"Roseanne," "The Conners" and the ABC mess

In case you missed it Thursday, ABC had this announcement:

“The Conners” (working title), a spinoff of the groundbreaking family comedy “Roseanne,” has been greenlit to series with an order of 10 episodes for fall 2018. After a sudden turn of events, the Conners are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before. This iconic family – Dan, Jackie, Darlene, Becky and D.J. – grapples with parenthood, dating, an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America. Through it all, the fights, the coupon cutting, the hand-me-downs, the breakdowns – with love, humor and perseverance, the family prevails.

The series, featuring John Goodman (“Dan”), Laurie Metcalf (“Jackie”), Sara Gilbert (“Darlene”), Lecy Goranson (“Becky”) and Michael Fishman (“D.J.”) as their beloved Conner characters, is set to air Tuesdays (8:00-8:30 p.m.). Additional cast members and a premiere date will be announced later.

Roseanne Barr will have no financial or creative involvement in the new series.

ABC, of course, is hoping that audience love for "Roseanne" goes beyond Roseanne Barr herself -- that the millions who flocked to the series when it returned to prime time will come back after the ouster of Barr in the wake of her racist tweet. Networks have tried before to keep viewers around after a show's biggest star has departed, although this situation was made more complicated by public demands that any return of the Conners did not put money in the former star's pockets.

After all, by assuring that Barr will not benefit financially from the series revival (while, of course, she can still benefit from renewed interest in the old telecasts) ABC offers the appearance of taking the moral high ground even though that's not generally been the case. Just by bringing her back earlier this year, the network overlooked decades of dubious conduct, choosing instead to go for the ratings.

It's been almost exactly 30 years since I first crossed paths with Barr, who at the time was on a network press tour in order to promote her upcoming sitcom "Roseanne." She already had a good comedic rep thanks to her standup, and on that press tour she was charming. Yes, she had an edge -- referring to Mormons as the "Nazi Amish," which was duly reported by a Utah reporter at the event, and cut from his article by his bosses.

But there was also a joyful, unpretentious quality to her then; I remember her saying that, if the show was a hit, she and her then-husband might go out door-to-door to thank people for watching. And the show itself was wonderful, dealing with real problems among people who did not have the income or lifestyle presented in other family comedies of the period. One episode had Roseanne and Dan cheering boisterously for one of the kids in (I think) a spelling bee - and explaining their enthusiasm as coming from not having anything else in their lives to wildly cheer.

Of course, the show fell apart near the end, with a terrible final season and finale.
Roseanne herself grew more and more sour publicly, increasingly showing a side that should have disqualified her from TV long ago. Others have noted that the current conservative love of the pro-Trump Roseanne is ironic in light of notorious national-anthem performance. In 1992, she attacked a TV critic with a string of vulgar, homophobic slurs, but ABC kept her on. More recently, she has offered an array of awfulness via Twitter.  In the revival, she tossed out a line that had a racist underpinning.

As much as I had admired the old "Roseanne," as many good actors as there are in it, every time I thought about watching the new one, I just could not do it. It would be too exhausting, trying to separate the star from a character that had been so much based on the old, likable her; trying to enjoy the comedy without wondering about the politics -- in short, I just could not separate the artist from the art this time, any more than would the fans who wanted the show to highlight the Roseanne of social media.

But none of her history ultimately untethered ABC. The network was probably pleased to have a star who seemed to speak for Trump World (even if Roseanne's politics generally have careened across issues). Trump and Roseanne both operate from the same, visceral philosophy of resentment against those they feel have never embraced them or their success, and their audience comes from other comparably embittered souls.

ABC was even more likely to go for a pro-Trump Roseanne after it took heat from the right for the cancellation of outspoken conservative Tim Allen's "Last Man Standing" -- since picked up, surprise, by Fox -- and held fast to shows such as "black-ish," which is not only a great series but clearly opposed to Trumpism. Even there, the network declined one "black-ish" episode  which tackled a big Trump issue, suggesting. denials notwithstanding, ABC was truly worried about going too far against the president's folks.

So ABC was willing to take a risk that Roseanne would be outspoken, even outrageous -- until it learned that restraint was not going to happen, that its biggest hit in ages came at what, finally, was too high a price. Still I have to ask, why was that line the back-breaker considering all that had gone before? And, if it's the voice of Roseanne that made the show what it was, why bring back a show which no longer has that voice in it?