The upcoming fall season will bring about big TV reboots and returns like Will & Grace, The Tick and more, and we are definitely more than excited to watch. But few things could get us more pumped than ABC's upcoming Roseanne revival, since it's been 20 years since the original sitcom ended its run. And while we're all waiting for the new season to debut, streaming fans can now binge-watch all nine seasons, as Roseanne is available for Amazon Prime subscribers to stream in full.
That's right, all you blue collar couch potatoes -- a description that feels like it also ended its run in 1997 -- Roseanne is now a domestic force to be reckoned with on Amazon, where subscribers will have access to all 222 episodes, from the 1988 pilot to that insanely polarizing 1997 finale, which revealed the entire series to be the partly fictional writing of its titular character. No one will blame you for sidestepping the lottery-focused Season 9 for as long as possible.
Fans of Roseanne will probably be super-jazzed to learn that we can all revisit the Lanford Lunchbox and get a peek at those loosemeat sandwiches any time we want, but there is a small caveat that some won't be pleased with. Just about every single episode has a 21-minute runtime, which implies that these episodes are actually the ones edited for syndication, rather than the original cuts that showed up during initial airings and on DVD. This shouldn't be a break-the-bank issue that stops anyone from streaming the series, but take note that there will likely be missing jokes and altered scene lengths in every episode.
While Roseanne has technically been available for streaming before, one memorably heinous and loathsome situation occurred when Hulu hosted the classic sitcom, but without all of the episodes included in each season. It's like, I'm fine with listening to a Greatest Hits album for a band with minimal deep cuts, but when just about every track is a winner, why settle for anything less than full albums? An analogy probably wasn't needed right there, but I really didn't want to think about having only seven Roseanne episodes to choose from at a time.
When Roseanne returns to audiences for its limited run, fans are going to see some big changes, including a complete reneging of the previous series finale. Dan will be alive, Bev will still be gay, Darlene and David will still be a couple with children, and both actresses who played Becky Conner will be involved. As well, the show will somehow address what happened to Mark Healy, whose portrayer Glenn Quinn died of an overdose in 2002.
ABC doesn't currently have a release date set for Roseanne's eight-episode revival season, but we know it'll hit in the midseason, so early 2018 is a safe bet. While waiting to hear a more specific timeline, don't forget to go stream Roseanne on Amazon, and then head to our summer TV schedule and our fall premiere schedule to see all the shows hitting primetime during the rest of 2017.
