When Did Roseanne Jump the Shark?

[TMC]

https://popculturereferences.com/whe...ump-the-shark/

In a feature looking at if or when a TV series "jumped the shark," Brian asks you all to determine when (or if) Roseanne jumped the shark.



Today, we look at when (or if) you folks believe that the original Roseanne “jumped the shark.”

This is “Just Can’t Jump It,” a feature where we examine shows and whether they “jumped the shark.” Jumped the shark (coined by Jon Hein) means that the show had a specific point in time where, in retrospect, you realize that show was going downhill from there (even if, in some rare occasions, the show later course-corrected). Not every show DOES jump the shark. Some shows just remain good all the way through. And some shows are terrible all the way through. What we’re looking for are moments where a show that you otherwise enjoyed hit a point where it took a noticeable nose dive after that time and if so, what moment was that?

Roseanne was an acclaimed hit TV series about a working class family in Illinois starring Roseanne Barr, based on Barr’s stand-up comedy. The show made stars out of pretty much all of its main leads, with Barr, John Goodman (who played her husband, Dan Conner), Laurie Metcalf (as Roseanne’s sister, Jackie) and Sara Gilbert (as Roseanne and Dan’s middle child, Darlene) all receiving particular critical acclaim. After ending following nine seasons, it returned for a tenth season years later, but was canceled when Barr said some stupid racist nonsense (the show then spun off a new series, called The Conners, and killed off Roseanne Conner).

So first…DID IT JUMP THE SHARK? Definitely

WHEN DID IT JUMP THE SHARK Here’s the tricky part. We all know season nine, where Roseanne and Jackie win the lottery, is a piece of trash season. It was terrible garbage. It’s not even one of those “So bad it is good” type of deals. No, it is just awful. Betrayed everything good about the show. So I imagine many people will just say Season 9 (it was so bad that Season 10 just wrote Season 9 off as basically a dream). However, I think it jumped BEFORE then. I think it jumped somewhere between Seasons 7 and 8. The show had just sort of run its course by that point, like many other sitcoms, and began to fall apart. Barr got pregnant in real life, so suddenly, Roseanne was pregnant in Season 7 at a time when a pregnancy made NO sense for her character. Gilbert, the best of the younger actors, missed half of the seventh season. It was just a mess. If I had to pinpoint a shark jumping moment, I vote for Season 7’s “Happy Trailers,” where the Conners’ oldest child, Becky (played by Sarah Chalke after the original Becky, Lecy Goranson, left the series in Season 5) and her husband, Mark (Glenn Quinn) go to live in a trailer park. Sharon Stone guest stars, which is a problem in and of itself, as the show had way too much stunt casting in the later years of the series, but the general attitude of the episode was just gross, with Roseanne looking down on her daughter living in a trailer park, something that just didn’t fit the Roseanne Conner we had known for so many years at that point. The characters were mostly just all kind of miserable (even when Goranson returned in Season 8, it didn’t improve, and then she left again, with Chalke taking the role back). It was not an entertaining show anymore. There was still enough talent that there were some good episodes in Season 7 and 8, but I think that was the shark-jumping moment, and then Season 9 was just…well, it was something else entirely.

[CJMD03]

Season 9 is when it died.

[principehomura]

It's not important when it jumped the shark (to me is the lottery).
What's important is that Roseanne with the finale brought it back.