TMC
05-31-2022, 12:00 AM
https://jacksonupperco.com/2022/05/31/the-three-best-episodes-of-the-roseanne-revival/
This brief nine-episode revival of Roseanne is often labeled “Season Ten,” since it is, technically, the tenth season of a sitcom with the name Roseanne, boasting the same basic cast and premise of the prior nine. However, as I expressed in my opening essay on the original series, the twenty-year break that literally disrupted continuity, not to mention the figurative disruption of continuity from the new show’s decision to “pick and choose” which aspects of the original run to keep — e.g., Dan’s not dead, and they never won the lottery; Jackie never had a kid, but Darlene had a baby named Harris — renders this a separate property. And similar to how we don’t count The New WKRP In Cincinnati as part of WKRP In Cincinnati despite shared regulars, just because this revival came back with its cast — and title — does not mean it’s fair to say this Roseanne has any bearing on the original. On the other hand, the original does have some bearing on this revival, which is why I’m going to share some quick thoughts on it here… Obviously, there have been times in the sitcom genre’s trajectory where remakes were a mini-trend — like in the early cable era — but the latter half of the 2010s saw a renaissance of this phenomenon, only now with shows that were popular in the ’90s and could still be revived with a lot of the original stars — making this not a remake, but more like… a “reboot.” From Full House to Will & Grace or Saved By The Bell to Mad About You, this era of the “niche buffet” found distributors of content looking for material with brand identification and an immediate draw — a title that viewers would actively seek to watch. Nostalgia is always a viable commercial motivator, but what made this period unique — and we’re still not totally out of it (the new Frasier is still forthcoming; God help us) — is that, at a time when the most critically lauded shows were single-camera and often dubiously comedic, the “rebooted” 1980s and ’90s sitcoms with a nostalgic appeal to Gen-Xers and older Millennials were indicative of their original eras: they were multi-cam live audience efforts, very committed to big laughs. Thus, this wasn’t just a wave of content catering only to certain properties, it was a wave of interest in resurrecting the multi-camera style, which, by this time, had developed its own sense of nostalgia.
This brief nine-episode revival of Roseanne is often labeled “Season Ten,” since it is, technically, the tenth season of a sitcom with the name Roseanne, boasting the same basic cast and premise of the prior nine. However, as I expressed in my opening essay on the original series, the twenty-year break that literally disrupted continuity, not to mention the figurative disruption of continuity from the new show’s decision to “pick and choose” which aspects of the original run to keep — e.g., Dan’s not dead, and they never won the lottery; Jackie never had a kid, but Darlene had a baby named Harris — renders this a separate property. And similar to how we don’t count The New WKRP In Cincinnati as part of WKRP In Cincinnati despite shared regulars, just because this revival came back with its cast — and title — does not mean it’s fair to say this Roseanne has any bearing on the original. On the other hand, the original does have some bearing on this revival, which is why I’m going to share some quick thoughts on it here… Obviously, there have been times in the sitcom genre’s trajectory where remakes were a mini-trend — like in the early cable era — but the latter half of the 2010s saw a renaissance of this phenomenon, only now with shows that were popular in the ’90s and could still be revived with a lot of the original stars — making this not a remake, but more like… a “reboot.” From Full House to Will & Grace or Saved By The Bell to Mad About You, this era of the “niche buffet” found distributors of content looking for material with brand identification and an immediate draw — a title that viewers would actively seek to watch. Nostalgia is always a viable commercial motivator, but what made this period unique — and we’re still not totally out of it (the new Frasier is still forthcoming; God help us) — is that, at a time when the most critically lauded shows were single-camera and often dubiously comedic, the “rebooted” 1980s and ’90s sitcoms with a nostalgic appeal to Gen-Xers and older Millennials were indicative of their original eras: they were multi-cam live audience efforts, very committed to big laughs. Thus, this wasn’t just a wave of content catering only to certain properties, it was a wave of interest in resurrecting the multi-camera style, which, by this time, had developed its own sense of nostalgia.