing commentary over the episode where David works at the evil-Disney World. It is not worth watching unfortunately as the two do not have much to say and there are many lulls throughout. Other than that there is a quick eight minute feature on all the jobs Roseanne has held throughout the show’s run which is a quirky little watch. As I mentioned in previous blogs I will echo again here that I would have loved more in-depth interviews with the cast and crew about the controversial topics the show hits on and what was going on with Chalke/Goransen constantly swapping out and Darlene only being on every other episode for the show’s last several seasons.

-Minus a stretch in the middle part of the season, I will give a thumbs up to season eight of Roseanne. A part of me is super-bummed to see things get so heated in the season finale, but another part of me is excited to see if and how Roseanne and Dan salvage their marriage. Then again, I recall hearing a few times over the years that Roseanne’s final season is complete garbage, but I have no choice but to try and breeze through it before the show returns to ABC next month! Please join me here soon for my season nine recap to see if season nine is as dreadful as everyone else says it is!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
2016-17 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television