Postby Sneelock » 16 Apr 2018, 02:20
I liked it well enough. I doubt if I’ve seen half of all the episodes they’ve made but I’ve certainly watched quite a few.
I’ve only watched episode three of the new series — Darlene’s daughter gets on Roseanne’s nerves. To me, it felt like the show never left - that I just hadn’t watched it for a while.
Yeah, there are elements of the show that are hard to swallow but I think that’s always been the case. I mean, Dan would have run away with a waitress at the Dairy Queen or something over 10 years ago. Don’t you think? He still seems to adore Roseanne. If you can buy that then you can buy just about anything.
Which brings me to John Goodman. I’d say, from the episode I watched, him and the gal who plays Darlene are the show’s strengths. If I come back for more then they will be much of the reason. Goodman seems to just love being Dan Conner. He’s a very engaging actor and his steadfastness (unrealistic though it may be) I think it gives the show a lot of much needed heart.
Darlene is where the drama of the episode I watched was centered. Yeah, drama. That’s the thing about Roseanne - it’s a comedy but there are elements of soap opera and Darlene seems to be the most surprising story arc. She’s not as confident and self centered. In fact, she seems really pretty much a wreck in a lot of ways. She states that shes’ there to support the family but it seems like they have something Darlene needs emotionally.
Okay, Roseanne. The episode I watched got a little press for perceived cultural insensitivity and borderline child abuse. Roseanne remarks that TV’s black and Asian families are “just like us” and wrestles Darlene’s teen down to douse her in the kitchen sink. In all honesty, those things didn’t bother me but grabbing the teenager did surprise me. The only political thing that I really rankled at was Roseanne bitching about millennials and how “PC” they are making everything. As Davey mentioned in his diss - the show seems very studiously to be aiming for “PC” qualities itself. This is having your cake and eating it too but TV shows are known to do that.
I think Roseanne being an Uber driver seems to make more sense than her running a “loose meat” restaurant did. I thought it was pretty funny. Jackie was pretty much wasted in the episode I saw but Dan & Darlene were engaging and Roseanne was unpredictable.
I get that boiling TRUMP’S America down to “jobs” is a pretty dishonest thing to do. I suspect some of the more on the nose episodes will bother me more than this one did. While I enjoyed it and got some laughs I do see why people are holding the reboot up to the light. In the original run they did not shy away from topical issues. “TRUMP promised jobs” is maybe a topical issue but it seems a pretty shy take.
uggy poopy doody.