I grew up watching Roseanne and I'm the same age as Darlene (character Darlene. I'm 38 now)
I just bought the box set and I'm wondering when everyone else thinks this show jumped the shark. I officially say that season 6 made the leap. Anyone else?
I know the show changed significantly in tone and style in the Season 6 premiere onward (Roseanne was less maternal, their two daughters were gone—until Becky came back with a new actress later that season, which only compounded the change!).
But for me personally, the premiere of Season 8 was when the show truly shifted in tone AND wasn't quality anymore. At least in Season 6 and 7, it often still had superb writing in spite of its new tone. Season 8 was just a full-on caricature of its former self. The writing, the tone, and the characters were so cartoonish that season. I knew it wasn't good on any level anymore. I just stuck around cuz I wanted to see what would happen to the characters I'd invested so much time in.
Thank you all for your input. I do agree a lot about season 8. I started this thread talking about how I'm the same age as Darlene. I think season 6 is where it really gets unbelievable and not real. I fell in love with this show because I related to these characters. I WAS Darlene. Before Roseanne, we had Growing Pains, Family Ties, Mr Belvedere, etc. Every female was a ditz, a nerd or a slut. Roseanne was the first REAL show. I can watch these episodes now and still laugh.
Season 6 starts to bother me because it doesn't seem real anymore. Was there different writers? What happened?
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Sara Gilbert (Darlene) is actually 41, so she has a few short years on you. But I think she did play a couple of years younger than she actually was.
When Roseanne went down the tubes, particularly in that last unwatchable lottery-themed season, it actually felt like a huge betrayal of her audience. A show that had started out as so authentic, portraying a blue-collar family as complex, loving and hilarious, had become an inside joke sketched out by a newly moneyed, elite "superstar." It was like she instantly lost touch with her roots, which formed the original basis for her comedy.
She let it all go to her head in the worst of ways, and she helped destroy the show in order to enact revenge on the writers and producers with whom she was constantly at war.
But again, in the end, she was really sticking her middle finger up at her loyal viewers. Even that last episode, where she tried to "explain" the Lotto theme, was mind-bogglingly awful, because she basically said that everything you knew about every character on the show was BS. Jackie was a lesbian, Darlene was married to Mark, Becky was married to David, etc., etc. It was just a big "FU" to the audience.
Roseanne is pretty much a crazy person these days, spewing Hillary hate on Twitter, etc. The "reality" show Roseanne's Nuts had a few funny parts to it, but overall she has become an unbearable figure.
I was referring to Darlene's age on the show.
Good theory. I don't know if she totally enacted revenge on everyone.
The show gets kind of depressing during the end of the Tom Arnold era and then turns stupid cheesy. The last season was the worst.
Also, I think it really started to jump the shark when Roseanne got pregnant for the fourth time. That was ridiculous, and it's always a sign that a show is struggling when they decide to add a baby.
shareConsidering Roseanne was ACTUALLY PREGNANT and even had IVF to help conceive it with Ben, this wasn't some hairbrained scheme to add anything. Buck as totally planned in real life, so she wrote in Jerry to reflect her actual circumstances.
Laurie was also really pregnant for "Andy", and Natalie got pregnant right after Crystal gave birth, which is why the show had such a fast turnaround for her on another kid.
the only "faked" pregnancy was Darlene's, as Sara didn't have any kids until well after the show was over. We'll just ignore Becky's "news" in the finale, as it was pretty much a moot point by then.
(oh, and John's wife slipped one in there, too, in early 90s, but she was never an actress, much less on the show, so not a concern, other than his fathering a child.)
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#HowardWasRight
It doesn't matter -- what worked for Roseanne's REAL LIFE did not work for the show. They could have "written around" it, as other shows have done in the past. The Connors having another child was the beginning of the death throes for that show.
shareShe never looks pregnant, though. I love the episode where she goes shopping and tries on that pillow thing. On a side note, my SIL just gave birth. I've never seen a store that offered a "belly" (for lack of a better word). I remember talking to my mom about it the time it originally aired because my aunt was pregnant and very skinny and she never saw one of those things in a store. For a story point of view, it made no sense. Unlike Laurie, she could hide her pregnancy until she the end. Even then, she could say she gained weight.
Yes, it definitely went downhill when she got pregnant. Even though it was planned, it did not work out well for the show. All the episodes where they worked around her by doing flashbacks, fantasy episodes, etc., and then the birth episode....they were just bizarre and not in tone with the show. And it just didn't get any better after that, when they won the lottery and then the way they ended it...Right now on Laff they are up to around the end of season 8 and I'm probably going to have to skip it for a couple of weeks until it restarts with season 1...it's just painful to watch.
shareI don't know if it was so much a "shark" jumping moment, but season 5 (when Becky eloped...Roseanne came back with all that super long hair...David moves in...Darlene goes dyed black GenXer...Molly next door...) marked an obvious 'turning point' for the show, that was a rather harsh contrast from the first four seasons.
shareThis. It wasn't bad. It was just when they started going down hill. Still better than a lot of modern shows. As much as Roseanne herself, and other things, bothered me from that seasons on, if this were like a spin off I'd have liked it. Season five was when she started having a ton of celeb guest stars. Season three or four, according to Tom Arnold, is when they were supposed to win the lotto. I guess in Roseanne's real life that around the time she got famous when her kids were around the show's season 3-4 kids age. I guess she ran out of ideas.
shareIt wasn't because of the Becky switch, but it was that exact moment in the series where everything went downhill (is that the end of season 5?). Such a shame.
shareYou really hit the nail on the head. Season five's definitely the turning point, but it doesn't go total shark jumping until season nine.
shareWhen it became The Darlene Show in season 5. Critics kept saying she was the most realistic teen ever on tv. Please.
it jumped about the third or fourth episode of the 5th season IMO.
Once they stopped having major money problems was when it started going downhill for me. The whole point of the show was seeing a family struggle while still being able to find humor and laugh. Granted, they still weren't well off like the families in 80s sitcoms, but they were doing a hell of a lot better than many real life families.
shareRight around when Fred shaved off his goatee it started going downhill for me. But seasons 8 and 9 were so irredeemably awful that they almost undo the brilliance of the previous seven.
shareFor me it was also after season 6. That's when I stopped watching the show and started lighting up a bit and my life got better. I remember I moved to a new town and was real nervous about it and everything in my life changed and went for the better. Maybe its because I stuck to my guns when it was time to call it quits it was time to call it quits and for me it was August 1994. I even stopped watching it in re runs. Some silly show.
I'll never forget the day Roseanne and Tom Arnold split. To me it was the end of an area. The end of a decade the end of a dynasty and really the end of the world. More Importantly the end of the show. It was no longer funny or watchable and never really has been. Sure I've seen a few episodes of the updated seasons since he left being an executive producer, but none of them where as funny as before. It was never the same show. A couple of one liners here and there and that was it.
The show never was the same once Roseanne Arnold and Tom Arnold split and she removed the name Arnold off of the product. It will never be again. She no longer had Tom their to balance her off and it showed in the show with how ridiculous it got and the over the top storylines and jokes and things like that. For instance her having a kid, Becky moving to a trailer park, the lottery. So silly and so was the rest of the cast.
With Roseanne's huge ego it was hard thing I would imagine with Tom no longer there for them to ever really settle or down or tell her it was wrong one way or the other. She probably got to do whatever she wanted and nobody stopped her.
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