.@therealroseanne on the return of #Roseanne: "Even in the back of my mind, I never thought this would happen." We sit down with the show's stars in our latest issue. https://t.co/ADAN5barXi pic.twitter.com/ZdJrMMUkK9

— Parade Magazine (@ParadeMagazine) March 16, 2018

Variety gives a mostly decent review (from Sonia Saraiya, who I can't stand). I've heard before that the pilot has the cast a little awkward in their rhythms, and this seems to bear that out.

 

This bit about the pilot's Trump/Hillary plot and stuff in future is interesting (spoiler tagged):

 

Quote

 

And though Roseanne and Dan are mercifully not mocking themselves, they aren’t presented as heroes either. In the premiere, when Jackie confesses that Roseanne’s bullying during the election really destabilized her, Roseanne can’t bring herself to sincerely acknowledge Jackie’s pain. “I should have understood that you want the government to give everybody free healthcare because you’re a good-hearted person who can’t do simple math,” Roseanne says, apparently trying not to laugh. Opposite Metcalf — a consummate professional, who revives and gently skewers Aunt Jackie with expert grace — she’s put in the role of heartless bully. And in a truly exceptional later episode, Roseanne’s long-standing love for her family turns into an impenetrable mask of desperation and bitterness. Her defensive anger is so potent that she even turns on the stalwart Dan; in retrospect, this serious rift between them brings new gravity to the disconnected feeling of the opening episodes.

Edited March 22, 20187 yr by Vee

Roseanne and John Goodman will be appearing on tonight's Jimmy Kimmel.

There's more good reviews circulating in the press today, which I am pleasantly surprised by. I still have a lot of reservations, but I like a fair amount of the clips I've seen. It'll just be nice to see them all again.

 

A good interview with Roseanne and John Goodman on Kimmel. Kimmel playfully grills her about Trump (and Goodman needles her a bit as well), and tbh Roseanne seems defensive but also sheepish.

 

As I suspected, she seems secretly embarrassed despite her wounded pride - and interestingly, earnestly urges people to vote and "change it if you don't like it."

Edited March 23, 20187 yr by Vee

An interesting and largely positive review from Buzzfeed. It still sounds like the pilot is the rockiest given growing pains and handling the Trump issue, and I'm glad they move on. That being said, this is the part that really interested me:

 

Quote

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Barr self-identified as a feminist at a time when most prominent women did not; she called bullshit on the women who’d come to represent the movement’s (white, middle-class, palatable) representatives. Her insistence that a woman like her should be the center of attention felt incendiary, breathtaking. Today, it just feels tired — not because she’s aged, but because her ideas have devolved. And while that development is regrettable, it should not be altogether surprising; the fuel that makes a firebrand is unpredictable in its ideological spread.

 

But Roseanne Barr is not Roseanne Conner. Conner was based on Roseanne’s stand-up, which was based on Barr’s life, but the character’s trajectory has never been wedded to the actor’s. The Conners of 2018 did vote for Trump — a development that is plausible, although voting for Hillary, or Bernie, seems equally so — but the rebooted Roseanne is not a forum for Barr’s ideologies. In fact, the three episodes made available to critics (the first, third, and seventh) decenter Roseanne in a slight but remarkable way, ceding the emotional heart of the story to Darlene: unemployed, single-parenting two kids, and trying to figure out how best to raise them in her parents’ house.

 

The shift makes sense: It was Sara Gilbert, who plays Darlene, who orchestrated the reunion and serves as the show’s executive producer. But Darlene’s centrality doesn’t feel like a matter of vanity so much as a reoccupation of the central questions posed by the original Roseanne: What does it mean to be a feminist mother — and outgrow your own mother’s sense of what a “strong woman” might look like? How do you value your labor when the world does not? How do you deal with recalcitrant, stubborn parents who nonetheless love you? How do you parent one child who wants to fit in and another who doesn’t? Can you pretend that money doesn’t matter when it does? What if your dreams for yourself dwindle before your eyes?

 

[...]

 

Roseanne’s vulnerability was always there, just beneath the surface of the joke. It manifested clearly in her face, which always seemed equally inclined to break into her devilish grin or her eyes-down disappointment. Roseanne Conner was stubborn but tender, tenacious yet swayable. She was filled with contradictions but never seemed careless with how she wielded them or the power that flowed from her general magnetism.

 

Today, Roseanne Conner’s politics have become largely intractable. She lives in pain because her insurance premiums are too high, but she thinks the Affordable Care Act is a scam; she recoils from the idea of Becky serving as a surrogate mother; she refuses to speak to Jackie for a year because she didn’t vote for Trump.

 

Some of the vintage, progressive Roseanne returns, albeit gradually, in her eventual handling of her grandson’s wardrobe decisions. But it’s largely up to Darlene — and, to a lesser extent, Jackie — to fill her previous role. Part of that role is calling Roseanne on her bullshit, or admitting, as Jackie does in the first episode, that Roseanne’s political commentary has come to feel like bullying. But another part of that role is commanding the gravity of the narrative. The camera still starts and stops on Roseanne in the iconic opening credit sequence, but she has effectively ceded the moral center of the show.

 

Darlene was always the most independent of the Conner children. But she was also the most like Roseanne: irreverent, acerbic, thrilled by her capacity to undercut others’ expectations of her, yet blessed with a seemingly innate ethical clarity. She wasn’t scared to wound others, and yet, like her mother, she was secretly sensitive. Roseanne used those qualities to school her children and prepare them to be better people in the world. And what makes the new Roseanne work — despite its star, and what’s become of her — is the show’s willingness to let Darlene use the same strategies on her own parents. Roseanne remains committed to a certain sort of realism. But this time, part of that realist project is allowing a feminist daughter to reject the cynicism of her mother and forge her own path forward.

 

A brief piece from THR in which the cast and crew (sans Roseanne) passes on screening the revival for Trump:

 

Quote

Time will tell, but Barr would certainly welcome an invitation.

 

“Of course,” she told The Hollywood Reporter Friday night at a fan event on the Disney lot for the series’ nine-episode return. “Are you kidding me? I would hope that he would have good food.”

 

Barr’s costars weren’t as keen on the possibility of a Trump invite. ”I doubt that will happen,” said producer and star Sara Gilbert.

 

Co-producer and writer Whitney Cummings joked, “I’d send him to voicemail or I’m sure the [invite] would be a direct message on Twitter.”

 

Roseanne’s original Becky, Sarah Chalke, who has a new role in the reboot, laughed at the idea of a White House screening. “I’ll just peek thought the windows,” she said. “You can do that at the White House, right?”

 

Despite the spotlight on Barr’s praise of Trump, the cast was quick to insist that the ABC comedy doesn’t focus on politics as much as many may be assuming. “The first episode deals with a divide in the family over politics, but we don’t really deal with politics after the first episode,” Gilbert said.

 

Cummings further explained, “We keep saying that the first episode is going to piss off liberals and the other eight are going to piss off conservatives.”

Edited March 25, 20187 yr by Vee

I want to know why Darlene is a single mom, where the heck is David?

 

Roseanne and John Goodman will appear on The View on Tuesday.

 

 

Sara Gilbert will also be on The View on Tuesday - I wonder if they'll mention The Talk, lol.

 

Sara will also be on Colbert on Monday.

Edited March 26, 20187 yr by BetterForgotten

 

Wow, Crystal and Chuck made it into a promo:

 

 

Lecy talks to the NY Daily News. She doesn't say it outright here, but she's right that the writing for Becky changed with her gone - it was nonexistent. Sarah Chalke is a fine actress today but back then all she did as Becky was play the pretty blonde bimbo. That's on the writing.

What's weird though is that the show worked around Sara Gilbert's college schedule (she attended Yale on the east coast), but didn't do the same for Lecy. Perhaps Lecy wanted to squarely focus on college though. However, Darlene remained a central focus on the show even as Gilbert was away and could only do half seasons from seasons 6-9. 

 

If Darlene is Roseanne's true successor, Becky is certainly Jackie's - someone who had a lot of promise, but was never able to get it together. I think it was mentioned by Bev in the original show how Jackie always had good grades in school, but ultimately never lived up to any of that potential in life. 

The whole cast was on GMA this morning.

Tom Arnold reviews the show! (He likes it.)

Edited March 26, 20187 yr by Vee