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.
Let me know what you think in the comments or on social media!
Feel free to e-mail me at brian@poprefs.com for suggestions for shows to do in future installments!
I enjoyed it until that horrible last season so my personal Jump The Shark standards weren’t met until then.
The show definitely jumped the shark in season 7 for me. I would actually choose a different episode for me personally. At worst, I’d say it was the two part clip show “All About Rosey,” which used very bizarre and barely funny scenes to set the context, followed by a 4th wall shattering segment where a variety of prior TV sitcom mothers “meet” Roseanne in the kitchen for more clips. It was a sign of the surreal, fourth wall breaking stuff which would only escalate throughout seasons 7-8 and finally hit the apex of absurdity in season 9.
At best, I’d say it was the season 7 finale, “Sherwood Schwartz: A Loving Tribute.” 98% of the episode is just the Roseanne cast recreating GILLIGAN’S ISLAND (with a cameo by the original cast at the end). Season 9 would be full of bizarre episodes like this, but season 7 made the trend regular and this episode is the first to go whole hog with it. It isn’t hard to see “Rosambo” (the infamous season 9 episode where Roseanne spoofs Steven Seagal) extending from this episode as a logical conclusion.
Honestly, aside for the stunt guest casting in “Happy Trailers,” it was a more “normal” episode of Roseanne in comparison. But, yes, by season 7 it was clear everyone was out of ideas and just coasting or going to strange places. Very, very few sitcoms are still good past 5 seasons (the fact that “THE SIMPSONS” was still “classic” after at least 10 has earned it eternal goodwill from some), but “ROSEANNE” was one of the case examples of this. Very few sitcoms ended as badly as it did, at least after so long.
Yeah, man, they really did do a bunch of episodes around Season 7 or 8 that seemed to be purely, “Eh, Roseanne thought it would be fun to do.”
I’d say it jumped the shark at the end of Season 1. Once Roseanne got creative control and began screeching at all times it was pretty much over, although I stuck around till Season 4 or so.