How ‘The Conners’ Went From Nearly DOA to a Milestone 100th Episode — and What’s Next: ‘There’s So Much More to Do’
For any television series reaching its 100th episode, looking back is a given, but there aren’t many shows with a 35-year history like ABC’s “The Conners,” the sitcom following the blue-collar family with an affinity for getting knocked down by life’s struggles while making us laugh along the way. “It’s just lucky, I guess,” says John Goodman, who plays patriarch Dan Conner. “Now all of a sudden, it’s 100 episodes. I can’t believe how fast the time went by, but I guess that’s just because I’m getting old.”
We first met the Lanford, Ill., clan on Oct. 18, 1988, when “Roseanne,” named for brash standup comedian Roseanne Barr, premiered on ABC. The cast included Roseanne’s big-hearted husband Dan (Goodman), their three salty young children Becky (Lecy Goranson), Darlene (Sara Gilbert) and D.J. (Michael Fishman) as well as Roseanne’s erratic sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf). “Roseanne” was a huge hit from the start, ranking second for the 1988-89 season and then usurping then-ratings giant “The Cosby Show” to be No. 1 the following season and having a strong nine-season run that ended in 1997.
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Two decades plus later, the “Roseanne” revival (technically a 10th season) debuted on ABC on March 27, 2018, with the original cast, garnering a huge premiere viewership (live+ 7 numbers were 27.3 million viewers) and an 11th season renewal just three days after that debut. What could possibly go wrong? That would be Barr’s racist tweet in May 2018 that abruptly canceled the revival and was almost the end of the Conners.
“I think it was maybe a day or so,” after “Roseanne” was canceled, “and I was talking to Channing Dungey, who was the head of ABC,” recalls executive producer Bruce Helford. “I said, not unintentionally, ‘Gee, it would’ve been so much better if we had called it “The Darlene Show.”’ There was a long pause. I really wasn’t saying it was going to be ‘The Darlene Show’ but there could be a version beyond that.”
“The Conners” spinoff was soon ordered to series with the cast intact minus the Conners’ matriarch. “There was a lot of internal discussion about how can we go on without the lead? Because historically, that doesn’t work,” says executive producer Dave Caplan.
Nevertheless, when the Roseanne-less show premiered on Oct. 18, 2018 — 30 years to the day of the original debut — Barr’s character had died three weeks earlier from an opioid overdose and the family was grieving. Crafting the show from this point was daunting, to say the least. “We had Darlene [Gilbert, also an executive producer] step into the matriarch role and got a lot of episodes out of how difficult that was for her and for everybody else to accept her in that role,” Caplan recalls.
Thankfully, viewers accepted the big creative risk and “The Conners” would go on to rank as the season’s No. 1 new comedy in total viewers and 18-49 with an average of 9.5 million total viewers. Barr’s character is still mentioned to this day. “We made a commitment to be emotionally honest about what it would mean for that character to not be with the family anymore,” says Caplan.
Nods to yesteryear and the family’s ever-evolving relationships are a part of “Smash and Grab and Happy Death Day,” the show’s 100th episode. In one storyline, a robbery attempt at Olinsky’s Hardware has partial owner Dan and Jackie detaining a teenager until the police arrive. “Holding that kid brings something up in Jackie and Dan’s relationship that has to get resolved, because they’re still working through some of those old wounds,” previews Caplan.
The other story involves an old family photo. Nobody remembers the people in the image, causing Becky’s 6-year-old daughter Beverly Rose (Charlotte Sanchez) to obsess about death. “Becky doesn’t want to talk about this stuff with her kid and Darlene starts talking about how the worms eat you when you’re gone,” Helford says. “It’s ultimately about Becky and Darlene, about their relationship with the nature of how they see the world.”
Becky’s deceased first husband Mark, played by Glenn Quinn in the original series, gets a mention in the episode.
Over its run, the spinoff has dissected gender identity, alcoholism, abortion and healthcare, doing so as organically as possible.
“We never sit down and say, ‘Let’s do something about this thing that’s in the news,’” says Caplan. But sometimes an issue comes to them courtesy of one of the show’s actors, as it did for Season 4’s “Triggered,” which focused on gun control, and was written by Goranson. “Lecy brought that to us, and we had to figure out how that impacted the family,” recalls executive producer Bruce Rasmussen.
Politics and voting were at the center of Season 2’s live episode “Live From Lanford,” which was set on the night of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. “We actually announced one of the candidates dropping out before the news did because we were listening to the live feed and we were feeding it to the actors,” says Helford.
Can we expect another live episode given the current presidential election year if “The Conners” gets a seventh season? “I will fight for it next fall,” promises Helford.
The producers make sure the family gets its share of wins in addition to trials and tribulations. “When they’ve been through a lot, we try to take our foot off the gas a little bit and give them a moment to breathe and have some happiness,” says Caplan. After struggling emotionally following Roseanne’s death, for instance, Dan found love again with Katey Sagal’s Louise, whom he married during the fourth season. “I really didn’t think he’d get married again so it surprised me,” Goodman recalls. “It gave him a pair of second legs. I think it probably gave him 20 more years.”
High-profile guest stars have been plentiful: They include Matthew Broderick, William H. Macy, Eagles’ Joe Walsh, Whoopi Goldberg, Paul Reubens, Candice Bergen and, in the Season 6 premiere, Nick Offerman. For Goodman, a highlight has been working with 96-year-old Estelle Parsons, who has appeared in 10 “Conners” episodes as Jackie’s dementia-suffering mother, Bev.
“Whenever she shows up, she’s just jaw-dropping,” he says. “It doesn’t look like she’s lifting a finger, but there’s a lot of work behind that.”
While the show’s fate beyond Season 6 is still up in the air, there are still stories to tell for this family.
“We’re breaking the season with the idea of there being more because there’s so much more to do,” says Rasmussen.
Concurs Caplan: “The Conners are a reflection of a giant chunk of America. And is America still having issues with paying their bills and making ends meet and how it complicates their lives? Yeah, we think so. So as long as those stories matter, I’d love to keep telling them.”
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