When Roseanne Barr's Ambien-fueled Twitter shenanigans tanked her successful sitcom comeback, there was no reason to believe the show would go on without her, or at least go well without her. Those with long memories, however, saw a roadmap laid out decades earlier when Valerie Harper battled NBC and was killed off on her own show, Valerie. As Valerie became Valerie's Family and finally The Hogan Family, so too would The Conners go on without their matriarch.
Roseanne was one of the most successful sitcoms of the 1990s, running 9 seasons and landing in Nielsen's Top 5 Most Watched Shows for the majority of its run. After years of rumblings, ABC greenlit a 10th season in 2017, riding the wave of nostalgia that would see Will & Grace rebooted that same year. Valerie, meanwhile, was an NBC midseason replacement in 1986 that debuted to critical acclaim but just okay ratings. One show found itself in limbo when it lost their leading lady, the other had planned for it.
Barr's swift removal remains a point of contention for many, especially in the wake of James Gunn being reinstated after Disney, ABC's parent company, had fired him for his own controversial tweets. Valerie Harper on the other hand has been thoroughly vindicated. Having already been victorious in a salary dispute on her classic sitcom, Rhoda, Harper rallied for a pay bump after the second season of Valerie. This led to a dispute that turned ugly and public. The studio behind the show, Lorimar, claimed she walked off set and sued her for breach of contract. Harper counter sued. A jury decided Harper was wrongly fired and awarded her $1.4 million as well as 12.5 percent of the show's profits. NBC replaced Harper with Sandy Duncan and rebranded the show. The Hogan Family would go on to spend its next three seasons on NBC, then move to CBS for its final season after NBC decided not to renew it.
Although distastefully executed, studios now had a path forward when faced with losing a lead actor that a show had been built around. Roseanne, however, was a different beast altogether. Valerie had decent numbers, but Roseanne was a ratings juggernaut, both in its original run and in its 10th season reboot. The idea of removing her would be akin to firing Jerry Seinfeld from Seinfeld. ABC, though, was already tense about Barr's Twitter activity; mainly her tendency to promote outrageous conspiracy theories.
It all came to a head on May 29, 2018, when Barr tweeted a perceived racist insult at Valerie Jarret, former Senior Adviser to then-president Barack Obama. ABC not only immediately reversed its renewal order, but canceled the show outright. That was followed by Hulu and Viacom's cable channels removing the original show from their line-up. Once the dust settled, the original series was quietly returned to the air and currently marathons on Viacom's CMT and can also be watched on NBC's Cozi TV and Hulu's live TV tier.
The rebooted Roseanne's producers, including star Sara Gilbert, scrambled to save their show. By late June 2021, negotiations finalized and ABC ordered a ten-episode spinoff, The Conners, with all the original cast rejoining, minus one. The showed fared better than expected, both critically and in the ratings, though with about half the audience of the initial reboot. The Conners was recently greenlit for a fifth season as the network made new deals with the four main cast members, Gilbert (Darlene), Lucy Goranson (Becky), John Goodman (Dan) and Laurie Metcalf (Jackie). The show remains ABC's second most watched sitcom, after The Goldbergs.
Fans are still at odds over Barr's firing, and many wonder what might have been if Barr had stayed quiet. But her TV family moved on without her. When The Conners premiered, officially designated as a spinoff, they took a page out of NBC's book and straight up killed their materfamilias. The character Roseanne died of an opioid overdose, something that resonated deeply with much of the audience while also upsetting another segment. They had clearly gone more topical than The Hogan Family, which used the evergreen "killed in a car crash" to take out not just Valerie, but her best friend Annie, played by Judith Kahan. The Hogan Family was Valerie without Valerie and The Conners is Roseanne without Roseanne. Both of these series have proven that an ensemble can survive and even thrive without its lead.
Seasons 1-4 of The Conners are available to stream on Hulu. Season 5 premieres Sept. 21 on ABC.