As you can read in our last post reviewing the season 10 finale of Roseanne, I wasn’t happy with how the episode closed the season out, so I’m left with a special kind of frustration at the show’s sudden cancellation. The season had mega-ratings that exceeded all expectations, but it struggled to find the balance between “these are the stories we want to tell and fan service” vs “this is what would actually happen with these characters.” Season 10 did stumble into that balance on occasion, eapecially towards the end of the season in the new neighbour introduction episode “Go Cubs” and in the reveal of Roseanne’s pill addiction in “Netflix and Pill.” The season was full of laughs even at its cringiest and most uncomfortable momemts and we enjoyed how much of the old cast wass able to cameo, which made “No Country For Old Women” such a standout episode.
Roseanne – ABC
If you avoided the season for whatever reason, we’d recommend watchinga piece of tv history beforeir disappears, but you haven’t missed any truly Emmy worthy performances as the cast struggled to tiptoe around eachother and capture their old spark with older, altered versions of their characters. We aren’t going to discuss what happened, but for better or worse we are left with a gap in our tv schedule and its our job to fill it.
Roseanne First Season Title Image via Amazon Prime Video
If you can’t let go of the nostalgia and are extra bummed that virtually all of the reruns were pulled off and will miss marathoning chunks of your childhood you may be in luck, because the entire original series is still streamable on Amazon Prime. Who knows how long the series will remain there, and it can be hard to keep up withwhst enters and exits streaming services and we fear we may be blindsided by its exit the same way wewere with Avatar: The Last Airbender suddenly disappearing from all streaming services. It’s also worth noting that if Amazon has the rights to stream the original series it may complicate Sara Gilbert and Tom Werner’s negotiations with Disney – ABC as they attempt to continue the show without the title character, and adds to the other difficulties surrounding the shows second revival.
If you’re ready to fill that tv gap with something else we have your back with two series that fit the open blue collar, working-class niché nicely!
Netflix Official Twitter
One Day At a Time: Netflix comes to the rescue with this one, as they have not-so-subtly tweeted, their revival of the classic show also focuses on “tight-knit working class family that tackles extremely topical social issues […] if you’re suddenly looking for a show like that.” With high viewer and critics ratings we decided to dip a toe and the show and its two seasons available on the streaming platform are definitely worth a watch, but its almost too polished to capture the same spirit as the grittier show we grew up with? Which takes us to our own recommendation: Mom.
Mom (cbs) Season 4 Premiere still via the cbs.com photo gallery
Mom is a CBS comedy that has wrapped its 5th season and in production for its 6th, that focuses on the mother daughter duo of America’s comedy sweetheart Anna Farris and powerhouse actress Allison Janey as they make their way through the world of sobriety after years of living that falls somewhere between Shameless and Roseanne. The sitcom is available to stream through Hulu and has earned them 2 Emmy’s and even more nominations. We will caution that the jokes are crass and the chuld actors tend to bog down the first two seasons but are still worth watching and seasons 3 through 5 are comedy gold not to be missed.
Shameless Promo Poster, rights to Showtime retrieved and edited from Deadline.com
Our final recommendation, Shameless, is a little harder to find, but was the Roseanne for a new generation that made us question how necessary the revival was. Showtime’s Shameless was so much in the spirit of Roseanne they tapped Emma Kenny from the hit show to portray Darlene’s eldest child. The series focuses on the Gallagher family as they struggle with life as Fiona raised her 5 siblings while they all struggled to overcome the issues of their in-and-out addict father. Grittier than Roseanne or our other recommendations, we would still recommend watching the series, which has delayed releases to Netflix and much of it is currently available to stream!
