TV’s mania for revivals doesn’t seem to be stunted much by the fact that just as many fail as succeed. Already this year, we’ve seen “24: Legacy” and the “Prison Break” resurrection underperform in the ratings, and shows like “Xena: Warrior Princess” and “Coach” have stalled before even making it to screens. But frustratingly, every so often, one proves a hit, whether it’s “The X-Files” or “Fuller House,” and so we’re doomed to have networks continue to attempt this for, probably, as long as they still exist.
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The next zombie series to be dragged out of the grave is “Roseanne,” the seminal showcase series for stand-up comedian Roseanne Barr that ran from 1988 and 1997, and was one of the biggest shows of the time. Deadline reports that much of the original team is back together, along with comic Whitney Cummings, who will showrun with Bruce Helford, and that Barr, Sara Gilbert and John Goodman are all signed up (not yet involved: Joss Whedon, who got his earliest writing credits on the series.
The latter is particularly curious, as Goodman’s character Dan, Roseanne’s husband, died towards the end of the show. Will this shift genres into horror as Dan’s spirit haunts the rest of the family? We’d certainly watch that version. A revival of the show doesn’t have a network yet (ABC used to host it), but given that this fulfills both TV executives’ love for continuations of proven hits, but also their new desire for shows that play to what they believe are overlooked Trump voters (no doubt helped by Barr’s transformation into a rabid Islamophobe), this’ll likely spark a bidding war. More news as and when it lands a home.
Years ago Roseanne wrote that the whole “Dan being dead” scenario would’ve been the result of him having faked his death. Whether this is something she carries over into this revival or not, it seems like the smart play would be for them to ignore the dramatic series rearranging that was the ninth season’s finale.
that show was on for so long and at the end, they came up with the soap oprea ending of everyone suddenly getting rich and dan dying,they could retcon the show a bit,,, look at prison break revivial, completely skipped the fact that T-Bag charecter broke out and was on a show called breakout kings, and wasnt a model prisoner,,,