After over 30 years, the Conner family took their final bow on a set (at least I assume). Fans said a seemingly definitive goodbye to the beloved brood by way of the series finale of the Roseanne spinoff The Conners, which aired on the 2025 TV schedule. The sitcom is one of many shows that's ended in 2025, but few titles on that list arguably have as much history wrapped up in them as this one has. It was bittersweet seeing an era come to a close, and John Goodman is now opening up the couch scene that closed out the show.

As is the case with some series finales, The Conners’ final episode, “The Truck Stops Here,” included some montages of scenes from the show and its predecessor, as the family dispersed from the living room. Eventually, Goodman’s Dan Conner was the only one left on the couch and, before leaving, he said goodnight directly to the camera.

It was a sweet gesture and one that made this audience member feel like a part of the TV family. Goodman explained to THR that he was actually the one who conceived the idea and explained why:

I couldn't think of a better final moment for The Conners than that. Considering how fans have stuck with this small-screen franchise for years, it feels appropriate that one of the cast members would directly address them at the end. Goodman's quick sign-off reads, to me, as an acknowledgement of the various people who tuned into the adventures of the Lanford-based clan for years.

Also, I'd argue that the sendoff falls in line with what's known about Roseanne as a show. The classic sitcom was known to feature meta and self-aware elements at times, so Dan's goodbye feels like a (much more subtle) extension of that.

What makes the ending even better is knowing that John Goodman's “Goodnight” to the camera wasn’t in the script. Showrunner Bruce Helford previously explained that the moment “was a surprise” and because it was “so touching,” they decided to leave it in. At this point, it's honestly hard to imagine the episode concluding in a different way.

ABC confirmed in May 2024 that The Conners would be ending after its seventh season, which consisted of only six episodes. That news came after much speculation regarding the sitcom would remain on the air much longer. Ultimately, the series avoided the axe for years and finished with a strong run, even without the lead of its parents show, Roseanne Barr. In hindsight, it's actually quite impressive that the writers and producers were able to tie up loose ends with only a handful of episodes.

It's still somewhat surreal to think that Dan and the rest of the Conner clan have reached the end of the road. Of course, I don't think it's impossible that another spinoff could happen down the road. After all, the Roseanne reboot -- like the spinoff that was born after its cancellation in 2018 -- was unexpected as well. Even if another show isn't made though, I'm just happy that The Conners ended with Dan formally addressed viewers.

All seven seasons of The Conners are now available to stream with a Hulu subscription.

Characters come and characters go, at least that’s the case for these beloved shows. Whether it’s on one of the best sitcoms of all time, an exhilarating epic fantasy series, or crime dramas holding down a spot on the primetime lineup for decades, these programs all have one thing in common: they lost a fan-favorite before the final episode (or even final season).

Here are 32 TV shows that lost their lead character during their run…

The Office (2005 - 2013)

After being the best character on The Office for the show’s first seven seasons, Steve Carell’s Michael Scott left Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office back in 2011. Though he would return in a guest capacity in the final season, the absence of the awkward, excitable, yet hilarious regional manager could be felt in the series’ final days.

That ‘70s Show (1998 - 2006)

That ‘70s Show had one of the best runs of any sitcom introduced in the final years of the 20th century, one that would carry on until May 2006. However, the sitcom’s main character, Topher Grace’s Eric Forman, wouldn’t be there for all of it. The actor, whose popularity was rising at the time, left the show after its seventh season. He would return in the series finale one year later.

Two And A Half Men (2003 - 2015)

Amid contract negotiations and a string of controversial incidents, Charlie Sheen left Two and a Half Men and stopped playing fan-favorite Charlie Harper, following the hit sitcom’s eighth season in 2011. One of the most popular shows on TV at the time, the CBS comedy would continue for four more seasons, with Ashton Kutcher coming on to play Walden Schmidt

Cheers (1982 - 1993)

A mainstay of Cheers for the show’s first five seasons, Shelley Long’s Diane Chambers left the friendly Boston bar for good when she was given the opportunity to become a professional writer. However, Diane would later return near the end of the show’s final season in 1993.

ER (1994 - 2009)

Whether it was Anthony Edwards’ Mark Greene being killed off in a spectacular way or George Clooney’s Doug Ross departing following a major scandal, ER lost several of its main characters throughout its 15-season (and 331-episode) run on NBC. However, the show always seemed to rebound from even the biggest losses.

Law & Order (1990 - Present)

Countless beloved characters have come and gone from Law & Order over the years, including NYPD detective Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), who was a mainstay of the legal drama for 12 years. The series is still on today (after being revived in 2022), but few of the detectives on the show have come close to touching the greatness of the wisecracking cop.

Three’s Company (1977 - 1984)

The late Suzanne Somers became a household name for her portrayal of Chrissy Snow on Three’s Company back in 1977. One of the three leads through much of the show’s run, Somers departed the series after its fifth season. The sitcom would run for three additional seasons after Somers left.

Scrubs (2001 - 2009)

Though Zach Braff’s Dr. John Michael “J.D.” Dorian was technically part of the Scrubs cast until the very last episode of Season 9 (he’s also returning for the upcoming reboot series), he only showed up in less than half of the final run. Maybe it was for the best, because those episodes were of a far lower quality than the previous eight seasons.

Bewitched (1964 - 1972)

This is an odd one simply because the Darrin Stephens character on Bewitched was written off, but instead recast near the end of the show’s run. Played by Dick York for the first few seasons, Elizabeth Montgomery’s on-screen husband was later played by Dick Sargent in the final years of the landmark sitcom about a witch trying to hide her true nature from the world around her.

Mom (2003 - 2021)

When the main star of a show leaves partway through the series run, it can be a nightmare for their co-stars and crew members, and that was the case when Anna Faris departed the hit CBS comedy Mom in 2020. Though the show continued for one more season after Christy Plunkett was written off, the absence of the former lead could be felt.

One Tree Hill (2003 - 2012)

One of the biggest shows of the 2000s, One Tree Hill was a perennial favorite of The WB (and later The CW) through much of its nine-season run. However, the good times didn’t last the whole time, as Chad Michael Murray, who played lead Lucas Scott, departed after season 6 alongside Hilarie Burton’s Peyton Sawyer.

Grey’s Anatomy (2005 - Present)

One of the longest-running shows in TV history, Grey’s Anatomy has always been known for its tremendous cast of characters. And while there are some, like Ellen Pompeo’s Meredith Grey, who have been there all along, others have come and gone. One of the biggest is Patrick Dempsey’s Derek Shepherd, aka "Dr. McDreamy," who was killed off in the show’s 11th season.

Glee (2009 - 2015)

In the middle of Glee’s successful run on Fox, the popular musical series lost one of its main characters when the actor who played him tragically died. In July 2013, Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson, died at the age of 31.

The Walking Dead (2010 - 2022)

So many characters came and went on The Walking Dead, which is to be expected considering it was a show set in the zombie apocalypse. However, one of the biggest departures came in the show’s ninth season when Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes was written off the massively successful show.

House Of Cards (2013 - 2018)

House of Cards was a show with one shocking moment after another, including the time the Netflix series had to find a way to get rid of its main character before the sixth and final season. After Kevin Spacey found himself in legal trouble, the show’s producers decided to kill him off and carry on.

Blue’s Clues (1996 - 2006)

Steve Burns’ Steve was primarily the only human character on the hit Nick Jr. series, Blue’s Clues, for the show’s first four seasons. However, the actor left the animated show and was replaced by his character’s younger brother, Joe (Donovan Patton). Burns would later go on to appear in the Flaming Lips’ wild 2008 sci-fi film, Christmas on Mars.

The O.C. (2003 - 2007)

One of the main characters through the show’s first few seasons, Mischa Barton’s Marissa Cooper was killed off in heartbreaking fashion in The O.C.’s Season 3 finale. Following the departure of the tortured teenager, the show lasted one more season before coming to an end.

Charmed (1998 - 2006)

Prue Halliwell, played by the late Shannen Doherty, was one of the main characters in the first three seasons of Charmed. Though her fate was initially left up in the air following a Season 3 cliffhanger, it was later revealed that Prue died after her run-in with a powerful demonic assassin.

Laverne & Shirley (1976 - 1983)

One of the most popular spinoffs of all time (the characters originated on Happy Days), Laverne & Shirley ran for eight seasons on ABC between 1976 and 1983. However, while Penny Marshall’s Laverne DeFazio stayed around for the whole run, it was a different story for Cindy Williams’s Shirley Feeney. Williams, who was pregnant at the time, departed partway through what would ultimately be the final season.

Game Of Thrones (2011 - 2019)

Though Game of Thrones had numerous “main” characters over the course of its eight-year run, Sean Bean’s Ned Stark was one of the biggest in the first season. Creating one of the most shocking moments in TV history, Ned lost his head before the end of the first year, which set the tone for the unpredictable nature of the series moving forward.

The Vampire Diaries (2009 - 2017)

The Vampire Diaries was on the air for eight seasons between 2009 and 2017, but The CW’s popular book-to-screen adaptation lost its main character, Nina Dobrev’s Elena Gilbert, two-thirds of the way through. Though her character didn’t die, Debrov left for other opportunities.

Spin City (1996 - 2002)

The popular satirical comedy series, Spin City, ran on ABC for six seasons between 1996 and 2002, with most of those being led by Michael J. Fox as New York City deputy mayor Mike Flaherty. However, a couple of years after Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the actor left the series after its fourth season, with his character being written off by moving to Washington, D.C.

The Wire (2002 - 2008)

The Wire’s cast was full of incredible actors playing some of the best characters to ever grace the small screen. One of the major players in the landmark HBO series’ first three seasons was Idris Elba’s Stringer Bell, a ruthless and ambitious drug lord who aspired for more than running the corners in Baltimore. However, he made far too many enemies and he was brutally killed in the show’s Season 3 finale.

Oz (1997 - 2003)

Though Oz had a killer ensemble cast throughout the HBO series’ run between 1997 and 2003, it lost one of its lead players when Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s Simon Adebisi was killed off in the show’s fourth season. Imagine fans’ reactions the following year when he showed up in 2001’s The Mummy Returns.

Roseanne/The Conners (1988 - 2025)

Not long after Roseanne was brought back to TV in 2018, its star, Roseanne Barr, was fired in the fallout of a controversial tweet. The show was quickly cancelled and morphed into The Conners, which ran for seven seasons before coming to an end in 2025.

NCIS (2003 - Present)

A lot of people have left NCIS over the years, but the CBS crime drama continues to be one of the most popular shows on network TV. Perhaps the biggest character to come and go since the show’s 2003 debut is NCIS Supervisory Special Agent and Special Agent in Charge Leroy Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, who stayed on through the 19th season. Talk about longevity.

8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter (2002 - 2005)

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, later shortened to 8 Simple Rules, had a nice little run on ABC back in the early 2000s, and even helped launch the career of Kaley Cuoco. The series was originally led by John Ritter, but his character, Paul Hennessy, was written off after the Three’s Company and Problem Child star suddenly died at the age of 54 while shooting the second season.

Lost (2004 - 2010)

Much like the show’s story, talking about main characters dying on Lost is a bit confusing, considering the non-linear structure of the long-running ABC drama series. Numerous characters like Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace), Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau), and Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) were written off and brought back later on in the series.

Homeland (2011 - 2020)

A once-great show that went on way too long, Homeland had its fair share of shocking moments and final episodes for major characters. At the top of that list is Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a former prisoner of war whose true alliances are ambiguous through much of the show’s first three seasons. However, his time would come to an end a few years into the run when Brody was hanged in a public execution in Iran.

Boardwalk Empire (2010 - 2014)

Michael Pitt’s Jimmy Darmody was pretty much the 1B lead to Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson in the first two seasons of Boardwalk Empire, but the up-and-coming gangster wouldn’t survive the 2011 season finale. The series would run for another three seasons before coming to an end in 2014.

Downton Abbey (2010 - 2015)

Dan Stevens’ Matthew Crawley was just one of multiple fan-favorite characters to be killed off during Downton Abbey during the show’s original run. The third-cousin, once removed of the Earl of Grantham, the character didn’t make it all that long in the grand scheme of things before dying in a car accident during the show’s third season.

Sons Of Anarchy (2008 - 2014)

Sons of Anarchy had an epic run on FX in the latter part of the 2000s through the early 2010s, and in that time, so many fan-favorites got killed off. The most horrifying came in the show’s fifth season when the beloved Opie (Ryan Hurst) was brutally murdered in prison. Some never came back after that.

As impossible a concept as it may have once seemed, the Conner family won’t be popping up again as an upcoming 2025 TV show for Season 8, with audiences bidding farewell to the all-time great sitcom clan after its emotionally on-brand series finale. “The Truck Stops Here” actually provided a literal farewell to audiences, which wasn’t only a surprise to those watching at home, but also for those seeing it play out behind the cameras.

Time will tell how The Conners’ conclusion will ultimately stack up against those of 2025’s other canceled and ending shows, but as someone who grew up on Roseanne and was a parent by the time the revival and The Conners came into existence, it was a successfully bittersweet affair. From the disappointment of the non-impactful $700 payout to the messages delivered at Roseanne’s grave, the final hurrah was both authentic to their middle-class legacy and ability to find humor in dark moments.

No such darkness came in the series-capping scene, despite all of the genuine tears shed by the cast when making their characters’ final exists. Those on-camera reactions weren’t planned ahead of time, and executive producers Bruce Helford and Dave Caplan also revealed Goodman’s reality-breaking “Good night” to the camera also wasn’t written into the episode. As the showrunning Helford told The Wrap:

Considering how many past Conners (and Roseanne) episodes also wrapped up inside the family's instantly recognizable living room, spending the last few moments with Dan, Becky, Darlene, Jackie and the extended fam was the just-right choice. And it no doubt made for a more visceral experience for the cast as they exited a stage set that became a home away from home.

Surely, Dan could have just stayed seated on the couch as the lights dimmed, or turned the TV on while grabbing a can of something sudsy. But John Goodman took it upon himself to share the final words of the series with the fans both in-studio and at home. Goodman copped to being "old and resistant" to change when talking about saying goodbye to Dan Conner, and you can really feel how much he's holding back the waterworks in the moment.

Dave Caplan said it was "a surprise to us" that the cast's emotions were so readily on display during a moment in the family members' lives that wouldn't necessarily call for tears to fall. To that end, he addressed why the creative team chose not to give the family a more dramatic or otherwise over-the-top ending, saying:

Perhaps we'll one day see one or more Conner family members back on the small screen for a follow-up sitcom in the future, and hopefully before nearly two decades pass if it happens. But for now, fans can watch all seven seasons of The Conners with a Hulu subscription.

The 2025 TV schedule marked the end of an era for one of TV’s most celebrated sitcom families, with ABC’s The Conners joining a slew of other series ending this year, though none of the others on that list had quite the same lifespan as Roseanne’s successor. The spinoff’s run ended with a shortened seventh season, following the flagship’s ill-fated tenth, and in the years since the O.G. sitcom was canceled, the comedienne has shared plenty of disdain for it and EP Sara Gilbert. But now?

Barr’s latest comments on The Conners come by way of her son Jake Pentland, who also serves as her representative. (He also played a paper boy and another nameless kid in two episodes of Roseanne.) And while her thoughts are not entirely contextual to the follow-up sitcom’s conclusion — Pentland said he wasn’t even cognizant that it was ending — the vibe seems to have shifted from vengeful vitriol to DGAF passivity.

In the aftermath of the finale, Jake Pentland told TMZ that even though his mom and the rest of the family are still of the belief that she was unfairly forced out of a successful TV venture, that they are happy that the crew working on the show(s) for all these years were able to make a living for so long on something she was responsible for creating. Perhaps not the most humble approach, but that’s neither here nor there.

According to Pentland, Roseanne & Co. are at the point where they’re content with the current situation now that The Conners is over and the remnants of Roseanne’s run won’t continue to be an on-air sticking point. Perhaps the lack of Lanford will allow for a legitimate stretch of peacetime.

What Roseanne Barr Has Previously Said About The Conners

While the conservative-leaning comedian would just rip The Conners apart willy-nilly without provocation, Barr hasn't ever been prone to biting her tongue when specifically asked for her thoughts in interviews. Early on, she went so far as to spoil her character being killed off, and after the continuation series did just that in its premiere, she kept to a more middle-of-the-road stance, saying at the time:

That neutrality shifted over time, and as recently as 2023, she tore into Sara Gilbert for not defending her at the time she was fired, and for continuing to talk about the situation on her talk show, saying:

Despite that tension, former co-star John Goodman said in June 2023 that their time together was great, that he still loves her, and that he was never comfortable seeing her spoken ill of in the press.

I don't necessarily think that all these fences are going to immediately be mended now that Dan, Becky, Darlene and Jackie aren't primetime staples anymore, but I really do hope there won't be any further beef among the former cast members, and that a day might come when we see Barr, Goodman and Laurie Metcalf sharing the screen again, with others certainly welcome to join this hypothetical wish project.

The Conners’ final two episodes, "Exercise Bands, Money Plans, and Faraway Lands" and “The Truck Stops Here,” gave fans their final hour with the core family and all of the new additions that joined up along the way, from Nat Faxon’s Neville to Katey Sagal’s Louise. Nearly the entire clan (save for the long-gone D.J. and his fam) took a trip to the cemetary to share kind words for the dearly departed. Or, maybe just words, if not always so kind.

Harris' minimalist reflection on the Lunch Box's food actually being good now got a big laugh out of me, I'll admit. But I'd love to hear Barr's thoughts about that scene in particular.

Fans can check out all ten seasons of Roseanne in full with a Peacock subscription, while The Conners is available with a Disney+ subscription.

Spoilers below for the series finale of The Conners for anyone who hasn't yet watched on ABC or with a Hulu subscription, so be warned!

After seven seasons of The Conners, which directly followed up on ten seasons of Roseanne, the longest-living non-animated network TV family has officially turned off the porch lights and closed the front door for the final time. (At least for now?) But to those working on the show, as well as those of us watching from home all this time, the years have flown by, and longtime series patriarch John Goodman thinks it’ll take a while to get used to the sitcom’s absence.

The final two episodes of The Conners debuted on ABC on April 23, and hilariously tied a haphazard bow around the ongoing arc in which Dan and the fam attempted to take on Big Pharma over Roseanne overdosing on pain medication. In the end, the family’s emotional turmoil was deemed to be worth a $700 check, as opposed to the dreamed-up lottery winnings in the O.G. comedy, and everyone’s stories wrapped up more or less where they started, if on slightly more positive ground.

Speaking with People, John Goodman addressed having to hang up Dan Conner's metaphorical hat — obviously some kind of beer company's trucker cap — and how quickly this spinoff's seven-season run felt for him. In his words:

Wildly enough, it's not even the only beloved TV character Goodman is saying goodbye to this year, as he has two different shows ending in 2025. (He's also the Bible-thumping patriarch on HBO's The Righteous Gemstones, which is wrapping its sorded four-season run in the coming weeks.) But I dare say the familial vibes he feels on the ABC sitcom are completely different from what's experienced within Danny McBride's universe.

Goodman also addressed why he thinks The Conners continued to be go-to entertainment for viewers over the years, saying:

Really, The Conners could show up on TV at relatively any point in modern history and would likely be relatable to a chunk of the population. Which is either a glowing compliment about the show's creative team, or a non-glowing comment about society, but there's no time to debate that.

Dan's Parting Words Were Such Sweet Anti-Sorrow

Speaking to the idea that Dan Conner is a relatable stand-in for many heads of family struggling out there, the character's. final assessment of their situation is a universal truth that just makes me sad that we won't be hearing any more of this middle-class wisdom going forward in the 2025 TV schedule.

It's hard to hang together when you're not on my TV anymore, Dan! I mean really.

Dan's Reality-Breaking Goodbye Wasn't Originally Planned

Perhaps the most jarring moment in the final Conners episode came at the very end of the third act, though before the flashback moments that closed out the final credits. After Becky, Jackie, Darlene and others made their tear-filled exits, John Goodman's Dan stood, looked directly into the camera, and gave viewers a personal goodbye that not only broke the fourth wall, but the TV-loving part of my heart as well.

Almost surprisingly for such a powerful moment, it wasn't part of the original scripted ending. Executive producer Bruce Rasmussen told Variety that personal touch came directly from John Goodman himself. As he put it:

It's unclear at this point if we'll ever see any of the Conner family members back on the small screen for new financial struggles in the future, but I can only hope that will be the case. Whether it's following Emma Kenney's Harris and her relationship foibles or catching up with Lecy Goranson's Becky raising Beverly Rose while keeping her sobriety intact, or [insert another idea], it's a family lineage that's ripe for laughter.

The original ABC run of Roseanne made it one of the most popular sitcoms in its day, and it's since become one of the most popular sitcoms ever. Its follow-up The Conners has followed in those footsteps. Many of the original shows' cast and regular characters have made appearances in the follow-up series, but when The Conners comes to a close tonight, it will do so without bringing back a few notable names, including George Clooney.

It’s something of a piece of historical TV trivia that one of George Clooney’s earliest roles was as Roseanne’s supervisor, Booker Brooks, on the first season of Roseanne. While he would go on to bigger and better things, in everything from Batman movies to Oscar wins, the producers of The Conners revealed they did try on more than one occasion to get Clooney to return, but he turned them down because it would have opened the TV guest star floodgates. Executive Producer Bruce Helford told TVLine:

Clooney, like most actors, did a lot of TV appearances before joining the main cast of his own show with ER, which then led to his successful film career. While The Conners is the only one of those shows to get a direct revival, one imagines that many of the people who worked on those shows are still in the industry, and if Clooney did the favor for that show, the rest would come calling.

It's not a completely unreasonable feeling. There have been talks of a Murder, She Wrote reboot, and Clooney appeared in a couple of episodes of the original series. If Clooney appeared on The Conners there would be a precedent that might result in more of these offers, and if Clooney says yes to some and no to thers, he'd have different people upset with him.

While George Clooney hasn’t exactly retired from Hollywood, he’s certainly not appearing on screen with the frequency he once did. He’s in a position where he can choose to work or not. He’s likely already turning down plenty of work and isn’t looking to say no more often than he already is.

Assuming Cloney was on the level with this comment and wasn’t just trying to let the producers down easy, it sounds like he might have been willing to make an appearance on The Conners if it had truly just been a one-off. It’s too bad, as it would have been a pretty cool TV moment, and certainly a full circle one for Clooney, if they’d been able to pull it off.

An actress and producer who has been core to the TV industry for the entirety of her adulthood and then some, Sara Gilbert will soon say a potentially permanent farewell to the character of Darlene Conner as ABC’s The Conners joins all the other shows ending in 2025. She doesn’t appear to have “return to another classic sitcom” on her to-do list, but coincidentally enough, she did address how interested she might be in reprising her Big Bang Theory-verse role of Leslie Winkle.

In 2007, right around a decade after Roseanne wrapped up its bonkers ninth season, and three years before she started The Talk, Gilbert was invited by former Roseanne writer and TBBT co-creator Chuck Lorre to reunite with her former TV boyfriend Johnny Galecki for the then-new CBS sitcom. She first arrived in the second episode of the show, and returned a number of times over the years, with Leslie’s final appearance happening in Season 9 for Episode 200, along with Adam West and Stephen Hawking.

Sara Gilbert stopped by The Official Big Bang Theory Podcast and talked to host Jessica Radliff about working with Galecki and Lorre again, and shared her specific memories tied to the sitcom’s third episode, "The Fuzzy Boots Corollary” and its filthy double-entendre dialogue. When asked if fans could ever hope to see Leslie on the small screen again, and whether or not she’d wanted to return more in the early days, Gilbert said:

It wasn't her call to make, in regards to how often she was meant to return as Leslie. As a strong-willed and brainy female character on par with the male leads, Vickie was a formidable force to reckon with, later shifting her bedroom interests from Leonard to Howard. But apparently her flash-in-the-pan personality wasn't the easiest to draw out and expand from week to week. As she explained:

One always has to wonder. how many grains of salt should be taken with a gung-ho response like those above. Like, if someone walked in and interrupted the podcast interview by offering Sara Gilbert a recurring role on Max's Big Bang spinoff, would she actually take it? Or would she only be interested in appearing on a far smaller scale?

The new offshoot, titled Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, features Kevin Sussman returning for the titular role, with a trio of co-stars in John David Bowie, Lauren Lapkus and Brian Posehn as Barry, Denise and Burt, respectively. So far, no details have surfaced by way of potential guest stars, but I can't imagine this show existing without direct ties to TBBT proper.

While The Conners’ cast hasn’t necessarily been at the center of myriad casting notices as of late, the same can’t be said for The Big Bang Theory’s elite. Kaley Cuoco’s Peacock show was just canceled, although she has another new show in the works, AND she reunited with Johnny Galecki for a fun new commercial. Mayim Bialik and Simon Helberg will both be guest star veterans of Melissa Rauch’s Night Court by the time its current season will have wrapped.

And as far as their own potential interest in returning for the spinoff is concerned, Mayim Bialik is down for it, and Cuoco has sounded interested as well, though Jim Parsons might need some further convincing.

We’re nearing the end of the first part of the 2025 TV schedule, with spring/summer finales sending our favorite shows off with cliffhangers and/oruntimely endings. All the while, The Conners' guest star-laden final season will mark the end of an era. As that all plays out, it's possible that fans are wondering how original franchise star Roseanne Bar has been doing after her titular matriarch was written off in the spinoff series As it turns out, she’s been quite busy.

While speaking with Barr's son, Jake Pentland, Us Weekly was given a rundown of what the comedian/TV pioneer has been doing with her time. The comedienne is reportedly living in Texas with Pentland and his family while also spending time in Palm Beach, Florida. However, as you’ll see below, she’s not just taking to knitting:

A spinoff of ABC’s classic hit Roseanne, The Conners came to fruition after Roseanne Barr’s 2018 firing from the series' parent show. Her ousting was the result of a controversial tweet shared about former Presidential Advisor Valerie Jarret. The Utah-born comic continued to work in comedy, while her TV family continued in the wake of her absence. The spinoff series will wrap up with seven seasons (and fans can stream all the episodes thus far with a Hulu subscription.)

Various stand-up specials series projects, and even controversial podcast appearances have kept Barr in circulation, and she was even noted as being in the audience for Netflix’s new comedy series, Kill Tony. Though what will probably delight fans of hers the most is this hopeful update from Jake Pentland about where some of that hard work might be going:

One would think that one of those projects would be Roseanne Barr’s warrior-farmer series that she started talking up a couple of months ago. Also, if she’s been spotted in proximity of a Netflix project, that could very well be a platform interested in playing a role in a TV comeback for Barr. Should that be the case, how long until we see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s FUBAR crossing over?

That idea sounds ripe for pitching, but that’s just pure speculation. All we can say with certainty at this moment is that Roseanne Barr is still working while taking time for her family. Though if you want to see how her TV family fares, The Conners airs new episodes on Wednesdays at 8 PM ET on ABC, and Hulu on the next day. However, the finale event will be airing on April 23rd so, if you need time to catch up, consider this your warning.

"Easy come, easy go" isn't necessarily an adage that readily applies to the Conner family, for whom the troubles never end. But on its way to joining other TV shows ending their runs in 2025, The Conners has allowed a glimmer of financial hope to surface, albeit on the other side of an emotional rubicon stemming back to the medication-related death of matriarch Roseanne.

That particular thematic throughline led to one of The Conners' biggest fights yet between Becky and Dan, and one can only hope their harsh finger-pointing regarding Roseanne's death was the most vitriolic this final season will get. When Lecy Goranson spoke with CinemaBlend about that dramatic tipping point, I asked how she felt about putting Roseanne's death back in the spotlight for this final season, and here's what she told me:

Honestly, it's hard to think of a more applicable way for the Conner family to find fortune than for them to have to first return to their biggest traumas. But it's clear that both Becky and Dan (and likely others) have stored away feelings of guilt, shame and blame for enough years that it's all in danger of boiling over.

But if they're able to actually land a courtroom victory here by proving that Roseanne was being taken advantage of by the phramaceutical industry, and that the people in charge of her healthcare were legally to blame for allowing her overdose to even be a possibility, that could possibly start the full-on healing process where Dan and his kids can let go of some of their more negative feelings.

It's still very much a battle for now, however, and Lecy Goranson talked about how The Conners has always been more than just a traditional sitcom in the way that its titular clan suffers the way real families do. In her words:

To be sure, the sitcom hasn’t ever let Roseanne’s death and legacy fall too far into the background over the years. From Dan’s struggles to stave off foreclosure to low-key reveals about her unseen habits to bringing back Natalie West’s Crystal Anderson and other former Roseanne familiars. And while fans are very familiar with how the mothership sitcom handled its titular family enjoying a financial wellspring via a dreamed lottery win, I can only hope The Conners sticks its landing a bit less awkwardly.

I mean, it’s still gonna be awkward in the way that Darlene and Becky will be around to make the darkest comments possible whether they come out of this richer or poorer.

Find out what happens going into The Conners series finale, which is set to air as a two-parter on Wednesday, April 23, at 8:00 p.m. ET, and will be streaming the next day with a Hulu subscription.

Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn’t caught up with The Conners’ latest episode on ABC or streaming next-day with a Hulu subscription.

The final season of The Conners is somehow already half over, and it’s thus far delivered the traditional mix of heavy family moments with gallows humor and fun guest stars like the punch-taking Seth Green and Laurie Metcalf’s real-life daughter Zoe Perry. The latest episode, “Applications, Accusations and a Man-Bag,” delivered an all-timer of an argument between Becky and Dan, and star Lecy Goranson talked to CInemaBlend about bringing that crushing scene to life opposite John Goodman.

Lecy Goranson Shares High Praise For Longtime Co-Star John Goodman

The final season’s overarching story focuses on the forever-downbeat family’s only possible shot at a financial windfall through a legal battle centered on Roseanne’s pharma-related death. Reopening old wounds has put a strain on the entire family, with Dan understandably taking longer than anyone to see the presumed upsides.

Because maybe Dan had something to get off of his chest that was similar to feelings roiling inside Becky, and each shouted piercing daggers of blame at the other for not seeing the obvious signs of Roseanne’s pill addiction. When I asked Lecy Goranson about taking on such a heartbreaking father-daughter fight, she gave her longtime co-star John Goodman credit where it was due, saying:

It's wild to see just how far the two actors have come since the earliest years of Roseanne, which goes a long way in adding all the built-in emotion of seeing such a scene play out. And on a sitcom, no less, where it's all in the performances and not fancy camerawork or heartstring-tugging music.

• 'I Love Johnny': The Conners' Sara Gilbert And Jay R. Ferguson Share Thoughts On Johnny Galecki's David That Keep My Hopes Alive For A Return
• I Asked The Conners Ames McNamara What He's Learned Most About Acting From John Goodman (In Front Of The Man Himself), And It's A Solid Answer

Lecy Goranson On Becky And Dan's Big Fight

Anyone who's had a particularly memorable fight with a beloved family member — be it biological, spouse, partner, etc. — knows that for all the shared good-nature, there's often also a dark side that rears its ugly, candid scalp. Leading to moments like Dan bluntly calling Becky out for having been too drunk all the time to notice her own mother was going over the edge.

Lecy Goranson spoke to going "there" with Becky and Dan, saying:

Not that Dan is wholly to blame here, since Becky wasn't exactly pulling punches either by pointing out how much closer he was to the situation as her husband. But there's really no right or wrong, only being human, which Goranson tapped into in saying:

She also shared that one other element that helps the actors hit those non-comedic high notes when filming is the relatively large number of people both making and watching it happen.

Obviously we're talking about The Conners, which doesn't veer from its multicam format in either scene length or episode length. But while watching that scene play out, it didn't really help knowing that laughs were coming, because I wanted them to land right then and there to interrupt the harshness.

To that end, Lecy Goranson championed The Conners for being a network comedy that never balks at bringing a relatable edge to its stories. In her words:

One of many TV shows ending in 2025, The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET. Hopefully Dan and Becky got all those icky feelings out of their system, and it's all hugs and good fortune from here on out. This black cat crossing my path probably isn't a good omen, though...

All good things must come to an end, and The Conners is perhaps the most noteworthy TV series set to end in 2025, considering the titular family’s extended pop culture legacy. But that doesn’t mean showrunner Bruce Helford & Co. set them up for a fairy tale conclusion, and the latest casting reveal sounds like it could spark some drama in at least one Lanford home.

Having already revealed that Young Sheldon’s Zoe Perry will join Season 7 for an arc that pairs her up with real-life mom Laurie Metcalf, The Conners has now offered up the exciting news that Robot Chicken co-creator and comedy star Seth Green will bring his talents to the broadcast sitcom in a recurring capacity. But before anybody starts wondering whether his character will nerd out with Jay R. Ferguson’s Ben over T-shirts for Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy (in which Green voiced Howard the Duck), let’s discuss who he’ll be playing.

The first red flag, according to Deadline’s description, comes in the form of the character’s name, as Seth Green will be playing a literal Chad when he joins The Conners. He apparently befriends Darlene while at the Lobo, which seems like it might be another indicator of messiness, unless he’s just hanging around in there for the atmosphere or something.

But here’s the kicker: Chad is in the midst of a legal separation from his wife, which presumably explains his bar presence, and he and Darlene connect over their dark and sardonic senses of humor, and start to confide in each other more and more. But it sounds like their rapidly evolving friendship could send the wrong kind of sparks flying with others who may not want Darlene to meet her sarcasm equal.

Granted, the description doesn’t call out Ben for being a jealous lump, but I can certainly see how that would be the case. It somehow seems even more likely when trying to picture Ferguson’s tall and stocky body next to the shorter and leaner Green, since Ben would likely have zero trouble putting Chad on his ass.

If fans were only getting one episode with Seth Green’s Chad, all of my blathering might be for naught, but he’ll actually be showing up for half of the final season’s installment. Which only amounts to three out of six — with all available to stream with a Hulu subscription — but that’s definitely still enough time to whittle out a meaningful character arc. So who knows? He best not try to mess with Becky and Tyler’s happy relationship, though.

As someone who has always lovingly championed drama between Darlene and Ben — I’ve held out so much hope for Ben and David to straight-up wrestle each other — I can’t wait to see how the always affable and charming Green will get utilized here. I don’t actually think Darlene and Ben will hit a legitimate rough patch because of this, and I don’t even really want it, but I do love a good shake-up.

Here's what fans can look forward to when the season premiere arrives, and one has to wonder if Darlene's celebrating is what sets her up to cross paths with Chad.

I can’t imagine that Chad will actually cause any permanent changes to any married couples’ statuses within The Conners, but I’ll be sitting front and center to see what kind of awkward situations he does cause. Co-star Emma Kenney did say the series finale leaves some open-ended questions for the future, so maybe we can look forward to a Chad-centered spinoff in the future? [Cue Roseanne Conner’s opening titles laughter.]

Be sure to tune into The Conners six-episode final-season celebration when the premiere episode lands on ABC on Wednesday, March 26, at 8:00 p.m. ET.

Of all the television characters who will be saying goodbye in 2025 when their shows conclude, only one group was also around and caught in the same middle-class trappings during the 1980s and ‘90s. Of course I mean the Conner family. When The Conners Season 7 hits the 2025 TV schedule, fans will only have six episodes to soak up, but at least we now know a very special guest star will be involved: Zoe Perry of Young Sheldon fame.

Perry portrayed Mary Cooper, the mom of Iain Armitage’s Sheldon Cooper (whom she’s since reunited with), which was a role that her real-life mom Laurie Metcalf played in The Big Bang Theory. Now, the mother and daughter will get to share the screen on another all-time great sitcom, as the Georgie & Mandy recurrer has been confirmed to appear in two of the final episodes, per TVLine.

Thankfully, this isn’t a case where Zoe Perry was brought in to film with every actor except Laurie Metcalf, and fans will indeed get to see their stories converge. The younger actress will be taking on the role of a police officer in Lanford that apparently hears Jackie out about potentially trying to rejoin the force.

Rather than welcoming the restaurant employee with. open arms, Perry's cop apparently ribs Jackie about it due to her age. I can imagine it being strangely liberating to call one's mother old on television, even if cloaked in fictional details.

Check out the first look at the mother and daughter combo below.

It's not entirely clear when fans can first expect to see Zoe Perry rocking a badge, but here's hoping it's sooner rather than later. Be sure to tune in when The Conners Season 7 premieres on Wednesday, March 26, at 8:00 p.m. ET.

As the back end of the 2025 TV schedule starts to fill up with premiere dates for both new and returning series for Fall TV and beyond, that means we're thankfully beyond the biggest batch of widespread cancellations tied to May upfronts, at least for broadcast networks. But the boob tube's Grim Reaper waits for no one.

June 2025 was privy to quite a few disappointing cancellation announcements that finally cleared up the bubble shows left over after the May TV bloodbath, with a few additional disappointing surprises also making headlines. So while it doesn't please me to address any amount of bad news, let's shine a light on the most disappointing chopping-block decisions from the start of the summer, followed by a more comprehensive list of series facing bad news this year.

The Most Disappointing TV Cancellations In June 2025

Éoile (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino's ballet dramedy appeared destined for multi-season glory like the creators' Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls, but sadly suffered a Bunheads-esque fate when Amazon reversed its original two-season order and canceled Étoile after its single season dropped all at once in late April. (Like The Bondsman, this series didn't follow the platform's usual weekly episode drops.) Despite critics and audiences being won over by the charms of Luke Kirby, Charlotte Gainsbourg and others, it was canceled six weeks after it first arrived.
• Final Episode: April 24, 2025

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: It's somewhat hard to slot this as a disappointment, considering Paramount+ confirmed the genre-mashing series' fifth season even before Season 3 premiered. (That's happening July 17.) Still, the prequel to the original Trek series delivered so much fun in the first two seasons that it's easier and better on the psyche to just pretend that the final-season announcement never happened and wait until just before the shortened six-episode Season 5 arrives to start getting emotional.
• Final Episode: TBA

Gross Pointe Garden Society (NBC)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Created by Grey's Anatomy writer/producer Jenna Bans and Bill Krebs, Grosse Pointe Garden Society centered on the classic hook of suburbanites with secrets (and bodies) to hide, with a talented cast of TV vets bringing the goods. Unfortunately, the drama got off to a bad ratings start with its late February debut, and that was the only episode that brought in more than 1.5 million viewers, with one episode falling below a million. Without a massive streaming audience to bolster those numbers, broadcast networks can't afford to stick with that level of succes, and NBC canceled it on June 27, 2025, around six weeks after its cliffhanger-y finale.
• Final Episode: May 16, 2025

Doctor Odyssey (ABC)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: With Ryan Murphy as a co-creator, and a seemingly endless number of oddball at-sea plotlines to explore, Doctor Odyssey never quite seemed to settle its footing with critics or audiences, leading to fluctuating stats that likely played into the medical drama's "on the bubble" status for so many weeks after ABC's other cancellations were unleashed. Technically speaking, the network didn't officially cancel the show; rather, the cast's contracts were allowed to expire without renewal, meaning that ABC will need to work with the cast and crew on new negotiations should execs eventually decide to make Season 2 a reality.
• Final Episode: May 15, 2025

Shows Set For Planned Endings In 2025

Andor (Disney+)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: While the original plan for the upcoming Star Wars project was for a five-season run, the massive scope involved (and thus the enormous budget reported) meant that showrunner Tony Gilroy was limited to just two seasons to tell the entire prequelized story of Gabriel Luna's Cassian Andor.
• Final Episode: TBA to follow Season 2 premiere on April 22, 2025.

Bel-Air (Peacock)

• Number Of Seasons: 4
• Reason For Ending: It's unclear exactly why Peacock chose to make Season 4 the final one for its dramatized Fresh Prince reboot, but given the lower episode count (eight instead of ten) and three-month stretch between the Season 3 finale and the final season renewal, it's likely the lower viewership combined with rising budgets to force execs' hands.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Big Mouth (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 8
• Reason For Ending: Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg's animated adult comedy will be Netflix's longest-running original non-kids series when Season 8 arrives, and there doesn't appear to be any straightforward reason for it to be ending, beyond the fact that its characters have been in middle school for seven years now.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Billy The Kid (MGM+)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Though Billy the Kid was touted as being one of MGM+'s three biggest shows for its second season, the burgeoning streaming service decided in October 2023 to make the impending third season the finale one. Historically speaking, Billy the Kid didn't exactly live to a ripe old age, so it makes sense for the show to be somewhat limited in season number.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Blood Of Zeus (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Netflix's epic-scale animated action-adventure Blood of Zeus has been a critical darling for its sharp animation and effective voice actors, but never quite became as much of a mainstream hit as some of the streamer's other American anime, and the creators announced at SDCC 2024 that the series was ordered for a third and final season to debut in 2025.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Bosch: Legacy (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Titus Welliver's now-retired Harry Bosch is getting his swan song in the third season of Bosch: Legacy ahead of the Maggie Q-starring spinoff set to debut in the back half of 2025. The series' end coincided with the confirmation that Amazon Freevee was going away in light of Prime Video launching its ad-based tier, and while no hyper-specific reasons have surfaced for why the series is ending with Season 3, it's theorized that the show's questionable value for advertisers played into it.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Cobra Kai (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 6
• Reason For Ending: The Karate Kid franchise follow-up Cobra Kai was revealed to be ending with Season 6 back in January 2023, when creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg released a Netflix-emblazoned letter to fans that addressed their goal to end Johnny, Daniel, and other characters' stories on their own terms, possibly implying the streaming service did not show interest in continuing with a seventh season.
• Final Episode: The final 8 episodes comprising Season 6 Part 3 will drop on Thursday, February 13.

The Conners (ABC)

• Number Of Seasons: 7
• Reason For Ending: The Conners wasn't originally intended to go beyond a single season clearing up Roseanne issues, yet John Goodman & Co. are returning for their eighth year, which will officially be its final one due to a combination of salaries, schedules and dwindling viewership, with only six episodes ordered up to close out this beloved sitcom universe.
• Final Episode: TBA in Spring 2025

The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)

• Number Of Seasons: 6
• Reason For Ending: Hulu ordered up the sixth and final season of The Handmaid's Tale ahead of Season 5's heavy cliffhanger ending, with creator Bruce Miller saying he was given the opportunity to close out June's story on his own terms. That announcement, which coincided with development confirmation on adapting Margaret Atwood's sequel tale The Testaments, happened back in September 2022, with strikes and other factors delaying the production's start until Summer 2024.
• Final Episode: TBA in Spring 2025

9-1-1: Lone Star (Fox)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: With flagship drama 9-1-1 having previously shifted from Fox to ABC, Rob Lowe's 9-1-1: Lone Star spinoff was immediately theorized as a future goner, and such rumors persisted ahead of its strike-delayed premiere, right up until the point in September 2024 when it was confirmed ahead of the Season 5 premiere that it would serve as the final season. Drooping ratings from year to year likely meshed with budget issues to inspire this particular cancellation.
• Final Episode: February 3, 2025

Power Book III: Raising Kanan (Starz)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: The second successful spinoff from 50 Cent's Power franchise, the Mekai Curtis-starring crime drama was renewed for Season 5 back in March 2024, with the "final season" confirmation happening in May 2025. Showrunner Sascha Penn shared a statement saying it was always his goal to tell Kanan's backstory in five seasons, with the final season focusing on the introduction of Breeze, as portrayed by Spider-Verse's Shamiek Moore.
• Final Episode: TBA

The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)

• Number Of Seasons: 4
• Reason For Ending: Just a week before its long-awaited fourth season's premeire date was finally revealed, The Righteous Gemstones' creator Danny McBride broke the news that it would be the Gemstone family's final outing, telling GQ in January 2025 that it felt like a natural decision to send the show to the choir invisible after this cycle, given the way the season was crafted to bring "all these themes and these ideas and these characters to a conclusion, to something that felt like completion." No word yet on whether a Baby Billy Freeman spinoff will ever get prayed into existence.
• Final Episode: May 4, 2025

Solar Opposites (Hulu)

• Number Of Seasons: 5 currently, will end with Season 6
• Reason For Ending: Hulu announced Solar Opposites' Season 6 renewal at SDCC 2024, ahead of Season 5 and its folllow-up special. But it wasn't until mid-March 2025 that fans learned it would be the final batch of misadventures for Korvo, Terry, Yumyulack, Jesse,The Pupa, and everyone in and outside The Wall. No specific reasons were laid out, but it does appear as if this will serve as a proper conclusion for the animated hit.
• Final Episode: TBA Late 2025

Squid Game (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Months ahead of the premiere of its globe-conquering second season, Squid Game Season 3 was ordered up in July 2024, with series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk confirming in the announcement that it would be the final outing. Though he didn't even originally plan for Season 2 to happen, Hwang has spoken since about seeing a third season as the natural conclusion for the characters and games.
• Final Episode: TBA late 2025

Stranger Things (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: Since their earliest days working on the project, Matt and Ross Duffer envisioned that Stranger Things Season 5 would likely be the time to conclude things, assuming (correctly) that four wouldn't be enough. The duo confirmed that to be reality in June 2022, well before the Hollywood strikes pushed back filming and premiere plans.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

The Summer I Turned Pretty (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: The Summer I Turned Pretty was secured for its third outing a month after Season 2 concluded in 2023, with plans to wrap up Jenny Han's novel trilogy. In May 2024, Amazon MGM delayed new episodes until 2025 while also revealing an expanded episode order. So all the signs were there for this to be the final season, and the streaming platform confirmed this to be the case when the final season's premiere window was finally announced.
• Final Episode: TBA Summer 2025

Upload (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 4
• Reason For Ending: The tech-afterlife comedy Upload was initially conceived for a four-season arc, according to creator Greg Daniels, and while that number wasn't always guaranteed, the quirky satire has proven successful enough for Amazon execs to take the characters to their natural conclusions with a final season.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

You (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: Ahead of the 2023 strikes, Netflix put the word out that Penn Badgley's killer thriller You was getting a fifth and final season. Though no reasoning was given, it's possible that part of the decision stemmed from co-creator and showrunner Sara Gamble exiting the series (amicably) and being replaced by a pair of EPs taking her spot to tell Joe Goldberg's swan song.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Shows That Were Straight-Up Canceled For 2025

After Midnight (CBS)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: After two seasons of helping usher in CBS' most random late-night comedy in years, After Midnight host Taylor Tomlinson announced in March 2025 that she would be vacating the series to focus more on her stand-up comedy. After that, CBS reversed its previous Season 3 renewal decision and canceled the show outright, with low ratings no doubt a factor. It's believed that the panel show's time slot will revert back to local affiliates post-finale, which will mark the first time in 30 years that CBS isn't programming the 12:30 a.m. ET hour.
• Final Episode: TBA June 2025

Alert: Missing Persons Unit

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: One of Fox's pair of bubble shows that survived the May cancellations, Alert: Missing Persons Unit stayed on the table as a potential renewal due to network execs' faith in Hawaii Five-0 vet as a lead, as well as positive feelings about the third season highlighting more buddy-cop vibes. But the series didn't top 1.5 million nightly viewers beyond its Season 2 premiere, and the cancellation decision was revealed less than two weeks later.
• Final Episode: May 27, 2025

Based On A True Story (Peacock)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: Lovable TV mainstays Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina made for a winning team in the mystery-laden dark comedy Based on a True Story, with two seasons of well-received thrills and kills. Out of the blue in mid-April 2025, news broke that it was canceled, without any initial sign of a motivation on Peacock's part to wrap up after that game-changing Season 2 finale.
• Final Episode: November 21, 2024

The Bondsman (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Kevin Bacon's gory horror dramedy The Bondsman might have had a bigger impact on Prime Video subscribers had Amazon promoted it beyond the front page of its streaming site. But the series arrived largely out of nowhere in April 2025, made quite a few horror fans giddy with excitement, and then got axed six weeks later. Despite making a showing on Nielsen's streaming charts during its first week of release, The Bondsman's impact wasn't enough for a second round of demon-destroying mayhem.
• Final Episode: April 3, 2025

Bookie (Max)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: Sitcom creator extraordinaire Chuck Lorre made the jump to Max by teaming with stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and voice-actor Nick Bakay for a closer look at the financially irresponsible world of sports betting and bookies. Perhaps it’s saying something that more attention went to Lorre’s reunion with Charlie Sheen after their Two and a Half Men feud than Bookie itself, and news spread in February 2025 that the dramedy was axed.
• Final Episode: January 30, 2025

Citadel: Honey Bunny (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: The breakout success of spythriller Citadel sparked two spinoffs, with Honey Bunny taking the prequel route with Varun Dhawan's Bunny and Samantha's Honey, the parents of Priyanka Chopra's Nadia in the flagship series. The Indian-Hindu series was a hit in its native countries, but did not take hold of global audiences in the way its predecessor did. But in announcing that it would not return for Season 2, Amazon confirmed that the characters' stories will be woven into Citadel Season 2 when it finally arrives.
• Final Episode: November 26, 2024

Citadel: Diana (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: The sequel-ish Citadel: Diana was Amazon's Italian set spinoff of its hit spy-action series Citadel, starring Matilda De Angelis as an undercover Citadel agent trying to make her way back to safety after getting stuck behind enemy lines. As it went with Honey Bunny, Diana did not garner enough of a global impact to warrant a second season, though its storyline will be worked into the second season of Citadel when it arrives in Q2 2026.
• Final Episode: October 10, 2024

The Cleaning Lady (Fox)

• Number Of Seasons: 4
• Reason For Ending: The fact that Élodie Yung's mob cleaner Thony De La Rosa was able to survive four seasons on Fox is a feat in and of itself, considering its third season's dip in viewership. Despite bringing in Dexter vet Daniel Cerrone as a new showrunner for the fourth season, the numbers didn't go upwards at all, although debuting during the last week of March probably didn't help its chances. That said, Fox execs clearly waited until after it ended to go forward with the decision, rather than ending it pre-finale along with the other cancellations.
• Final Episode: June 3, 2025

Cruel Intentions (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Starting in 2015, NBC attempted to get a Cruel Intentions TV show off the ground, based on the hit 1997 movie, and Amazon swooped in years after those initial attempts were given up on. Unfortunately, neither general audiences nor critics felt very strongly about the series and its focus on Greek life. Four months or so after its eight-episode season dropped, the studio dropped the show altogether.
• Final Episode: November 21, 2024

The Equalizer (CBS)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: Fans of Queen Latifah’s The Equalizer had to wait until CBS made decisions for all of its other shows to learn that it was canceled. Addressing this decision and others, one exec pointed to financial issues as a cause, though BTS reports allege the cast and crew agreed to accept budget cuts to acquire a smaller episode order. It’s unlikely the series will be shopped to other studios, but that could depend on how star and EP Queen Latifah herself wants to move forward.
• Final Episode: May 4, 2025

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: Despite its breakout success as a post-strike premiere in 2023, Found’s fate was sealed for a trifecta of reasons. 1. The first season’s dynamic changed when Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Sir escaped. 2. The sophomore season’s larger than average drop in viewership. 3. NBC’s upcoming NBA coverage, which required a major decrease in scripted primetime offerings. But as of this writing, Warner Bros. TV is reportedly shipping the thriller around to other platforms for a potential third outing.
• Final Episode: Airing May 15, 2025

FBI: International (CBS)

Number Of Seasons: 4

Reason For Ending: Similar to its weeknight roomie Most Wanted, FBI: International had its fate sealed without any of the usual motivational factors popping up, such as a drop in viewership or generally low ratings. At the moment, the going idea is that both dramas were folded to make room for the in-the-works CIA spinoff, but that project has not yet been ordered to series.

Final Episode: TBA Spring 2025

FBI: Most Wanted (CBS)

Number Of Seasons: 6

Reason For Ending: When the news first dropped that CBS had pulled the plug on its currently airing (and timeslot-winning) FBI spinoff Most Wanted, the going theory was that the network had to make room for another impending spinoff, FBI: CIA, which fans are not exactly happy about. No official reasons have sprung up just yet, but some viewers are hoping for the Dylan McDermott-starring drama to be saved by a streaming service or by NBC, where Dick Wolf's Law & Order and One Chicago franchises have thrived.

Final Episode: TBA Spring 2025

Found (NBC)

The Franchise (HBO)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Five or so weeks after wrapping its highly chaotic chronicling of superhero blockbuster Tecto: Eye of the Storm, the abundantly satirical comedy The Franchise faced its somewhat ironic cancellation after a single, non-franchising season, albeit a well-received one. While the HBO spokesperson who confirmed the cancellation to Deadline in early January didn't explain the reasoning, the show's seemingly limited viewership likely didn't justify its budget.
• Final Episode: Aired on November 24, 2024

Frasier (Paramount+)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: In January 2025, Paramount+ announced that Kelsey Grammer’s largely enjoyable return to the Frasier universe was ending after two seasons, largely due to the show’s inability to breakout as a hit across the full audience spectrum. Grammer has since gone public confidently stating that he believes Season 3 is still going to happen, but it’s unclear where or who would be paying for it.
• Final Episode: November 14, 2024

Harlem (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Fans only learned the Meagan Good-starring comedy Harlem would be ending when Prime Video released the first trailer for Season 3 on January 8, 2025, more than a year after the third batch of episodes was ordered with no hint that they would conclude the series. But neither that reveal, nor the follow-up from creator Tracy Oliver, addressed a reason for the surprise decision.
• Final Episode: The final two Season 3 episodes will stream on Thursday, February 6, 2025.

How To Die Alone (Hulu)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: The White Lotus breakout star Natasha Rothwell tapped into a vaguely similar mix of drama, comedy and romantic entanglements for her streaming series How To Die Alone. Though the eight-episode first season largely won over both critics and audiences, Hulu opted not to move forward with the show for a second season, a choice that shocked Rothwell, who is reportedly shopping the series around to other platforms.
• Final Episode: September 27, 2024

The Irrational (NBC)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: Though Season 1 was a hit for NBC in the dregs of post-strikes TV, earning a renewal just a few months in, the Jesse L. Martin-starring drama The Irrational fell short of maintaining its initial audience when Season 2 arrived, perhaps due to a shift from Mondays to Tuesdays. Due to its sizable dips in viewer stats, the series didn’t have an advantage where renewal convos were concerned, especially with the uptick in NBC’s NBA games on the way.
• Final Episode: Aired March 25, 2025

Lopez Vs. Lopez (NBC)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Comedian George Lopez and daughter Mayan Lopez’s eponymously titled sitcom was never big with critics, and never delivered huge audience totals, which is likely why it was an on-the-bubble decision for NBC in each of Lopez vs. Lopez’s three seasons. But while its familial charms earned last-minute renewals in years past, the choice was made to pull the plug after Season 3, despite a small-but-present uptick in audience numbers during its post-midseason run.
• Final Episode: Aired February 7, 2025

Mr. Throwback (Peacock)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Co-starring one of the oddest TV comedy pairings with Happy Endings vet Adam Pally and NBA icon Steph Curry, Mr. Throwback was met with a warm enough reception when it landed on Peacock, but didn't spark much beyond silence in the months that followed. The streaming service's decision finally went public in April 2025, without a second season on the way.
• Final Episode: August 8, 2024

Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur (Disney+)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Cancellation: In October 2024, several of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur's excellent cast members confirmed Disney+ canceled the animated Marvel Comics adaptation following executive producer Steve Loter's cryptic online hints. No specific reasons have been confirmed, but there's a silver lining in that fans will still get to see more episodes, as the animation team was still working on nine episodes when the cancellation news dropped.
• Final Episode: TBA in 2025

Mythic Quest (Apple TV+)

• Number Of Seasons: 4
• Reason For Ending: Apple was confident enough to order up a third and fourth season of Mythic Quest back in October 2021, with Season 4 arriving at last in January 2025. Unfortunately, just two weeks after the finale hit streaming, Apple pulled the plug on Mythic Quest, GrimPop and any future expansion plans. The cancellation appeared to come as a surprise to co-creators Rob McElhenney, Megan Ganz and David Hornsby, who were granted the opportunity by Apple to adjust the finale's ending to account for its sealed fate.
• Final Episode: March 26, 2025 (original), TBA April 2025 (updated version)

Night Court (NBC)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: Melissa Rauch’s major Big Bang Theory follow-up, NBC’s Night Court revival also boasted O.G. fave John Larroquette and (occasionally) Marsha Warfield, and the evolving sitcom played up its TBBT ties with Simon Helberg and Young Sheldon’s Raegan Revord guesting in Season 3’s cliffhanger finale. Unfortunately, the show’s loyal viewership fell with each season, and while there’s potential for it to get shopped around (per Deadline), NBC canceled Night Court without an official wrap-up.
• Final Episode: Aired May 6, 2025

The Recruit (Netflix)

Number Of Seasons: 2

Reason For Ending: Alexi Hawley has enjoyed extended runs with ABC procedurals Castle and The Rookie, among others, but his initial jump to streaming was cut short when Netflix spy canceled its spy dramedy The Recruit just over a month after its second season debuted in January. Early numbers indicate more critical acclaim and a higher completion rate for streamers, albeit with a smaller overall audience (per Deadline), and fans angered by the cancellation news have theorized that the sophomore season’s premiering a week after the sorta-similar Night Agent’s second season played a part in the decision.

Final Episode: January 20, 2025

Rescue Hi-Surf (Fox)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Rescue Hi-Surf’s troubled existence began in COVID-striken 2020 as a project for then-branded HBO Max, and after stagnating for 2-3 years, was picked up by Fox and retitled from Ke Nui Road to the punctuation-friendly Rescue: Hi-Surf. The lifeguard drama enjoyed an NFL lead-in for its September 2024 preview, but immediately lost half of its audience with its Monday night timeslot, and its nightly viewership dipped below 2 million by Episode 4 and never looked back. The fandom’s pulled together for an online renewal campaign, but no updates so far.
• Final Episode: Aired March 31, 2025

The Sex Lives Of College Girls (Max)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: After two successful seasons, The Sex Lives of College Girls bid farewell to co-star Reneé Rapp early in its third-season, and the series never quite reached the levels it had in earlier years, despite two new characters being introduced to help fill the voice. While Max didn't give a specific reason for cancelling the LGBTQ+-friendly comedy, it's believed that dips in viewership accounted for part of the decision.
• Final Episode: January 23, 2025

Star Trek: Prodigy (Netflix)

• Number Of Seasons: 2
• Reason For Ending: Despite the creators' hopes for a seven-season run, the youth-skewing Star Trek: Prodigy's fate was first tested by Paramount+'s cancellation as the already ordered Season 2 was still being made. Netflix stepped in to give the second season a home, but presumably due to lower than expected viewership numbers, the streaming service opted out of going forward with a third season, though without making that decision known until May 2025.
• Final Episode: July 1, 2024

The Sticky (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Despite having the power of stars such as Margo Martindale and Chris Diamantopoulos, the darkly comedic heist caper The Sticky didn’t appear to draw the kinds of crowds most deserving of its fairly universal critical acclaim. Without a huge viewership to lean on, Prime Video chose not to renew the syrup-covered series for a second outing.
• Final Episode: December 6, 2024

Suits LA (NBC)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Ending: Brought to life entirely due to Suits’ shockingly massive streaming success at Netflix, Suits LA was heavily promoted with lead Arrow vet Stephen Amell, who was soon joined by O.G. vet Gabriel Macht’s Harvey. Unfortunately, the spinoff’s viewership and ratings paled in comparison to Netflix’s stats, and NBC overruled any hopes for a second season both ahead of the upfronts, and ahead of the hopefully conclusive Season 1 finale.
• Final Episode: Airing May 18, 2025

S.W.A.T. (CBS)

Number Of Seasons: 8

Reason For Ending: Most shows need to change networks to survive multiple cancellations, but S.W.A.T. never had to leave CBS to experience getting canceled three different times. Its first came in 2023, and was reversed two days later, while its second pink slip was issued in Feb. 2024, only for CBS to conjure up a surprise renewal for an eighth and now-final season. Despite its star’s hopes for another go, network execs canceled the Shemar Moore series for a third time in March 2025, choosing to forego the usual contractual talks.

Final Episode: TBA May 2025

Teacup (Peacock)

• Number Of Seasons: 1
• Reason For Cancellation: Yvonne Strahovski and Scott Speedman's horror thriller Teacup, based on author (and EP) Robert McCammon's novel Stinger, debuted as a Peacock exclusive in October 2024, two years after it was first ordered. Unfortunately, the show failed to make impactful waves with either critics or streaming audiences, and Variety reported the cancellation news without any additional insight from the streaming service's side.
• Final Episode: October 31, 2024

Tiana (Disney+)

Number Of Seasons: 0

Reason For Ending: A rather standalone entry in the world of canceled TV shows, Disney's episodic The Princess and the Frog spinoff was first announced all the way back in December 2020 (alongside other defunct projects like Armor Wars and Swiss Family Robinson). And despite attempts by multiple creative teams to expand the world of Anika Noni Rose's Tiana, the project was officially scrapped in early March 2025, with production costs cited as a reason alongside the creative issues.

Final Episode: No episodes were aired

Tyler Perry's Young Dylan (Nickelodeon)

• Number Of Seasons: 5
• Reason For Ending: Tyler Perry's Sistas-verse may be growing, but the mega-producer's family-friendly fare at Nickelodeon took a hit as Dylan Gilmer's Young Dylan sang its hip-hop swan song. The unfortunate news came via series director Carl Payne on Instagram, just two days after the final episode went live, and the cable network followed up a few days later and confirmed it wouldn't be moving forward with a Season 6 order. No specific reasons were alluded to.
• Final Episode: Aired April 30, 2025

The Wheel Of Time (Prime Video)

• Number Of Seasons: 3
• Reason For Ending: As an expensive fantasy series, The Wheel of Time earned its first two renewals due to both critical acclaim and the size of the audience streaming the weekly episodes. Unfortunately, even with Prime Video's worldwide audiences in the mix, the numbers for the Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson adaptation's third season weren't quite enough to justify the budgetary costs for a fourth season. Just over a month after the Season 3 finale released, the platform pulled the plug.
• Final Episode: April 17, 2025

One of the most memorable families in the annals of the best TV sitcoms ever, the Conner clan is set to exit primetime (possibly forever) when its shortened seventh and final season hits ABC in March. We know that The Conners showrunner and EPs were excited to make it a special event, though it’s still generally unclear what’s to be expected from such an event. Thankfully, star Emma Kenney shared thoughts about how things will wrap up, and I’m more than a little surprised by how she worded it.

Speaking with TVLine about her dual roles across the early part of the 2025 TV schedule — we wrote about her impending guest role on Reba McEntire’s NBC sitcom Happy’s Place — Kenney was asked about how much of an “event” these remaining episodes will serve as, and she played it mostly coy with her initial answer, saying:

I'm both baffled and intrigued by the actress already teasing that The Conners will end with some story threads left dangling. Not that I'd expect showrunner Bruce Helford & Co. to flesh every imaginable plot point out to its logical conclusion, but now I just kinda need to know exactly what open-ended questions will be left on the table. (Presumably the kitchen table.)

Or perhaps more specifically, I wonder if these questions are being left up in the air so that this universe can expand once more with another spinoff in the future. The Conners itself came into being to capitalize on Roseanne's massive popularity after its titular star was fired, but wasn't envisioned for a seven-season run. But perhaps with its final episode, the writers figured out a way to purposefully leave the door open for audiences to revisit the Lanford fam after some years away, possibly through Harris or Mark's children.

Emma Kenney shared a few more personal thoughts about The Conners' final season and her own experience making it, saying:

The role of Harris Conner made headlines for a totally different reason in recent months, with former Roseanne showrunner Whitney Cummings revealing that pop star and Disney vet Sabrina Carpenter auditioned to be Darlene's daughter, but wasn't cast due to it not being a good fit. It'd be wild if she showed up in the final season somewhere, though.

As far as whether or not Emma Kenney’s role on Happy’s Place will go beyond the one episode she’s already filmed, that’s up to the network and the producers at this point. The show would need to get renewed for a second season, which seems like a real possibility at this point.

The Conners' final season will arrive on ABC at some point in March. Prior seasons can be streamed with a Netflix subscription.

It’s been months since ABC dropped the news that The Conners will be ending with Season 7, putting it alongside many other shows canceled in 2024 whose final episodes will be hitting the 2025 premiere schedule. And during the long wait for new episodes, comedian and former Roseanne showrunner Whitney Cummings dropped the espresso-flavored bombshell that pop star and Disney vet Sabrina Carpenter originally auditioned to play Darlene’s daughter Harris when the initial revival was coming together.

The news sparked questions about why the casting team would have passed over the Girl Meets World alum when casting for the teen daughter character, but Cummings clarified that part of the story when appearing on CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast alongside co-hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. There, Cohen inquired (perhaps in a targeted fashion) about why Cummings & Co. would have turned Carpenter down for the role, which sparked the Fast Friends host to respond with:

To her point there, Andy Cohen has built part of his career on setting up dramatic situations, whether it's through being a producer on Bravo's Real Housewives franchise or as the host of the nightly chat show Watch What Happens Live, which often features celebs either answering or steadfastedly avoiding questions about scandalous career moments. So it was totally in line with expectations that he'd bring up Whitney Cummings' past admission that the pop star was one of the hopefuls auditioning for Roseanne's tenth season.

The Roast queen didn't fully take the bait, though, and addressed his question in a way that made it clear that it wasn't a case where Sabrina Carpenter put in a lackluster audition or did anything in particular to convince the producers to go with someone else. Rather, Cummings just plainly stated that she just plainly didn't match up with what they were looking for with Harris.

Eventual fan-fave star Emma Kenney wound up landing the role while she was still co-starring in Shameless, and while she doesn't necessarily look exactly like Sara Gilbert, I dare say her take on Harris is a more believable Conner family addition than anyone who could be described as "blonde and bubbly." It'd still be cool to live in a Sliding Doors scenario where we could see how the show would look with the "Please Please Please" singer in the Lanford clan.

After that big of clarification, Whitney Cummings joked that she probably deserves some kind of payoff from the pop star for not casting her on Roseanne ahead of its eventual transition into The Conners, since her music career might not have taken off quite so strongly had she been putting in hours on a network sitcom. As Cummings put it:

For instance, if Sabrina Carpenter was already too busy filming for The Conners' shortened, but event-sized final season, she might not have been able to film her big Nonsense Christmas special, which is currently available to stream with a Netflix subscription.

Though Cummings isn't actively part of the current Conners team, hopefully someone behind the scenes had the idea to get Carpenter involved in the final season when it filmed last year. I mean, probably not, but there's no harm in wishing.

Even though The Conners wasn’t initially meant to last longer than a single season, it was still a shock to learn that the ABC sitcom would be ending with a shortened seventh season that the network is promoting as a big event for the 2025 TV premiere schedule. Among all the various storylines to wrap up, I’m perhaps most interested in the endgame between Becky and Tyler, which is perhaps hinted at in a new look at the upcoming season.

Our first peek at Lecy Goranson’s Becky and Sean Astin’s Tyler doesn’t exactly exude peaceful and lovey-dovey vibes, though that single moment probably shouldn’t be used to gauge whatever happens in Season 7. As well, executive producer Bruce Rasmussen gave TVLine an optimistic outlook for the couple, even if I’m still not totally sold on Becky’s happiness just yet.

First thing’s first, though, so check out what domestic life will look like for this coupling once Tyler takes the big step of moving into Darlene’s house with Becky.

To be sure, whatever is happening with Tyler and Becky in the image above doesn’t look detrimental to their happiness, even if Astin’s face isn’t particularly parked by enthusiasm. Rather than anything wildly problematic, it looks like Becky just told him she doesn’t like apples after he finished baking an apple pie, or some similar annoyance.

EP Bruce Rasmussen shared this tease, which at face value certainly sounds as positive as can be:

As regular viewers are already aware, The Conners added Sean Astin as then-new love interest Tyler near the end of Season 5, and Lecy Goranson talked to CinemaBlend about how lucky she felt to gain such a genial pro as an on-screen partner. Showrunner Bruce Helford promised bigger things for the couple in Season 6, and Tyler did indeed show up a bit more throughout, though it's arguable whether they've been romatnically tied long enough to justify moving in together. Which leads us to...

Why I'm Still Skeptical About Becky And Tyler In Season 7

To echo the above point, the fact that Tyler has already moved into Darlene and Ben's home makes it seem like they're moving a bit fast. If not for him, then at least for Becky, whose history with romance has been emotionally topsy-turvy enough that she should inherently be more hesitant about such impulses.

That relationship history is another reason for my skepticism, though I'll definitely give the character credit for being in a completely different headspace than she was in her youthful years with her late hubby Mark, who sparked one of the sitcom's most dramatic episodes and arguments. She's still friendly and cordial with Beverly Rose's father Emilio (Rene Rosado), and presumably with her other exes, but those past courtships weren't rooted in true love. That may be different with Tyler, but it's obviously not guaranteed.

I can even find reason to be skeptical just from what Bruce Rasmussen said. If he was talking about a couple that audiences were meant to believe is destined to last, he might have phrased things a bit differently, perhaps describing Tyler as "a good man who she will spend the rest of her life with," instead of saying "hopes to." That might be seen as spoilery on his part, but if the thing it's meant to spoil is "Becky's extended happiness," then why would it be a bad thing?

Perhaps this is all just my own bad luck and pessimism talking. I don't necessarily want to see the series introducing any major issues between them during the six-episode home stretch, and would prefer for the writers to lean more into their happy future. But this is The Conners, after all, where the words "happy" and "future" never share common ground.

In other Conners-related news, fans will be able to see co-star Emma Kenney in primetime before she makes Harris’ final-season debut, as the actress was cast in Reba McEntire’s NBC sitcom Happy’s Place, and will appear in at least one episode as the daughter of McEntire’s character.

For now, we’re still waiting to get a confirmed premiere date for The Conners’ final season, so get comfortable on the afghan-covered couch and stay tuned.

So far in its first season, Happy’s Place has delivered several Reba reunions for its central star Reba McEntire, with Steve Howe as the most recent cameo ahead of the midseason finale. We’re hoping to hear about appearances from one or two of the Grammy winner’s fellow coaches on The Voice, but another awesome announcement has popped up as the 2024 TV schedule hits the winter hiatus: a Conners star has joined the cast for the remaining Season 1 episodes.

As awesome as it would be to see someone like John Goodman or Katey Sagal mixing it up with Reba McEntire, Happy’s Place is actually adding longtime Conners star Emma Kenney to the fray, and it definitely isn’t a random throwaway role for the Shameless vet. The actress will once again be taking on the role of a sitcom offspring, as she’ll be portraying Gracie, daughter of McEntire’s Bobbie McCalister.

Gracie’s absence in Bobbie’s life thus far is explained by her currently being active in the military. She was deployed in Qatar, but TVLine’s description says she goes on leave just ahead of returning to Knoxville for a trip to the family’s home and boozy business. It’s not clear what the reasoning is behind her taking leave, but her return will seemingly cause some friction.

Unlike the goofy and loose attitudes that Bobbie and bar employees and patrons exude, Gracie apparently rocks a harder edge, with more of a non-nonsense approach to life. As such, Bobbie becomes worried that Gracie won’t easily accept or get along with Belissa Escobedo’s Isabella after newly discovering that the latter is her half-aunt, despite not being much older.

Not that it’ll only be about familial strife. It sounds like everyone else on hand at the tavern will start up a friendly competition to see who can create the best homemade present for Gracie’s homecoming. I expect someone to go far beyond what’s expected, be it Gabby, Emmett, Steve or Takoda.

When Will Emma Kenney Debut On Happy's Place?

Thankfully, fans won't be waiting very long before Emma Kenney arrives on the scene as Gracie McCalister. She'll even be popping up on Happy's Place before reprising the role of Harris on The Conners, which is ending with a big Season 7 event that'll hit the 2025 TV schedule in March.

Kenney's first episode will air on Friday, January 10, It' will be the sitcom's second episode back on NBC after the winter hiatus. It's unclear at this point whether she'll only appear in one episode, or if she'll have more of a recurring role in the comedy. Check out the first look at the actress and Reba McEntire below!

Interestingly enough, Kenney wasn’t the first big TV star to step into the role of Gracie. Back in October 2024, A.P. Bio and United States of Al vet Elizabeth Alderfer was cast to play Bobbie’s daughter. No word on why she apparently had to step away from the role, or why Kenney was needed as a replacement.

Happy’s Place will return to NBC audiences on January 3, 2024 along with a slew of other, with the first half of the season available to stream with a Peacock subscription.

Rather than going out with a light whimper or disgruntled moan, The Conners is gearing up for a big and eventful final season when the ABC sitcom hits the 2025 TV premiere schedule in March. Fans can likely expect to see more than a few guest stars paying visits to Lanford, and while pop star Sabrina Carpenter probably won’t be one of them, it turns out the “Espresso” singer could have legitimately been part of the titular family had her audition been embraced more.

That’s right, the 25-year-old Grammy nominee was apparently in the running to portray the role of Darlene’s eldest child Harris Conner, with Shameless vet Emma Kenney going on to land the role. But as far as former Roseanne executive producer Whitney Cummings goes, the world lucked out by Carpenter getting turned down. Talking to People about that potential casting bombshell, the stand-up comedian said:

As odd as it might sound for a show creative to say "Thank God" about not landing a currently huge talent for a TV role, her sentiment obviously makes sense. For one, Emma Kenney has crushed it as the slacker-leaning rebel Harris for seven seasons of TV at this point, so it's hard to even think about someone else in that role.

Second, if Carpenter was focused on sitcom work for the past seven years, she might not have been able to flesh out her music career to the point where she could make appearances at Taylor Swift concerts and headline her own giant tours. I mean, it's certainly possible, since John Goodman has balanced his co-starring role in The Righteous Gemstones with playing Dan Conner, but those schedules aren't exactly the same.

Given the timing of everything, it appears as if Sabrina Carpenter would have been auditioning for Harris Conner right around (or soon after) the time when Disney Channel canceled Girl Meets World in Summer 2017. For three seasons, the actress starred as Maya Hart on the spinoff of the TGIF favorite, and also co-performed the theme song. So she was seemingly primed for more Disney-produced family comedy.

Only that didn't actually happen, with Emma Kenney winning the role for one reason or another. And in Whitney Cummings' mind, that kind of outwardly "bad news" can be as much of a blessing as anything. As she put it:

Now that we know this interesting bit of sitcom trivia, I have a few questions about how things would have gone if Sabrina Carpenter had landed the role.

Would Carpenter have played Harris just on The Conners, or did she initially audition for Roseanne? Considering the People story only notes The Conners when addressing Cummings' comments, are we meant to believe that Carpenter would have replaced Harris for the spinoff after Roseanne Barr's firing? Or was it meant to be implied that the surname title was being used as a catch-all that included its predecessor?

Would Carpenter have dyed her hair brown to play Harris? Considering both Sara Gilbert's Darlene and Johnny Galecki's David are both brunettes with wavy curls, a strikingly blonde child would probably stick out. (Also, is it a thing for one's eyes to be too round and open to be a Conner?) Granted, Becky pulled off a blonde look despite Roseanne and Dan being brunettes, so maybe it wouldn't have been so weird.

Could The Conners' fame have actually helped Sabrina Carpenter's career? One of the arguably odder things about the pop star's Grammy nomination for Best New Artist is that her current smash Short n' Sweet is actually her sixth album. She'd previously been under contract with Disney for those first five albums that didn't quite capture the zeigeist like #6. But would that have been different if she was starring in one of broadcast's most popular comedies during that time span?

Will Sabrina Carpenter cameo in The Conners' final season? Simlar to the way Roseanne and The Conners have poked fun at Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke swapping the role of Becky Conner over the years, it would be fun to see an episode's cold open as a dream sequence where Carpenter is in the role of Harris. Likely not the easiest cameo to pull off, but I'm here for it if the creative team figures it out.

Though fans will be waiting far longer than usual for The Conners to return with new episodes, Tim Allen's return to ABC sitcom-dom is on the horizon, with his new show Shifting Gears premiering in January. Perhaps we'll find out in a few years that Chappel Roan auditioned for Kat Dennings' role in the show.

While certain shows coming to the 2025 TV schedule have been in development for years, such as the MCU’s Ironheart and Netflix’s Stranger Things, while others were fully conceived and crafted within the scope of 2024, such as Tim Allen’s big return to primetime. The Last Man Standing vet is back in sitcom mode alongside 2 Broke Girls’ Kat Dennings for ABC’s Shifting Gears, and it looks like we’ll get to enjoy the new premiere long before The Conners will return with its seventh and final season.

Now that ABC has revealed its upcoming midseason schedule, it’s assured we won’t be too waiting long after the new year arrives to see what Allen’s newest TV dad will bring to the table. (Presumably a circular saw of some kind.) However, that other beloved primetime family will be popping up months after the fact, and The Conners technically still doesn’t have a premiere date locked down.

Let’s take a look at the first half of ABC’s upcoming midseason fare below.

Just one week after 2025 arrives in style (hopefully, anyway), fans will meet Tim Allen's widower and classic-car restorer Matt, whose life gets turned upside-down when his daughter (Dennings) shows up with her teenage kids to live with him after her separation. Sounds like pretty traditional sitcom storytelling, and with the additional caveat of filming on the Home Improvement lot.

I'm quite interested to see how Shifting Gears works as a lead-in for Abbott Elementary, and what the viewership numbers will be like in those first few weeks. It's not like ABC has room elsewhere on its schedule for half-hour sitcoms, so if this pairing doesn't work out, I do wonder what the fix would be.

Now let's take alook at the back half of ABC's midseason schedule, which features more streaming-to-broadcast import series from Hulu, following the second season of Only Murders in the Building.

That lineup should be comforting to fans of The Rookie that have been waiting for new episodes for months now. As well as for fans who expected Scamanda to be part of the 2024 Fall TV schedule. But there's that glaring absence to discuss.

Why Isn't The Conners Season 7 On ABC's Schedule?

Despite locking down dates for the majority of its original series (and Hulu shows), ABC still has yet to officially set The Conners' final season start, and it's the only scripted series that's still up in the air. For now, the goal is for it to debut in March 2025.

As such, it sounds like the network is timing things so that the Lanford-set comedy will wrap its historic run during the same May finales window as most other network projects. Here's how the ABC announcement worded it:

• The farewell season of The Conners will return in March 2025. Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and Press Your Luck will also return in the new year. Airdates to be announced at a later date.

The Conners showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan talked to CinemaBlend earlier this year about the bigger-than-usual approach to the final episodes, which counterbalances the idea that the new season will be far shorter than usual, with just six episodes.

We'll be waiting patiently to hear more, but in the meantime, I need to perfect my manly grunting in time for Shifting Gears' arrival.

For fans of TV comedy, one of the more promising new comedies on the 2024 TV schedule was ABC’s High Potential, as it’s the latest broadcast series to showcase the leading role talents of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Kaitlin Olson alongside small-screen vets Judy Reyes (Scrubs) and Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me). The dramedy has avoided many police procedural tropes thus far, and its consistently excellent viewership stats have hit an impressive benchmark that puts it in company with The Conners.

With the first half of its season — five of the six episodes that have aired to date — High Potential has already cemented itself as ABC’s biggest new series in six years, thanks in large part to its impressive 7-day delayed viewing totals. All things told, Olson’s brilliantly observant Morgan is drawing an average of 10.42 million viewers for each episode across a week of watching!

The fifth episode "Croaked” hit a solid total of 6.8 million viewers solely from those watching linearly on ABC in the first week of availability, according to Deadline’s Nielsen data. That number rose up to 10.49 million when accounting for those streaming High Potential on Hulu or with a Disney+ subscription.

Not only is that a 2% increase over the numbers for Episode 4, but that final total denotes a 191% uptick when compared to the same episode's Live + Same Day numbers. No one should be surprised if this immediate success leads to ABC renewing the series for a spot in the 2025 primetime schedule, presumably even before the current 10-episode season has wrapped.

High Potential Is ABC's Biggest New Show Since The Conners' Debut Season

Created by Drew Goddard and based on the French series HPI, High Potential has already brought in a big enough audience for ABC execs to consider it the network's most successful new series in the six years sinceThe Conners' first arrived as a matriarch-less spinoff during the 2018-2019 TV season, drawing an average of 9.5 million viewers for that initial 11-episode run.

Considering High Potential still has a ways to go, it's obviously not clear yet whether or not it will remain on top, but no matter how it ends up, the hourlong series matching up with The Conners' numbers is all the more impressive given the fact that it's a brand-new option for U.S. audiences. Obviously The Conners followed the wildly successful revival season of Roseanne, which came to a sudden ending when its star was fired and her character was killed off, so there was a built-in audience there already, albeit a far smaller one without Barr involved.

Here's how Olson celebrated the win on Instagram:

How cool would it be if Kaitlin Olson was able to make a cameo appearance on The Conners during its upcoming final season? It's expected to debut in early 2025, and has already filmed, so the chances of it happening are extremely slim. But hey, if the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast can cross over with Abbott Elementary, then it's theoretically possible that Olson could show up in Lanford. Or anywhere else for that matter.

But hopefully she'll be returning to High Potential for years to come. Just keep tuning in every Tuesday night on ABC at 10:00 p.m., even if it's just for the A+ cute baby reaction shots, of which this series has plenty.

The current Fall TV schedule looks far different from how it usually does by the first week of October, with most of CBS’ fare still yet to premiere, and without ABC’s core sitcoms Abbott Elementary and The Conners. The former kicks off October 9, with an It’s Always Sunny crossover on the horizon, but audiences have to wait until 2025’s premiere schedule to see Lanford’s finest return for its “big event” final season. But it looks like production may already be wrapping.

At least that’s what I (and others) are inferring from co-star Emma Kenney, who shared a weekend “wrap” post that very much seemed to indicate she has filmed her final scenes as Harris Conner. Check out the post below, in which the actress very applicably gets her flowers for a job well done.

Assuming this is indeed referencing The Conners' series finale, and not wrapping on an earlier episodeinging Kenney’s eight-year reign among the fourth generation of dysfunctional family members in this sitcom universe. (With the tenth season of Roseanne preceding the follow-up's run.) It's a distinction that isn't so commonly shared in either character lineage or time spent on screen, and deserves a celebratory "Whoop-whoooop!"

To be sure, Ames McNamara is also deserving for having portrayed Harris' brainy brother Mark for that same time period. But since he didn't post about it, Kenney's getting all the love here.

To be expected, Emma Kenney's comment section was full of love and support from her friends and followers. (We're not gonna talk about the negativity mongers.) Also unsurprising is how many of the comments came from Shameless fans who, even if they weren't necessarily Conners fans, were kind and praising all the same.

More than a few familiar names also popped up in the comments, from fellow TV mainstay Kenan Thompson to members of the Hilton family.

• Kenan Thompson: Congratulations!!!! Great run!!! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
• Harley Quinn Smith: congrats my love 😩😩❤️❤️❤️
• Sonia Ammar: 🩷🩷🩷!!!
• Larsen Thompson: 👏👏👏
• Conrad Hughes Hilton: Proud of you! 🎉🎉🎉❤️
• Kathy Hilton: 👏👏👏👏👏👏😍😍😍😍😍❤️❤️

To be sure, even if it's 100% confirmed that Emma Kenney is finished filming for The Conners, production on Season 7 likely isn't fully completed just yet. Perhaps other cast members have final scenes to close out with before it's all said and done, on top of whatever post-production work follows the filming process. However it goes, this info gives us an idea of what to expect for the show's return.

When Should Fans Expect The Conners To Return For Season 7?

With the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas / New Years holiday seasons in mind, filming wrapping by mid-October would feasibly allow enough time for everyone working behind the scenes to get the first episodes finished before 2024 is over. Depending on what showrunner Bruce Helford & Co. wrote up for the final episodes, it's possible all the eps could be ready to go by the time new shows arrive in 2025.

Now, as a longtime fan, I'm certainly hoping that the talk about this being a big event season means that the show went outside the box with fewer episodes to put together. Maybe a classic "The Conners go to ___" concept that might require lengthier post-production efforts.

Either way, it seems more than likely that The Conners will be part of ABC's first week of midseason premieres. Unless the network has specific ideas about holding tne new episodes until closer to May finales, which isn't all that out there, I suppose. But for now, even through the bittersweet feelings about the show'd ending being in sight, I'm still optmistic that we'll see its return sooner rather than later.

I'm also optimistic that we'll get more love for Johnny Galecki's David, if not a full-on cameo. But it's too soon to start talking about any of that just yet.

It’s taken a bit for Hollywood to get back to normal following the dual strikes last year, but now that the 2023-24 season is nearing its end, it’s time to look forward to 2024-25 programming. Unfortunately, there may not be a lot to look forward to on the 2024 TV schedule later this year. Aside from the insane amount of shows canceled in 2024, there’s a good chunk of series not returning this fall, and the wait is going to be brutal.

TV Insider has rounded up a list of shows that will be premiering midseason next year, and it’s actually quite a lot which does not help. And honestly, I'm shocked by the number of shows waiting until 2025 to premiere.

Two of the biggest surprises on this list are ABC shows The Rookie and Will Trent. When both were absent from ABC’s fall schedule, it was revealed that the two would be held for midseason premieres. While it seemed worrisome, it was also revealed that both will air completely uninterrupted, meaning no breaks whatsoever, so that should help. Waiting until at least January, however, will be no fun, especially since The Rookie ended on two major cliffhangers.

The final season of The Conners is also being held off for midseason. This may not be so bad since it will give fans more time to say goodbye to the beloved family for a second time. The seventh season will evidently be a “big event,” even though it will only close out with six episodes. It's unknown why ABC is waiting to show the final season, but I already need it.

On the Fox side, the network has a good mix of both live-action and animated series being held for next year, and it's as frustrating as ever.

The long-running series Family Guy will not be premiering in the fall for the first time in decades, and it comes after the Griffin family moved from the Animation Domination Sunday night block to Wednesdays for the back half of the 2023-24 season. A true double whammy.

The Great North and Grimsburg will also not be part of the Sunday block for fall. Recently-renewed series The Cleaning Lady and Alert: Missing Persons Unit, alongside Joel McHale-led sitcom Animal Control, will be coming back early next year as well. So, while we have a lot to look forward to in January, when it comes to this fall, I'm not quite sure how to feel.

As NCIS and NCIS: Origins air on CBS this fall, NCIS: Sydney will be waiting until midseason to return. The second season of the Australia-set spinoff will be joining Friday nights come 2025 after Blue Bloods airs its final batch of episodes. Sydney will take over for S.W.A.T. to kick off the night, while the twice-saved procedural will make a switch and take over Blue Bloods’ 10 p.m. slot. Sydney will only have about eight episodes like the first season, and just like The Conners, waiting so long for only a handful of episodes is excruciating.

While it made sense last year why shows didn’t premiere in the fall because of the strikes, it is definitely frustrating seeing how many are once again being held off for midseason. Of course, it’s not uncommon for shows to have delayed premieres, but seeing the amount of shows that won’t be returning in the fall is kind of upsetting. However, thankfully, they weren't canceled, and come January 2025, we'll have a whole lot to talk about!

Of all the major shows ending or getting canceled in 2024, The Conners is one of a relatively limited minority whose fate wasn’t necessarily solidified by low ratings, behind-the-scenes controversies, schedule snafus or any other contentious reasonings. In the case of the Lanford family, ABC confirmed Season 7 will be their last one without any noteworthy catalysts beyond the growing idea that it was just time to hang it up. Which is apparently the way to end a series if you want the Showrunner & Co. to come away feeling okay with having to say goodbye.

For years now, The Conners has more or less existed on the edge of the cancellation bubble, where contracts were set up so that new agreements needed to be made after each new season, as opposed to multi-year deals. The show’s viewership numbers and ongoing legacy always helped fuel the impetus to bring it back for another year, but it sounds like all involved were ready to pack it in once The Conners’ hit its milestone 100th episode.

Showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan spoke with TheWrap about the way Season 6’s finale left the breadcrumbs for what’s to come, and why ending the show with a six-episode final season isn’t a downer as some might imagine. According to Helford:

While it's hard to make a lot of direct comparisons between The Conners and Seinfeld that make organic sense, this is certainly an area where the two series dovetail a bit. Jerry Seinfeld chose to pull away from continuing that show's run at NBC when it was already considered one of the best sitcoms of all time, and was bringing in 30 million viewers each week.

TV ratings are obviously far lower than they were 25 years ago, but the same principle still holds here, which Dave Caplan also addressed, saying:

While the last batch of Season 6 episodes took a viewer dip due to schedule changes caused by Jeopardy! Masters, The Conners does still manage to bring in more primetime eyeballs overall, on average, than even Grey's Anatomy. And reruns airing on The CW have likely helped boost its popularity in the last year or so, not to mention the sitcom's first five seasons being available to stream with a Netflix subscription.

And while pushing the final season's debut to the midseason might also affect how many people tune in, it sounds like ABC will be promoting the six-episode stretch quite a bit.

How The Conners' Final Season Will Be "A Big Event"

Rather than ABC sweeping The Conners’ swan song season under the rug with little fanfare, it sounds like the upcoming episodes will be treated as something akin to event television, albeit the sitcom variety. The two executive producers explained how it’ll be big for fans, as well as for the network’s own promotional purposes.

• Dave Caplan: These last six episodes are a very big event for ABC. I think they want to use it to also launch some other shows. A lot of people are going to be interested in seeing the saga of the Conners wind down to its end for now.
• Bruce Helford: We’re also happy to have a little extra time to put this all together and not have to rush it into the fall schedule. That’s a benefit for us to do this properly, because it’s going to take some time… We’ll be back in July writing and probably won’t be shooting until August.

It was obviously implied that starting later in the season would give the creative team an advantage, but knowing that ABC wants to go big here makes that extra time all the more lucrative. This is a show that pulls off some of broadcast TV's best guest stars, and there are plenty of Roseanne characters we haven't seen return yet, with Martin Mull's Leon being a hopeful. (Also gotta love Caplan saying "to its end for now," leaving that front door open for more.)

As far as what fans can expect to see from the not-so-lucky family, Bruce Helford didn't share any details, but did imply this won't necessarily be a victory lap for all involved. As he put it:

Considering the way Roseanne's final season went, The Conners could quite literally set off a bomb in every scene and still not quite mess things up the way the lottery storyline did. But since we already talked about Seinfeld earlier, what if Helford and Caplan took a page out of Curb Your Enthusiasm's book by using the Season 7 finale to poke fun at the way Roseanne's original run wrapped? Now I'm a little too excited by this idea that won't happen.

The Conners will be back for the final seventh season stretch in 2025, but fans can watch the sixth season with a Hulu subscription, and head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what other new and returning shows are popping up soon.

We’re at an interesting point of the 2024 TV schedule, where shows are either given new life or cut short by networks thanks to this season’s renewals and cancellations. Yesterday was a pretty good day on that front, thanks to Peacock’s Ted renewal putting Season 2 into the works.

That being said, today marks the departure of two shows from the ABC’s corner of the lineup, with The Conners coming to a close next season. But what really makes me mad is the fact that The Alphabet Network has swung that cancellation ax at one of my new favorite shows, killing it with a decisive blow. R.I.P. to Not Dead Yet.

The Conners Is Officially Ending With Season 7

Ahead of its Season 6 finale, set to air on May 22nd, The Wrap has announced that the long-running legacy-quel to Roseanne will take its final bow with its next season. What’s more, there will only be six episodes that make up our final stretch in Lanford, Illinois. Seeing as The Conners recently crossed the 100-episode mark, syndication is likely to make sure that this is not the last anyone sees of The Conners for some time.

Though the episode counts throughout the show’s history have been varied, the shortest run prior to this decision was Season 1, which only ran for 10 installments. As far as the John Goodman ensemble dramedy has been concerned, we did this same dance right before the Season 6 renewal. Those previous rumors already seemed to give the impression that the end was near, and with such a short span for The Conners’ big send off, I’m thinking one of two things happened.

One possible scenario is that these episodes were supposed to be in Season 6, and had to be moved due to the WGA/Writer’s Strikes of 2023. A combination of ratings and timing may have led to this handful of stories marking the proper ending place for The Conners’ journey. Or, these last six stories were greenlit along with Season 6 as a potential finale, as a contingency to allow the show to end on its own terms.

Which leads me to the news I’ve been fearing for a couple of weeks now. As The Conners’ end could be seen as a natural choice, the cancellation of Not Dead Yet after two seasons is one that I can only see as purely ratings based.

Not Dead Yet Is Now Dead, Fret!

Not too long ago Deadline labeled the Gina Rodriguez sitcom with one of the scariest three word designations a TV show can receive: “on the bubble.” When a project like Not Yet Dead is on the bubble, it’s in that horrific gray area where neither cancellation nor renewal are guaranteed.

In the case of the dramedy, where an obituary writer (Rodriguez) sees the subjects she’s writing about as she writes their final tributes, the writing was on the wall leading up to Season 2’s finale. So much so that in her own Instagram post promoting the now series finale, Gina shared the following message:

The reason I’m so mad that Not Dead Yet was canceled is because it earned its place as one of my new favorite shows. With a workplace comedy tinged by offbeat characters and a sometimes bittersweet gimmick, I was getting comfortable with Nell Serrano and the rest of the characters orbiting the SoCal Independent offices.

Season 2 even made the smart move of not continuing to make the obituary subjects the main focus of the episodes. This move still allowed for a fantastic roster of guest stars, while allowing us to get to know the core characters of Not Dead Yet’s cast all the better. But alas, creators Casey Johnson & David Windsor’s series, based off of author Alexandra Potter’s novel Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, is now in the cancellation graveyard.

Short of a miracle, or say a huge influx in Hulu subscription holders streaming as much Not Dead Yet as they can possibly take, it looks like this is the final deadline for the SoCal Independent. As any experienced TV fan will tell you, show cancellations are definitely a way of life. And while I’m diametrically thrilled that Will Trent’s status as a “fun drama” has its Season 3 renewal locked up, this is some news that stings.

During a normal season of The Conners, the ninth episode wouldn’t even mark the midpoint, and yet only four episodes remain after "Manifesting, Marriage Testing and Cheeseballs" due to the strike-shortened run. And fans will need to take note that the series, which hasn’t been renewed or canceled yet, will be shifting to a new, later time slot heading into the final stretch of TV finales, so don’t go missing out by thinking it’s not airing at all.

Why Is The Conners Changing Time Slots?

Having spent years in the 9:00 p.m. ET slot before moving up an hour with Season 5, The Conners will now settle into the third different airtime of its run so far. And that’s because ABC will be ushering in the second season/iteration of Jeopardy! Masters, the brainiest primetime tournament on TV.

The first season, which was won by James Holzhauer (who jokingly roasted Ken Jennings with his Final Jeopardy answer in the first ep), was a ratings win for ABC, so the follow-up is getting some preferential treatment by landing that lead-in slot of 8:00 p.m. ET. I mean, we’re talking about one of the greatest game shows of all time, so it’s understandable, even if some fans have experienced tournament fatigue recently after Jennings brought some cringe to the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament by repeated uses of the abbreviation “JIT.”

Jeopardy Masters will have quite the erratic schedule after its May 1 premiere, as seen below:

• Wed, May 1 - Games 1 and 2
• Mon, May 6 - Games 3 and 4
• Wed, May 8 - Games 5 and 6
• Fri, May 10 - Games 7 and 8
• Mon, May 13 - Games 9 and 10
• Wed, May 15 - Games 11 and 12
• Fri, May 17 - Semifinals 1 and 2
• Mon, May 20 - Semifinals 3 and 4
• Wed, May 22 - Season 2 Finale

Since those three weeks of episodes begin and end on Wednesdays, all of The Conners’ remaining eps will be relegated to the later time slot.

What Is The Conners' New Time Slot?

Fans can now find The Conners airing at 9:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday nights, following new episodes of the awards-friendly hit Abbott Elementary. All things considered, this move might actually be a boon for all involved.

If Jeopardy! Masters can bring in a big audience earlier in the night, that definitely helps Abbott Elementary's chances of maintaining some of the bleed-off viewership, which would then potentially give The Conners its own boost. Both comedies' numbers are pretty safe when it comes to staying on the air, even though ABC still has to make a call with the Roseanne follow-up, which in April 2024 hit 100 episodes despite its single-season origins.

Of course, the time shift won't be much of an issue for any Conners fans who exclusively watch via DVR or with a Hulu subscription, but it's still good to know. Speaking of things that are good to know, here's the synopsis for the first episode airing in the new time slot, titled “Campaign U-Turn and a Hard Write."

So remember that May 1 will be the day when The Conners will mosey on down to its new ABC slot at 9:30 p.m. ET. Head to our 2024 TV schedule to see what other shows will be around after the glut of finales is over.

We’ve officially reached a stretch of the TV season that includes a considerable amount of uncertainty. That’s right, it’s renewal/cancelation time, during which the major networks truly start plotting out their lineups for the upcoming fall season. At this point, a number of series have received the greenlight and will return. And, on the other hand, there are plenty of shows that have been canceled or are ending in 2024. There’s a third category that needs to be acknowledged as well, and it’s made up of programs that have yet to receive a decision either way. So which ones haven’t been given the thumbs up or down? Well, let’s break it all down by network and talk about it, shall we?

ABC

The Alphabet Network has already made a number of shrewd decisions on both ends of the spectrum, but there are still some outliers. For instance, fan-favorite sitcom The Conners has yet to officially be axed or picked up for another season. That’s a bit surprising, given how the Roseanne spinoff has become a key part of the company’s roster of comedic programming. It’s not the only show sitting in purgatory, as Not Dead Yet – which is currently in its second season, is there as well. Considering that crunch time is coming, decisions should be handed down sooner rather than later.

Fans of the two series may be sweating a little right now and, all the while, devotees of others can breathe a bit easier. In terms of returning series, 9-1-1 was renewed for Season 8, and The Rookie Season 7 is a go as well. Grey’s Anatomy was among big shows renewed, and that decision resulted in the medical drama’s 21st season. Only time will tell whether the two aforementioned comedies will be added to the 2024-2025 schedule.

Fox

Likewise, Fox has also renewed a number of shows, including stalwart programs like the Family Guy and The Simpsons and live-action comedy Animal Control. Those that haven’t been decided upon yet include drama series Accused, The Cleaning Lady and Alert: Missing Persons Unit. For all of the animated fare that’s been given the green light, one title that still has an uncertain future is The Great North, which premiered in 2021. It’s currently hard to say whether the network will budge when it comes to giving these shows additional seasons. And, based on the glut of adult toons on the schedule for the fall, I’d say that TGN’s position is looking relatively tight. 

NBC

Many may be pleased to know that the One Chicago shows, Found, The Irrational and most of the Law & Order spinoffs are set to return in the fall. On that note though, the Christopher Meloni-led L&O: Organized Crime has yet to secure a fourth-season renewal. Aside from that, comedies are what make up the rest of NBC’s list of yet-to-be-renewed/canceled titles. There’s George Lopez’s Lopez vs. Lopez and the Night Court revival – both of which are heading towards the end of their respective second seasons. Finally, there’s also freshman comedy Extended Family, which notably features Jon Cryer, Donald Faison and Abigail Spencer.

CBS

The Eye Network has really been cleaning house as of late, with comedies like Young Sheldon and Bob Hearts Abishola and dramas such as Blue Bloods and CSI: Vegas heading out the door. Two-season sitcom So Help Me Todd was also axed. Nevertheless, most of the NCIS shows remain along with the likes of the FBI spinoffs, Fire Country, Ghosts and Elsbeth. Heck, even S.W.A.T. was un-canceled.

But what about the shows that are still on the bubble? Well, in that case, we’re talking about two key dramas – NCIS: Hawai’i and The Equalizer. Both have been steady performers over the past few years, so it’s definitely possible that they could be picked up again. However, reports indicate that major changes could hit Hawai’i behind the scenes (specifically budget cuts) should it return for Season 4. 

The CW

Some of us may still be reeling from the cancellation bloodbath that hit The CW around this time last year. And, based on the fact that (as of this writing) Sullivan’s Crossing is the only show that’s been officially renewed, more changes could come. Decisions have yet to be made regarding drama series Walker and Wild Cards as well as long-running show All American and its spinoff, All American: Homecoming. Also, Sight Unseen – a Canadian production like WC – has also yet to be renewed or axed. 

All in all, there are definitely still plenty of programs that are currently sitting in limbo. Sadly, not all of these shows will likely make the cut for the 2024-2025 season. That’s part of the business, though and, if you’re like me, you’ll be waiting anxiously to see what ultimately stays and what goes. In the meantime, check out the 2024 TV schedule for information on series that are airing or will in the near future.

Having celebrated its milestone 100th episode in Season 6, The Conners continues cementing itself as one of TV’s most successful spinoffs. It’s also one of the most unique, in the way that it can directly pull from, and tie back to, the nine O.G. seasons of Roseanne for storylines and cameos. We’ve already seen Natalie West’s Crystal resurfacing this season, but there are plenty of Roseanne characters we still want to see, with Martin Mull’s Leon Carp near the top of that list.

CinemaBlend spoke with The Conners’ showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan ahead of Episode 100, which is always a good time for yours truly. During our chat, I mentioned that Mull is one of the long-gone characters that fans most want to see back in Lanford in whatever capacity, and when I asked if there had been conversations about any Leon storylines, here’s what Helford told me:

On the one pragmatic hand, it’s an answer that is obviously very understandable. Without a great reason to bring back such a beloved character, it’s the safer choice not to do it, rather than shoehorning in a cameo that runs the risk of tainting a legacy. I dunno that Leon’s legacy would be that tarnished regardless of how he returned, but the point is still valid.

A big reason why Leon’s return would be difficult to bring about impulsive is because Martin Mull’s on-screen dynamic with Roseanne Barr was key to the character, as was his marriage to Scott, portrayed by Mull’s Fernwood 2 Night co-star Fred Willard. But with Willard having passed away in 2020, and with Roseanne Conner being killed off in the spinoff’s premiere (following Barr’s off-screen controversy that got Roseanne canceled), it means Leon’s story would need to connect with someone else from the show’s ensemble. Not a terrible idea, mind you, but not necessarily one that feels inherently necessary.

But then on the other hand, it’s like…”Come on, guys! It’s Martin Mull! Just put him in a room, and he’ll be hilarious!” And to that end, Dave Caplan makes it clear the sitcom’s creative team isn’t outwardly avoiding bringing Leon back, and would welcome it if and when genius motivations strike. Here’s how he put it:

It’s almost shocking that Caplan & Co. would be surprised by fans calling for Martin Mull’s return, given how big of a staple he was on Roseanne from his Season 3 introduction through his final Season 9 appearance. They’re firmly aware that fans like me would love to see Johnny Galecki’s David again — which Sara Gilbert told us she’d also love – and they’re also good about left-field returns like Eric Allen Kramer’s Bobo. A potential Leon return fits pretty squarely between those, so here’s hoping Helford and Caplan figure out a way to make it happen before ABC pulls the plug.

Just gonna put my grand Conners finale theory out there now, though: the final episode will involve the family having to sell the iconic house, which Leon swoops in to buy, similar to his actions involving the Lunchbox during Roseanne’s run.

Roseanne can be streamed in full with a Peacock subscription, while The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET, with new episodes airing the next day with a Hulu subscription.

Hitting 100 episodes is a noteworthy pinnacle for any TV show, and all the more so in the modern era of shortened seasons and widespread cancellations. Which makes The Conners a stand-out on top of a stand-out for reaching the milestone in its sixth season after its predecessor Roseanne had gone well beyond 200 episodes. It’s a pretty unique honor for the little Lanford family that could (which Sara Gilbert celebrated with cake and scripts), and CinemaBlend got showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan’s thoughts about the big accomplishment.

With the episode “Smash and Grab and Happy Death Day,” The Conners gave audiences its 100th outing as a proper spinoff, and thankfully without actually having any of the characters get killed repeatedly as the Happy Death Day title reference implies. I talked to Helford and Caplan — not quite as catchy as Laurel and Hardy — ahead of the airing, and also inquired about the duo’s favorite guest stars from everyone who’s appeared so far.

While some shows might choose to use Episode 100 to go all out with big-named guest stars, The Conners already pulls that kind of move on a regular basis, and turned past guest star Sean Astin into a Season 6 regular as Becky's newest. beau. And for what it's worth, this ep did feature Extended Family's Sofia Capanna.

When I asked both Helford and Caplan about which guest stars stood out as their favorites, there wasn't much hesitation before the answers started flowing:

• Bruce Helford: From the first hundred, I think Candice Bergen is one of them for me.
• Dave Caplan: Yeah, that's right up there.
• Bruce Helford: She was just wonderful, and she fit so beautifully into the group. I mean, she's just a natural actor, and definitely very honest.
• Dave Caplan: It was fun for me to work with Jason Alexander. I had never done that. That was fun.
• Bruce Helford: Yeah, Jason was great. He was great. Bill Macy was wonderful. I've always been a big fan of his.
• Dave Caplan: And of course, Paul Reubens. You get to work with Pee-Wee Herman, why wouldn't you?

It feels like something of a missed opportunity not to follow Season 2's "Lanford, Toilet of Sin" by reconfiguring the plot to center entirely on Paul Reubens' town historian Sandy Bitensky. But I guess I can't hold it against anyone.

Bruce Helford continued, ackowledging how The Conners and its cast have the ability to convince just about anyone to show up.

Truer words never spoken. And clearly, the aforementioned Sandy Bitensky revamp would have also included Katey Sagal. (R.I.P. Paul Reubens.)

Why The Conners Hitting 100 Episodes Is Such A Surprise

To the average non-jaded TV viewer, The Conners' continued existence isn't such a surprise, considering its TV legacy, its stars, and the fanbase that continues truckin' along with it. But showrunner Bruce Helford says it's still altogether surprising for those behind the scenes, since the family's return to TV wasn't intended to last this long. As he put it:

I suppose in some ways, the fact that Roseanne only returned for the lone tenth season before its cancellation fits into those original short-lived expectations, even if I'm sure no one involved would ever have wished for things to go the way they did. But the flagship sitcom did get ordered for a second season before the cancellation and retooling, with The Conners emerging as both a continuation and its own entity.

Which means it had to start over from the bottom as far as episode counts though, making it seem even less likely that the cast and crew would one day celebrate 100 episodes. Here's what Dave Caplan had to say:

No word yet on whether or not ABC will order up a seventh season to follow the truncated Season 6, which was affected along with everything else on TV by the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. But so long as there are more stories to tell, and there always will be for this family, I wouldn't be surprised to be talking to Helford and Caplan about hitting Episode 150 in a few years.

The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET, with episodes available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription. (And the first five seasons are currently streaming with a Netflix subscription for anyone who missed the first 93.)

As if The Conners cast wasn’t already A+ enough with comedy heavyweights like John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf among the core ensemble, the ABC sitcom also knows how to deliver oodles of noteworthy guest stars of all kinds. We’ve seen Emmy winners such as Nick Offerman in Season 6, Grammy-earners like The Eagles’ Joe Walsh in Season 4, and full-on EGOT winners like Whoopi Goldberg in Season 5. (And can’t forget Super Bowl winner Aaron Rodgers’ cameoing on the Jeopardy! stage.)

But because The Conners was created atop the legacy of the primetime classic Roseanne, it’s one of the few shows that can pull off former character returns 30+ years after their original appearances. I could wax on about all the familiar faces that have returned over the years, from Johnny Galecki’s David to Meagen Fay as former neighbor Kathy Bowman, with former regular Natalie West’s Crystal Anderson most recently appearing.

Now let's look at some of the Roseanne characters who haven’t yet made modern-day returns, but would be absolutely fabulous to see again in this universe in one way or another.

Leon Carp (Martin Mull)

Comedy TV king Martin Mull was a regular presence throughout most of Roseanne’s run as one of the titular character’s thorniest besties, where part of that run had Leon married to Fred Willard’s Scott. He was such a memorable asset of the series, with or without Willard, that it’s almost baffling that Leon hasn’t yet shown up attempting to build a new diner across the street from the Lunchbox, or whatever the case would be. Mull appeared in a couple of Season 1 episodes of ABC’s Not Dead Yet in 2023, so I’m still holding out hope for Leon’s return.

Fred (Michael O'Keefe)

Caddyshack great Michael O'Keefe enjoyed a memorable stint on Roseanne as Fred, who may be better known as "the boyfriend of Jackie's who didn't abuse her, but did get her pregnant during their one-night stand, leading to a failed marriage." I'm not so hopeful about seeing Fred show up as the exact same character, however, since the revival-verse retconned his and Jacki's son Andy. But to me, that would make his return even more interesting.

Vonda Green (Charlayne Woodard)

Secret Invasion and Mayfair Witches vet Charlayne Woodard was one of the earliest cast members who helped populate Lanford around Roseanne, Dan and the Conner clan. As Roseanne's co-worker buddy Vonda, she was always good for a laugh-line, and it's always been a disappointment that Woodward bowed out of the show after Season 2. With Roseanne having died to kick The Conners off, it might not make a whole lot of narrative sense to bring Vonda back, but why would sense need to enter into it?

Booker Brooks (George Clooney)

I think many longtime Roseanne fans would agree that former co-star George Clooney would be the crown jewel of all returning cast members, even if his sometimes weasely Booker Brooks isn't necessarly the best character to have back. (Come at me, Booker!) But I'm all about having him return with a softer side, perhaps having gone into a medical career as an ER doctor. Clooney is a white whale behind the scenes as well, though The Conners did reference him in Season 3 for a fun story.

George (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

I can't really act as if Joseph Gordon-Levitt's recurring youngin George was a core part of what made Roseanne great or anything, but he was already a talented enough actor at that age to pop even if all he did was stammer a few lines out with performative nervousness. It would have made more sense to bring George back before Michael Fishman exited the show, since he was D.J.'s friend, but I can't think of a bad reason to get Gordon-Levitt on The Conners.

Ziggy (Jay O. Sanders)

Crime Story and True Detective vet Jay O. Sanders was pretty much destined to gain a bigger Roseanne presence after his initial two episodes as Dan's bike shop coworker Ziggy. He was reportedly asked to take on a recurring role that fell through, but regardless of whether that's true or not, seeing Sanders and John Goodman together again would be a treat.

Bonnie Watkins (Bonnie Bramlett)

Like Vonda, Bonnie was one of Roseanne's most memorable co-workers, as they spent many hours together at Rodbell's Department Store during Seasons 3 and 4. One of the plusses with Bonnie was that her husband was played by music icon David Crosby, and they were known to make some purdy melodies on occasion. Even without the late Crosby by her side, Bonnie's return to Lanford, presumably via motorcycle, could make for some great moments where characters fondly look back and share embarrassing stories that couldn't have been shown on TV at the time.

Dwight (William Sadler)

To be clear, I think William Sadler's Dwight showed enough of his turd personality in his two episodes of Roseanne that made it seem like he showed up a lot more often. However, Sadler is an excellent actor who's welcome to appear in anything I'm watching at the time, and I think it would be interesting to see how Dan and others handled Dwight's misogyny and shit-starting rudeness in the modern era.

Heather (Heather Matarazzo)

Season 9 cast member and indie movie kween Heather Matarazzo is another case of a great actor whose presence would be a plus for viewers, but would defy all manner of logic within this retcon-friendly canon. She portrayed D.J.'s girlfriend whose hornball energy turned Michael Fishman's character into a nervous wreck. Without D.J. around, Heather's return is questionable at best, but maybe we could find out she also dated Ben at some point, and then tries to get with him again. Whatever's most awkward for Darlene to deal with, probably.

Arnie (Tom Arnold)

Tom Arnold's presence on Roseanne, which was helped along him being married to the creator and star for a while, is possibly as polarizing as it gets for regular characters on the two sitcoms, since Arnie was a bit of an annoying sleazeball most of the time. Even when he was being authentically sweet to Nancy or whoever else, Arnold has a way of playing characters who seem impervious to the fact that all they're spewing is bullshit. And given Arnie was such a big part of the show during the first half of its run, only to disappear after Season 5, I'd like to see how many other women's lives he's screwed up over the years, if nothing else.

There are no doubt plenty of other Roseanne vets I'd love to see again that didn't make this list, as well as some that we've already seen return to The Conners. More Matthew Broderick and Candice Bergen, please.

The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET. Head to our 2024 TV schedule to see what else is hitting the small screen soon.

March is coming to an end, which means we can look forward to the monthly content rotation that many streamers do at the beginning of the month soon. However, the last week of this month still has more than a few interesting new additions that viewers will want to watch. Here’s a look at a few of the highlights from the end of March 2024.

From brand-new original series to some movie franchises that are changing their streaming home, here’s a look at where to find some of your favorite movies, and possibly your next favorite movie or series, on streaming this week.

What's On Netflix This Week

When it comes to sheer content volume, Netflix is still the king. There aren’t enough hours in the day to watch everything that gets added to the platform every single day. Still, there’s something for every type of viewer as this week shows.  

The Accountant - March 27

There are two types of people: those who love Ben Affleck’s The Accountant so much that they have been demanding a sequel for nearly a decade, and those who have never seen Ben Affleck’s The Accountant. If you are in that second group, you’ll be able to remedy that situation this week. Once you have done so, you can join the first group that is waiting for the Accountant sequel that we keep being promised will happen someday. 

The Conners (Seasons 1-5) - March 27

One of the most popular current TV sitcoms, previous seasons of The Conners haven’t been previously available on any streaming platform until now. Even though the show airs on ABC, and thus might end up on Disney+, the first five seasons of the show will instead arrive on Netflix this week. If you haven’t seen the show that so many people love, or you want to watch it all again, now is your chance. 

Is It Cake? (Season 3) - March 29

Clearly enough people are watching Is It Cake?. If the show is getting a third season, and if you are one of those people, you’ll be happy to know the new season arrives on March 29. The show sees professional bakers attempt to create cakes that look so much like other objects that they can fool a panel of judges. It's simple, more than a little silly and tons of fun. If you haven’t seen this one yet, you have two seasons to catch up on before the 29th.

The Beautiful Game - March 29

There’s nothing quite like a good underdog sports movie, and there may be no underdog sports movie quite like The Beautiful Game. The Netflix Original stars Bill Nighy as the coach of a team competing in the Homeless World Cup, a real international competition where homeless players from around the world compete as a way to draw attention to the problem of homelessness.  

Kill Bill - March 31

Whether you consider Kill Bill one movie or two, you’ll be able to watch it however you like on Netflix when both Kill Bill Part One and Part Two arrive on the platform. The movies have previously been available to those with a Peacock subscription, but when the movies arrive on Netflix, they’ll be leaving Universal’s streamer. 

The Hunger Games - March 31

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes hasn’t arrived on a major streaming platform yet, but for any Hunger Games fans who want to get ready for the prequel by binging the previous films, you’ll have to swap streamers this week. Previously the movies have been available on Peacock, but at the end of the month, the movies will make the jump to Netflix.

What's On Disney+ This Week

Disney is the king of animation, so it's perhaps fitting that two animated series continue to draw viewers to the service this week, with new episodes of both Star Wars: The Bad Batch and X-Men ‘97. But this week’s new addition for Disney+ subscribers is something quite a bit different.  

Renegade Nell - March 29

The newest Disney+ original series is called Renegade Nell, and it stars Louisa Harland as the title character, a woman in 18th century England who finds herself on the run following a murder charge. What sets the story apart is that Nell also finds herself allied with a fairy named Billy Blind, who has come to her aid because Nell’s life is more important than even she realizes. 

What's On Peacock This Week

The ability to watch every part of a franchise in one place is one of the big benefits of any streaming service. Peacock will find itself in a much better place this week when a popular action franchise makes the jump from Netflix.  

John Wick 1-3 March 31

Peacock is the exclusive home to The Conentintal, a limited series about the iconic hotel from the John Wick films, but up until this week, you haven’t actually been able to watch the John Wick movies there. The first three John Wick movies will arrive at the end of the month, so Peacock subscribers will have most of the franchise at their disposal.  

What's On Apple TV+ This Week

An Apple TV+ subscription is one of the cheapest you can get, but part of the reason for that is that it adds less content than most. Still, this week’s new addition will be worthwhile to anybody with kids, and a lot of people who used to be one. 

Fraggle Rock: back to the Rock (Season 2) - March 28

For those of us of a certain age who grew up with cable, the original Fraggle Rock is remembered quite fondly. But everything old is new again, and Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock is back for a second season on Apple TV+

With March coming to a close, we can look forward to massive content drops hitting on the first of April. For a complete look at everything that’s on the way for streamers be sure to check out what’s new on Netflix as well as everything upcoming on Disney+ and what’s new on Hulu.

The Conners fans have seen Sara Gilbert’s Darlene take quite a few unique and potentially non-ideal approaches to motherhood with her two kids, and both have managed to grow into functioning adults. (Mark ever so slightly more so than Harris, it’s safe to say.) She’s not changing that skill set up anytime soon, either, as evidenced by Season 6’s fifth episode, “When Sisters Collide and The Return of the Grifters,” in which the oft-struggling Darlene and Ben attempt to show off their intelligence for a college trivia night, at the expense of taking Mark down in front of his friends. 

In our exclusive clip from The Conners seen below, Darlene wastes no time in aiming directly for Mark’s jugular ahead of trivia night commencing. Well, maybe not for the jugular, as this involves a much sweeter crimson concoction than anything blood-related. Check it out!

In more mature times, Darlene has helped Mark with some huge issues, such as his temporary fixation with ADHD medication, which Ames McNamara talked to CinemaBlend about at the time. Or when she and Ben pulled off that impromptu mini-graduation for the Season 5 finale to make up for David’s absence as a father seeing his kid land the honor of valedictorian. Where does “ordering Shirley Temples as a means of age superiority and intimidation” rank on the list of Top Mom Achievements? I mean, not extremely high. 

But it’s funny, and sometimes being a parent is about more than just doing the right thing. And dunking on one’s offspring with non-alcoholic beverages is almost definitely a huge and healthy part of the nurturing process. It’s gotta be in a few parenting books somewhere.

The ep “When Sisters Collide and The Return of the Grifters” — featuring the return of Roseanne co-star Natalie West as Crystal — points out that Darlene “crashes” the college trivia event to prove she’s got brains, but there are probably other, wiser avenues to provide such proof. Such as…watching trivia game shows with one’s kids. 

Which gives us the segue into this also-exclusive tidbit from executive producer and writer Dave Caplan, who responded via email to my inquiry about how the trivia night festivities compare to Jackie’s Jeopardy! experience. In his words:

Showrunner Bruce Helford told CinemaBlend when that episode aired that the original plan was to get Alex Trebek on the show, which wasn’t able to happen due to the iconic host’s death. But while that hosting change-up might have had a more positive effect on Jackie’s Jeopardy! journey, I’m not sure what change would have been necessary to convince Darlene not to spend her hard-earned money on a round of antagonistic Shirley Temples.

The Conners will soon celebrate its 100th episode, an honor that Sara Gilbert highlighted during filming, so don’t miss out on the fun when it airs in April or May. The sitcom airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m., and is available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription. Head to our 2024 TV schedule to see all the other new and returning shows that are on the way.

The Conners is gearing up for its 100th episode in Season 6, a feat previously conquered by its sitcom predecessor Roseanne, which Sara Gilbert nodded to during filming. But even before setting that benchmark, the ABC fave is nodding back to its roots by bringing back a former co-star for an episode in which Dan will be facing the music for some past financial dishonesty. But will those two narrative paths be directly connected?

For the fifth episode of the ongoing sixth season, The Conners is welcoming back Natalie West, who portrayed family friend Crystal Anderson in nearly every season of Roseanne, as well as a pair of episodes in the spinoff’s first season. It’ll be her first appearance since the sixth ep, "One Flew Over the Conners' Nest," though it’s not 100% clear how she’ll factor into the upcoming storylines.

But it doesn’t take a studied look to see that Crystal wastes no time in making herself squarely at home within the Conner home. Old habits die harder than family matriarchs, I guess.

Crystal’s history with Dan and Roseanne went way back to their school days, and carried on after she started working with both Roseanne and Jackie at Wellman Plastics. Things got a lot more complicated after she married Dan’s father Ed (as played by Ned Beatty) and had Ed Jr. and Angela.

Interestingly, Crystal’s name isn’t mentioned in the episode synopsis, and West is not noted as a guest star, with only the visual evidence to clue fans in on the big return. But take a look at the synopsis below to see what Dan’s latest troubles are.

As Conners viewers may remember, Neville put his money where his family loyalty was and lent Dan a chunk of change to help fill out and expand the hardware store’s product inventory. And now it appears evidence will surface that leaves Dan red-handed and guilty over misappropriated funds. Not that we know what actually happened yet, but the signs are there that Crystal might be involved.

For one, when Natalie West reprised the role for her two Conners eps in Season 1, her appearances didn’t shine any informational light on where her relationship was at with Ed. She was grieving Roseanne’s death, and later returned to voice her dislike for being in retirement mode. Then in Season 2,  Dan discovered that Ed Sr. died after they’d been estranged for 20 years, and his father’s home life did not imply that he was still happily married in the slightest. 

Second, let’s expand the shot of her in the Conners’ kitchen.

She’s definitely rocking a robe there, and unless Dan and Neville are throwing caution to the wind with some morning revelry, she appears to be just waking up in the middle of the day/evening. Not the most positive sign, and could indicate that she spent all night at the casino, not necessarily in the way of earning professional wages. (Although maybe she did get her old job back.)

But given the way all three characters are smiling in the shot above, I guess it could be that nothing terrible is happening with Crystal, and Dan lying to Neville about where he invested the loan money could be completely unrelated. But that wouldn't explain why Neville is smiling at all, beyond the fact that he's just a nice guy in general.

We can only hope that Crystal's return means a second appearance from Shameless’ Noel Fisher as Ed Jr. Or maybe some other guest-star surprises that I haven't considered yet. I guess we'll find out when the episode airs on March 13.

The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m., with eps available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription.

Though its Season 6 premiere was delayed until the new year due to all things strike-related in 2023, The Conners has already packed a bunch of fun moments into the eps that have aired so far, with more on the way. Will any of that fun involve Roseanne vet and past guest star Johnny Galecki as Darlene’s ne’er-do-wonderful ex David? We probably shouldn’t be too optimistic, but co-stars Sara Gilbert and Jay R. Ferguson kept such hopes alive when they talked to CinemaBlend to promote the current season, so there’s no harm in staying Lanford-positive about it, which equals out to around 60% of normal positivity.

Darlene and Ben have gone through a pretty specific wringer in the realm of sitcom relationships, but made it beyond the muckety muck to reach their current state of pleasantness. Some of that muck involved David missing Mark’s graduation in the Season 5 finale, a situation that helped strengthen the teen’s bond with Ben. It was a smart way to involve the absentee father without relying on Galecki’s presence, since the Big Bang Theory vet has taken a step back from Hollywood to focus on his growing family and stellar home.

When I asked Gilbert and Ferguson if they thought the finale’s storyline was crafted to try and curb fans asking if and when Johnny Galecki would return. As it turns out, it didn’t stop Gilbert herself from hoping it happens. In her words:

Of course, wanting someting is different from a thing actually happening, and the Christmas Vacation co-star to return to The Conners, and Jay R. Ferguson pointed out the first hurdle in the way of David's face popping up on our screens again.

• Jay R. Ferguson: We can't drag him out of the woods of Tennessee, so...

• Sara Gilbert: Yeah, he's pretty happy right now.

Not that there aren't plenty of things to be happy about for The Conners cast and crew without David around to possibly throw a wrench in the spokes. The series celebrated its 100th episode in Feb. 2024, becoming the relatively rare TV spinoff to follow its predecessor in reaching that impressive benchmark.

Even though it seems like everything would be somewhat okay and calm if David did decide to show his face around there again, and he'd probably have to get directions to their house, I did jokingly ask Jay R. Ferguson if he thought Ben might go alpha and challenge David to a steel-cage match if he popped up again. He chuckled and told me:

Mwahaha! Even though the actor doesn't foresee any major issues in that way, no one can ever know all the devious machinations that showrunner Bruce Helford could introduce in later episodes. Lanford needs a wrestling ring!

The Conners airs Wednesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET, with episodes streaming the next day via Hulu subscription.

Even though The Conners’ sixth season was delayed from its usual Fall TV slot, and was added to the 2024 TV schedule as a midseason arrival, the wait was worth it for audiences waiting to see the family get a few wins in their personal and professional lives. The season premiere, which featured guest star Nick Offerman, relit Jackie’s spark for the Lunch Box, and gave Darlene a reminder about her journalistic dreams. And now fans can look forward to seeing more from Lecy Goranson’s Becky and Sean Astin’s Tyler!

Introduced as a Season 5 love interest, Astin’s Tyler was confirmed to be returning in the first Season 6 trailer, and when CinemaBlend spoke with The Conners cast ahead of the season, I was enthused to ask Goranson about her character’s romantic future. And while she obviously couldn’t go into major details about his return in the Valentine’s Day episode, the actress seemed adorably pleased with Becky and Tyler’s current status. Here’s how she put it:

Speaking to her first point, I think we can all appreciate Tyler for being a good guy without necessarily crapping all over the dudes in Becky’s past. She and Emilio had a good thing going that just wasn’t meant to last, despite their daughter Beverly Rose. Becky getting lucky in Season 4 with Darien Sills-Evans' Mikey was another fun jaunt, as was her fling with Matt Walsh’s prof Glen, but no one has seemed to click all the boxes quite like Astin’s Tyler. 

I mean, she's already talking about him "loving" her. So either he's an undeniable catch, or he's an obsessive weirdo. Which could still technically qualify as a catch. 

Beyond the personal chemistry, it’s all about earning regular income and being able to co-exist with the rest of the Conners without going cuckoo bananas for one reason or another. He’s set up to meet Beverly Rose and attempt some bonding with the rest of the clan in the V-Day episode, titled “Valentine's Day Treats and Credit Card Cheats,” so if he can survive that, he can survive anything. Which is totally a lie, since there are plenty of ways things could go way worse in the future. But for now, it would be the biggest W possible. 

But while we’re obviously keeping all the optimism alive, Lecy Goranson joked that fans probably won’t be witnessing Becky and Tyler sharing the aisle with other family members à la the Dan/Louise and Jackie/Neville wedding. In her words:

Showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan, who recently teased upcoming storylines involving Louise and Bev, told me at the end of Season 5 that they were indeed hoping to get Sean Astin back in the future, albeit without knowing at the time how much the SAG-AFTRA strike was going to disrupt the industry. Here’s how they put it back in May 2023:

So if there’s anyone out there who has their own potential love interest that they hope to get closer with in the coming months, just have The Conners’ creative team script it out, and it might just work like a charm. 

To see just how long-term that relationship might be, tune into new episodes of The Conners every Wednesday night on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET, which are streaming the next day with a Hulu subscription.

After Roseanne Barr's controversial 2018 tweet, the revival of Barr's eponymous ABC hit was canceled. But rising from the ashes was the spinoff series, The Conners, which premiered five months later and included the original cast with the exception of Barr. More recently, the offshoot reached the 100-episode milestone, and its star and executive producer, Sara Gilbert, celebrated the accomplishment while looking back at her time on Roseanne.

The Conners Season 6 premiered just last week, with this longer-than-usual wait for a new season being due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA writers' strikes. ABC Chief Craig Erwich spoke to Deadline about the show's 100th episode, which is set to air March. While doing so, the exec also explained just how Sara Gilbert marked the occasion, and it sounds sweet:

That’s a beautiful way to celebrate such a landmark event for a TV show. The Conners may not have been ABC's initial plan for this franchise, but it's sure proven to be a success. Of course, it’s important to remember the sitcom that started it all. The nine-season comedy series introduced the world to two blue-collar characters, showing them working outside of their home and struggling to raise a family on a fixed income. The series also dove into then-taboo subjects such as addiction, domestic violence, birth control, sex amongst teenagers and more. 

The 100th episode of Roseanne was a very important episode for Sara Gilbert’s character, Darlene Conner. In this episode, titled “The Dark Ages,” the Conner clan experiences a power outage for not paying their bill on time. Darlene and her boyfriend, David, are upstairs in her bedroom alone working on their comic, while Roseanne and Dan believe the two have slept together. Roseanne tries to convince Darlene to go on birth control as a result. However, the teen tries to tell her parents that she’s different from her sister, Becky, who did have sex and later secretly eloped with her boyfriend. Needless to say, it marked a major moment in Darlene's characterization, and Gilbert played it perfectly. 

At present, there's plenty to look forward to with the latest episodes of the spinoff. As revealed in the trailer for The Conners Season 6, Sean Astin returns as Becky’s boyfriend, which will please the fan base who’ve been loving this new healthy relationship for her. Some other Season 6 storylines to be excited for involve Dan’s new wife, Louise, coming up with a new venture after giving up touring as a musician and working at the Lanford Lunch Box.  Jackie and Roseanne’s mom, Bev, is also back in the fold and will bring “a big surprise twist” in the next couple of episodes. 

Sara Gilbert’s deep connection to the world of Roseanne seems to mean a lot to her, and I'm glad she still holds the show itself in high regard. Here's hoping that as she continues playing Darlene, she relishes the experience of creating comedy and drama alongside her longtime co-stars. 

You can watch new episodes of The Connors on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET on ABC as part of the 2024 TV schedule and subsequently stream them with a Hulu subscription. If you’re in a nostalgic mood and want to go back to the series that started it all, Roseanne is available to stream using a Peacock subscription. 

Aside from a couple of appearances on The Conners early in its run, former The Big Bang Theory star Johnny Galecki has largely been out of the public eye since his hit, long-running CBS sitcom signed off for good after 12 seasons in 2019. This meant that when the actor recently showed off his house and family for the first time in a new magazine spread, several fellow Roseanne and BBT stars like Kunal Nayyar had the sweetest reactions to getting a look at his life now.

Where Did Johnny Galecki Show His Home And Family And What Did His Roseanne And Big Bang Theory Co-Stars Say?

While Johnny Galecki missed returning as his Roseanne character, David Healy, for The Conners Season 5 finale in May 2023, the star has been anything but not busy. In fact, over the past few years, he’s remodeled and moved into a home in Tennessee, married and started a family, and all of this was revealed via his Instagram post for an article that was done on his home in Architectural Digest. Take a look!

First of all…Ooooooh! Right? Second of all, look at David Healy with a family he’s actually taking care of. Leonard Hofstadter would definitely approve! And, so do many of his former castmates, as Kunal Nayyar (Raj on The Big Bang Theory) and others really had some sweet reactions to this look at his life right outside of Nashville. Nayyar (who revealed the sticky way Galecki left his mark on the BBT set) posted an easy-going message that still showed a lot of heart: 

Awwww! Nice, isn’t it? Unlike many celebrities (and just regular folks, in general) Galecki doesn’t appear to be a fan of posting to social media, as he rarely does it. Before the above post, in fact, his last one was on November 1, with the two posts before that being in August and January of 2023. So, while he’s shown some bits of his home life before, this is kinda a big deal for his fans, and friends that he doesn’t get to see that often because he no longer resides in Los Angeles.

The love continued for the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation star (who had been working on a reboot of the Vacation films in the form of a TV sitcom), when Roseanne/The Conners star Michael Fishman (a.k.a. D.J. Conner) responded with a brief, but very kind, message:

And, it really is. Also featured in the photos are his wife, Morgan, and his child from a previous relationship, 4-year-old son, Orbison. The 12,000 square foot home (which sits on about 30 acres of land) has decor that’s said to match Galecki’s preferred “Gothic” style, and I gotta say, while I wouldn’t have thought of myself as someone who would like that kind of design, I really do love what we see of his house. I’m not alone, either, as sometime BBT guest star Lauren Lapkus (Stuart’s comic book store assistant manager/girlfriend, Denise) visited to write about her admiration of just that, saying:

It’s really so nice to see the love that his co-stars have for him, and such a great time for his fans to see more of how he and his family live in Tennessee. Now, if we could just coax him back to The Conners before it (eventually) ends, that would really be the icing on this cake.

When it comes to TV casts, The Conners could put on a clinic, whether its A+ guest stars like William H. Macy, recurring greats like Estelle Parsons (who’s returning in Season 6), or series regulars like Katey Sagal. One can imagine that younger stars Ames McNamara and others are able to take in and learn from such a wide variety of performances. So when CinemaBlend had the pleasure of talking to the Mark Conner portrayer and co-star John Goodman, I was curious if there was anything about acting that he’d picked up on from the years of working with his fictional grandfather. 

Understandably, asking such a question while Goodman was right there didn’t lower the pressure in any such way, but Ames McNamara delivered a solid and almost surprisingly practical response, saying:

While it may seem like something of a simple answer, that kind of speaks to the authenticity behind it. Because learning doesn’t always come from overt teaching, but rather paying attention to, and experiencing, life as it happens. John Goodman could teach an hour-long Masterclass in acting, and it might not be as effective as just watching him act for 30 seconds, at least for some people. (I imagine both would be wildly insightful.)

To Ames McNamara’s point, John Goodman is one of the most gifted physical actors out there, though not in a way that speaks to slapstick pratfalls or Tom Cruise-level stunts. (He's been adept on both counts in his career, to be sure.) But rather in a way where, even if he's just in the background out of focus, his character feels unquestionably organic within the scene.

It's the kind of talent that is largely absent from school plays performed by teens and tweens, where the actors tend to put all their efforts into memorizing lines, with all manner of nervous behavior rising up amidst the dialogue. But a pro like Goodman could mosey onto the stage during a high school play and likely assimilate himself into scenes without anyone in the audience thinking anything is amiss.

Speaking to the Big Lebowski vet's wisdom, he followed up Ames McNamara's answer by supposing that the young actor's learning isn't over yet. In Goodman's words:

A notion that McNamara affirmed could very well be true. Season 6 might be the magic year where he comes away with the most valuable acting tip of his career courtesy of his eldest co-star. But even if not, he has plenty of other experiences to reflect on.

The Conners Season 6 premieres Wednesday, February 7, at 8:00 p.m. and airs every Wednesday after that, with new eps available to stream the next day with a Hulu subscription. Head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what other strike-delayed shows are debuting soon!

The 2024 TV schedule is in the early days of the always anticipated fall schedule, with a few months left to go in one of the most cancellation-heavy years in recent memory. Which means there's plenty of time for studios, networks and streaming platforms to pull the plug on even more favorites.

Here’s a rundown of all the big TV series that were suddenly canceled or ended their already doomed runs this year, as well as everything that came to more of an amicable and pre-planned conclusion. (This article will be updated regularly as announcements are made.)

That ‘90s Show (Netflix)

Fans were happy to start "hanging out down the street" with Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp's Red and Kitty Foreman for Netflix's sequel series That '90s Show, which brought back nearly all the '70s Show characters that made logical sense. But it seems as if not enough former generations were tuning in, as Netflix pulled the plug on the multicamera comedy in October 2024.

Final Episodes: Aired August 22, 2024

The Serpent Queen (Starz)

Starz's historical drama The Serpent Queen spent two seasons exploring the life and accomplishments of French Queen Catherine de' Medici during her 16th century reign. Though Season 3 was expected, with the cast options already locked down, the network canceled the show in October 2024. However, the creative team is developing a potential spinoff with Minnie Driver as Queen Elizabeth I.

Final Episode: Aired August 30

Parish (AMC)

Following Better Call Saul's ending, Giancarlo Esposito reteamed with AMC for the crime drama Parish, based on the UK series The Driver, about a former criminal who returns to the underworld after his son is brutally murdered. But while the star earned some priase for his performance, Parish itself was deemed to be middling, likely leading to its cancellation in October 2024.

Kaos (Netflix)

Initially making waves for being the show where Jeff Goldblum plays a Greek god, Kaos' wild plotting was enjoyed by enough people to keep the show in Netflix's Top 10 for a month or so. Unfortunately, the service made the call in October 2024 to cancel the big-budget project, spite the finale ending on a cliffhanger.

Final Episode: Aired August 29

Chucky (Syfy/USA)

Despite gaining mostly universal acclaim from horror fans of all ages, Don Mancini's gory small-screen horror Chucky was put back into the Good Guys Doll box and placed back on the shelf. At this point, it's unclear where Macini will attempt to produce Season 4, but he definitely seems keen on making it happen, based in part on the strength of fans' #RenewChucky social media campaign.

Final Episode: Aired May 1, 2024

Dead Boy Detectives (Netflix)

First developed for Max, Dead Boy Detectives was brought into the Netflix fold as part of a shared universe with Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, and premiered to acclaim in April 2024, remaining in the streamer’s Top 10 list for a few weeks before falling out. Netflix dropped the bomb in August that the supernatural mystery series was canceled, with the slight chance for characters to pop back up in Sandman Season 2.

Final Episodes: Aired April 25, 2024

Pretty Little Liars (Max)

The fourth TV series adapting the world of author Sara Shepard’s hugely popular YA novel thrillers, Pretty Little Liars aired for two seasons on Max under the respective subtitles Original Sin and Summer School, with a couple of O.G. actors helping the familiarize audiences with the quasi-rebooted story. Though it wasn’t “A” who was to blame, the streaming spinoff was canceled in September 2024.

Final Episode: Aired June 20, 2024

Time Bandits (Apple TV+)

The TV show that paired up Friends vet Lisa Kudrow and What We Do in the Shadows’ co-conceivers Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, Apple TV+’s episodic adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s ‘80s classic Time Bandits caused all kinds of timeline shenanigans in July and August 2024. Unfortunately, none of those actions secured the series a second season, and the streaming service confirmed its cancellation in September 2024.

Final Episode: Aired August 21, 2024

Velma (Max)

Despite initial excitement for Scooby-Doo entering the adult animation realm, Max's Velma went over with audiences about as well as monsters' scheme go when Mystery, Inc. is on the case. Mindy Kaling's creative path struck a raw nerve with many who just wanted to see Scooby-Doo, and following two seasons and a Halloween special, Velma was canceled in October 2024.

Final Episode: Aired October 3, 2024

The Boys (Prime Video)

Creator Eric Kripe’s initial goal of a five-season run is becoming a prophecy realized, as it was revealed ahead of the bonkers Season 4 finale that The Boys Season 5 will be the hilariously dark and twisted superhero hit’s final run. The showrunner told us it will be the “colliding between Butcher and Homelander” that fans have been waiting for.

Final Episodes: Airing TBA 2025

Unstable (Netflix)

Beacon 23 (MGM+)

Based on the short stories written by author Hugh Howey, Beacon 23 was in development for years ahead of its eventual 2023 streaming debut, where it impressed audiences with its imaginative scope, if not its characters. After two seasons, the Lena Heady-starring sci-fi drama was canceled by Amazon MGM Studios in September 2024.

Final Episode: Aired May 26, 2024

9-1-1: Lone Star (Fox)

When the Rob Lowe-fronted spinoff 9-1-1: Lone Star didn’t follow its predecessor to ABC, many fans suspected the worst, and reports about stalled contract negotiations only stoked those flames. Less than a month ahead of its Fall TV return, Fox confirmed that the Texas-set drama’s fifth season will be its final outing.

Final Episode: Airing February 3, 2025

Orphan Black: Echoes (AMC)

The fan-fave sci-fi series Orphan Black returned to the zeitgeist with the Krysten Ritter-led spinoff Orphan Black: Echoes, which dropped its entire season exclusively in Australia back in November 2023, seven months before it landed on AMC in June 2024. But for all that diehard fans were pumped to return to this clone-filled universe, the lone season was considered inferior to the O.G. series, and was canceled in September 2024.

Final Episode: Aired August 25, 2024

Wicked Tuna (NatGeo)

Since 2012, Wicked Tuna has given cable viewers an in-depth look at the trials, tribulations and financial windfalls of the fishing industry surrounding Gloucester, Massachusetts; even its Outer Banks spinoff aired for eight seasons. But the NatGeo series became a victim of parent company Disney’s stricter budgeting decisions for its linear TV networks, with the network announcing the cancellation in August 2024.

Final Episode: Aired May 26, 2024

Life & Beth (Hulu)

Amy Schumer’s first scripted TV creation following Inside Amy Schumer (and her stand-up specials, obviously) was Hulu’s introspective dramedy Life & Beth. Its first season was a hit with critics and with viewers upon its 2022 release, earning a second season from the streamer. That second effort, which dropped in February 2024, didn’t match the buzz of the first, and Hulu canceled several months later.

Final Episodes: Aired February 16, 2024

The Acolyte (Disney+)

Disney+ took Star Wars fans to the High Republic era with The Acolyte, which spent nearly its entire run on Disney+ caught between a fervent fandom and absolute vitriol. But despite all of the overtly strong opinions on both sides of the aisle, the overall viewership for the streaming original apparently didn’t justify its massive budget. Disney+ waited until after SDCC and D23 to announced The Acolyte’s cancellation in August 2024.

Final Episode: Aired July 16, 2024

The Conners (ABC)

While it technically wasn’t meant to last longer than a season, The Conners managed to join its predecessor Roseanne in making it beyond 100 episodes. The cast’s contracts are renewed each and every year, making renewals an annual concern for viewers, and it amicably agreed by all involved this time around that Season 7 would be the final run, with six “very big event” episodes set to debut in early 2025.

Final Episode: Airing TBA Early 2025

Power Book IV: Force (Starz)

Power’s third spinoff, Book IV: Force, furthered the criminal dealings of Joseph Sikora’s Tommy Egan, with a third season order coming from Starz in December 2023, around a month after the second season concluded. During the midst of its hiatus, Starz’s CEO Jeffrey Hirsch revealed the network’s cost-saving tactics included ordering more new shows instead of keeping expensive ones on the air. Three months later, in June 2024, the news dropped that Season 3 would be Force’s last one.

Final Episodes: Airing TBA 2024/2025

Station 19 (ABC)

Even after prior showrunner Krista Vernoff exited the role at the end of Season 6, Station 19’s fate didn’t seem to be in jeopardy. But after the firefighter drama returned to post-strike production in December 2023, ABC announced that the seventh season would be the final stretch for Jaina Lee Ortiz, Jason George and the rest of the actors comprising the firestation’s crew.

Final Episode: Aired May 30, 2024

Bosch: Legacy (Amazon Freevee)

Titus Welliver reprised the role of author Michael Connelly’s beloved investigator Harry Bosch for the Legacy spinoff, which was renewed for a third season ahead of its Season 2 debut in 2023. In September 2024, Amazon MGM Studios confirmed that this spinoff will be concluding following its Season 3 arrival in 2025. Fans can still look forward to the currently untitled spinoff starring Maggie Q, which is set to arrive in Fall 2025.

Final Episode: Airing TBA 2025

Walker (The CW)

Amid all the big cancellations that have gone down at The CW since it was bought out by Nexstar, Jared Padalecki’s Walker seemed to be a safe bet for renewals, but that streak of luck ended on May 21 when the network made it official that the western-tinged drama would be ending with its ongoing fourth season, a little over a year after its spinoff Walker: Independence was canceled after a single season.

Final Episode: Aired June 26, 2024

Arcane (Netflix)

Spinning out of League of Legends to become the first streaming series to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program, Netflix’s Arcane instantly became a darling for both critics and fans with its nine-episode debut season. First renewed in November 2021, the highly anticipated second season is set to arrive in November 2024, but its creators shook the fanbase with the June 2024 reveal that Season 2 will conclude the Riot Games production.

Final Episodes: Airing November 2024

Tokyo Vice (Max)

First ordered to series in 2019, Max’s crime drama Tokyo Vice finally debuted in 2022, with Ansel Elgort portraying journalist Jake Adelstein (who wrote the memoir source material), and Ken Watanabe as his guiding light of a Toyko detective. The second season aired from February-April 2024, concluding its story with the finale “Endgame.” In June 2024, via THR, the show’s producers confirmed that the show would not be returning for Season 3, and that it was always envisioned for a two-season run, with Elgort only having signed on for two years.

Final Episode: Aired April 4, 2024

UnPrisoned (Hulu)

The stellar duo of Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo headed up Hulu's UnPrisoned, which centered on the daughter-father relationship following the latter's release from prison, but remained a fun time despite the heavy issues. Washington herself revealed in September 2024 how "super duper disappointed" she is that Season 3 would not be happening, and that Hulu had canceled the Onyx Collective project.

Final Episodes: Aired July 17, 2024

Extended Family (NBC)

Despite having Mike O’Malley as a creator and a star trio in Jon Cryer, Donald Faison and Abigail Spencer, the NBC sitcom Extended Family was one of many shows whose production was sidelined right in the middle of production due to the Hollywood strikes, and though it was able to start filming again relatively quickly, the network gave it an arguably ill-timed pre-Christmas premiere, but that still ended up being its largest audience and demo rating, with neither rising to the same heights at any other point.

Final Episode: Aired March 26. 2024

The Winter King (MGM+)

The UK historical fiction adaptation The Winter King, based on Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles novels, arrived on MGM+ in 2023 and won over critics and quite a few fans with its action-packed take on Arthurian legend, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. vet Iain De Caestecker as the fabled king. The long wait for any Season 2 updates wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence, and the decision was made to cancel it in September 2024, though being a co-production with ITV could mean a potential return if another studio steps in.

Final Episode: Aired November 5, 2023

The Brothers Sun (Netflix)

Fronted by Michelle Yoeh, Justin Chien, Sam Song Li and more, The Brothers Sun high-kicked its way onto Netflix with audience-pleasing verve, telling the story of a Taiwanese mobster attempting to keep his mother safe in the aftermath of his father’s assassination. Despite positive reviews from critics and fans, and despite having Ryan Murphy’s producer partner Brad Falchuk as co-creator, Netflix canceled The Brothers Sun and sent it into the sunset in early March 2024.

Final Episode: Aired January 4, 2024

The Witcher (Netflix)

In December 2022, Liam Hemsworth was announced to be replacing Henry Cavill in Netflix's fantasy adaptation The Witcher Season 4 and beyond. Then in April 2024, as the fourth season's production start was revealed, Netflix officially put in the order for a fifth and final season, confirming that the final three novels in the series will be brought to live-action in those seasons.

Final Episode: Airing TBA 2025/2026

The Big Door Prize (Apple TV+)

Based on M.O. Walsh’s novel of the same name, Apple TV+’s comedy The Big Door Prize charmed many viewers with its cozy tale of a small town turned upside down by a mysteriously prophetic machine. Its second season was ordered in April 2023 soon after the first premiered; on the opposite end of fortune, the streaming service canceled the Chris O’Dowd-starring show two weeks after its second season wrapped.

Final Episode: Aired June 12, 2024

Death and Other Details (Hulu)

Despite our efforts to not allow Death and Other Details to fall victim to Hulu’s cancellation spree, the streamer announced that the Mandy Patinkin-led murder mystery would not return for a second season, continuing the frustrating practice of canceling shows after just one season. This is especially upsetting, as creators Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams had originally hoped for five to seven seasons, and had built the potential for longevity into the show’s DNA.

Final Episode: Aired March 5, 2024

That Girl Lay Lay (Nickelodeon)

It’s been a rough time over at Nickelodeon with the airing of the docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV and amidst the fallout, the network has quietly canceled two series, including That Girl Lay Lay. The show, which ran for two seasons, featured Sadie getting into some pretty wild situations with Lay Lay, the AI avatar who Sadie wished to life.

Final Episode: Aired March 20, 2024

NCIS: Hawaii (CBS)

The fourth series in the NCIS franchise, NCIS: Hawai’i debuted in 2021 to decent numbers, and though the average stats dipped in Season 2, they rose back up for the strike-delayed third season. Unfortunately, those ten episodes now serve as the unplanned final season, as CBS canceled it weeks before the finale aired, much to the surprise and chagrin of the cast and crew. Making matters worse is the idea that CBS’ already filled schedule was more the cause than anything wrong with NCIS: Hawai’i itself.

Final Episode: Aired May 6, 2024

The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu)

Fans have had quite a while to anticipate Elisabeth Moss’ swan song as June Osborne in The Handmaid’s Tale. Hulu ordered up the sixth and final season of the popular dystopian drama back in September 2022, just ahead of the Season 5 premiere. Since then: a lot of waiting for more details.

Final Episode: Airing Spring 2025

American Rust (Prime Video)

Showtime originally ordered up American Rust, an adaptation of Philipp Meyer’s 2009 novel, with Jeff Daniels and Maura Tierney leading the cast during its Season 1 run in 2021. The network dropped the cancellation axe after Season 1 ended, though Amazon stepped in with a Season 2 order months later. Those episodes hit Prime Video starting in March 2024, but not long after Tierney joined Law & Order’s upcoming season, American Rust’s second cancellation was reported.

Final Episodes: Aired March 28, 2024

Renegade Nell (Disney+)

Veteran UK screenwriter Sally Wainwright created a fictional 18th-century England for the action-adventure fantasy Renegade Nell, centering on a highway bandit who is framed for murder and then teams with a magical sprite to save her future. However, it appears the impressively produced series did not move the viewership needle quite enough on Disney+ to convince execs to order a second season, per Deadline, and it was canceled in July 2024.

Final Episodes: Aired March 29, 2024

My Lady Jane (Prime Video)

Novelist Gemma Burgess adapted the Jodi Meadows alt-history romance My Lady Jane for Amazon MGM Studios, and viewers were eagerly transported to the 16th century across the eight-episode debut season. Unfortunately for the fanbase, the streaming service revealed My Lady Jane’s cancellation news just six weeks after it premiered, sparking the creator to set up a petition to save the show.

Final Episodes: Aired June 27, 2024

Black Cake (Hulu)

Having Oprah Winfrey as an executive producer helped bring eyeballs to Hulu’s adaptation of Charmaine Wilkerson’s same-named novel, and critics and fans alike appeared to adore it. Unfortunately, the streaming service offered zero updates for the show across much of 2024 before confirming its doomed fate in September, with Deadline reporting that Netflix was in contention to pick the drama up for second season and ultimately chose not to.

Final Episode: Aired December 6, 2023

Reginald The Vampire (Syfy)

Spider-Man trilogy and Tarot star Jacob Batalon brought his jovial talents to the small screen in 2022 to sink his fangs into the vampire horror-comedy Reginald the Vampire, an adaptation of Johnny B. Truant’s Fat Vampire book series.The second season arrived in May 2024, but sadly didn’t inspire a third season, with Syfy pulling the plug less than a week after its Season 2 finale.

Final Episode: Aired July 10, 2024

Erin & Aaron (Nickelodeon)

The second series that got the ax from the kids network was Erin & Aaron, a one-season show that starred Ava Ro and Jensen Gering as step-siblings with different personalities who bond over music after their parents get married. Its 12-episode season concluded last June.

Final Episode: Aired June 29, 2023

CSI: Vegas (CBS)

The CSI-verse was resurrected in 2021 for CBS' follow-up crime drama CSI: Vegas, with several O.G. actors (William Petersen, Jorja Fox, Marg Helgenberger) returning during the three-season run. The Season 3 viewership was notably higher than in the second, but the network backed itself into a cancellation over a reported lack of space in its upcoming primetime schedules.

Final Episode: Aired May 19, 2024

Obliterated (Netflix)

Amidst the streaming success of Cobra Kai, creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg co-created a completely different kind of action dramedy with Obliterated, in which Nick Zano, Shelley Hennig and more tried to stop a nuclear attack while under the influence of all manner of booze and drugs. Less than three months later, Netflix put a stop to the mission and canceled it.

Final Episode: Aired November 30, 2023

Our Flag Means Death (Max)

Max’s pirate-tastic original Our Flag Means Death debuted to much acclaim with both seasons, winning over fans with its mix of comedy, swashbuckling, and relationships between characters played by Taika Waititi, Rhys Darby and more. Max execs did not share any specific reasons for the early January cancellation news, but given all the critical attention, its fate likely came down to a limited audience.

Final Episode: Aired October 26, 2023

Uncoupled (Showtime)

After Showtime saved Neil Patrick Harris’ rom-com series Uncoupled from Netflix cancellation, that network too has decided not to go forward with a second season. It’s the latest example of a series getting canceled, uncanceled, then canceled again.

Final Episode: Aired July 29, 2022

What If...? (Disney+)

Though part of Marvel’s animated universe of alternate timelines and stories will continue with the upcoming series Marvel Zombies, What If…? proper is set to wrap up its run with the upcoming third season, which will reportedly feature an Agatha Harkness musical number and more. Executive producer Brad Winderbaum more or less confirmed the animated anthology’s fate in May 2024, referring to the third season as the culmination of a trilogy, with Jeffrey’s Wright’s The Watcher getting a suitable conclusion.

Final Episodes: Airing TBA

HouseBroken (Fox)

A more mature and nuanced take on the Secret Lives of Pets approach, HouseBroken followed a group of neighborhood animals who met for a therapy group, with Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte, Tony Hale and more TV vets in the voice cast. The show ran for two seasons, with the second ending in August 2023, and it wasn’t until May 2024 when Fox officially confirmed the animated comedy was canceled. According to Animation Magazine, network reps cited low ratings as the reason behind the ax dropping.

Final Episode: Aired August 6, 2023

La Brea (NBC)

Natalie Zea and Eoin Macken’s super-bonkers sci-fi drama La Brea has faced an uphill battle critically, but developed a fanbase with its unpredictable twists. Though NBC wasn’t willing to keep the show going for much longer, the network ordered a shortened third season in January 2023 that was revealed to be the final run.

Final Episode: Aired February 13, 2024

Scavengers Reign (Max)

Based on their 2016 short film Scavengers, Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner’s adult-skewing animated sci-fi tale Scavengers Reign quickly won over fans and critics upon meeting its cargo ship crew in October 2023, and it continued gaining word of mouth in the months that followed. So it was somewhat surprising in May 2024 when Max suddenly canceled the series without a second season. There may be good news coming, however, as Netflix acquired the first season, and will choose whether or not to produce a second season after its debut.

Final Episode: Aired November 9, 2023

Squid Game (Netflix)

Netflix debuted its biggest series ever, the high-octane stressfest Squid Game, all the way back in September 2021, and it’s become both highly influential and highly merchandisable in the years since. Surprisingly, months ahead of the second season’s streaming premiere, the company revealed that Squid Game will end at a later date with Season 3. (The competition series Squid Game: The Challenge will be back for a second season as well.)

Final Episodes: Airing TBA 2025

Raven’s Home (Disney Channel)

In a rare case of a cancellation with good news attached, Disney Channel execs announced Raven-Symoné’s sitcom spinoff Raven’s Home would not be returning for Season 7, and the sixth season that ended in September 2023 would be its swan song. However, Disney also set up a new overall creative deal with Raven-Symoné that includes a pilot order for the new spinoff Alice in the Palace, with Mykal-Michelle Harris set to reprise the role.

Final Episode: Aired September 23, 2023

Hightown (Starz)

Starz’s crime drama Highland took Monica Raymund’s state trooper Jackie Quiñones to some dark places in its first two seasons, and she’ll have one more shot at bringing justice to Cape Cod’s endangered sex workers. The premium cabler ordered up a third season for Hightown in March 2022, and only revealed during the lead-up to its release that Season 3 will be the final one.

Final Episode: Aired March 8, 2024

Outer Range (Prime Video)

Josh Brolin and Imogen Poots won over viewers as Outer Range’s Royal and Autumn across two seasons of the oddball sci-fi mystery western. Despite any critical acclaimed earned by its two seasons, the Amazon-owned Prime Video canceled Outer Range in July 2024, two months after that second batch of episodes dropped all at once, unlike Season 1’s weekly releases.

Final Episodes: Aired May 16, 2024

Young Sheldon (CBS)

Though The Big Bang Theory lasted for 12 seasons on CBS, it wouldn’t have been so logical for its prequel Young Sheldon to match that span, given its ever-aging star Iain Armitage. So even though co-creators Chuck Lorre and Steve Molaro have stated the story could have gone on, CBS revealed the previously ordered seventh season would be the final one, and that its storyline would continue in a Georgie and Mandy spinoff.

Final Episode: Aired May 16, 2024

Pretty Freeking Scary (Disney Channel)

Disney went dark with the horror-tinged comedy Pretty Freeking Scary, which starred Eliana Su'a as a 14-year-old who died in a manhole accident and returned from the dead as the Grim Reaper’s second banana. Fans of the series, which was legitimately based on an American Greetings accessory line, had to wait nearly an entire year for the House of Mouse to confirm that Season 2 wasn’t coming back to life.

Final Episode: Aired August 18, 2023

Evil (Paramount+)

One of TV’s most unpredictable series, the supernatural genre-masher Evil majorly flourished upon moving from CBS to Paramount+, and was able to take its tag team of science and religion to some dark and bizarro places three seasons so far, with the upcoming fourth season set to serve as its final romp. The show was officially released canceled in mid-February, though with four additional episodes ordered to help close out the story, though Katja Herbers still jokingly attempted to get Netflix’s attention for a possible renewal, but nothing shook out from that.

Final Episode: Aired August 22, 2024

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Disney+)

Though not the most vital of all the Star Wars shows on Disney+, the action-filled animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch has still been a core part of the franchise’s small-screen success. And the Dave Filoni-created series will wrap up its clone-heavy story with a 15-episode third season.

Final Episode: Aired May 1, 2024

What We Do In The Shadows (FX)

Quite possibly one of the greatest movie-to-TV adaptations/spinoffs, FX’s gore-soaked and award-winning comedy What We Do in the Shadows was initially ordered for its fifth and sixth seasons back in June 2022. It was only in December 2023 that the network fully confirmed that Season 6 will be the last one, likely due in part to a steady decline in linear viewers.

Final Episode: Airing TBA 2024

The Good Doctor (ABC)

To the shock of TV viewers and industry insiders alike, 2024 was less than two weeks old when ABC canceled The Good Doctor, despite it being ratings-consistent, and despite the reported interest from cast members about continuing on. It’s unclear exactly what went into the decision, from strike delays to financial wariness, but fans will at least have the chance to say goodbye via the 10-episode Season 7.

Final Episode: Aired May 21 2024

Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)

Larry David’s cringe-centric HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm has been around since 2000, but with spaced-out seasons for the bulk of its run, based on when its creator was inspired enough to return to Faux Larry’s world. And after years of speculation about when the always hilarious series could actually end, David made the pretty-pretty-pretty good decision to make Season 14 the last one.

Final Episode: Aired April 7, 2024

My Dad The Bounty Hunter (Netflix)

Co-starring Laz Alonso, Yvonne Orji and Priah Ferguson, My Dad the Bounty Hunter gave viewers a lot to enjoy with its all-genre tale of a father and his kids who discover that he’s a bounty hunter of otherworldly entities. Both of its seasons debuted on Netflix in 2023, despite critical acclaim, its creator confirmed with WhatsOnNetflix in June 2024 that the streaming giant opted not to order a third season.

Final Episodes: Aired August 17, 2023

Halo (Paramount+)

After a long trip through development hell, the live-action video game adaptation Halo finally arrived on Paramount+ in 2022, earning much critical and viewer praise. The second season, which aired from February to March 2024, was generally perceived as being even more engaging and easy to follow. Shockingly to many, the streaming service canceled Halo in July 2024, four months after Season 2 ended, though producers were actively seeking out a new home in the aftermath.

Final Episode: Aired March 21, 2024

So Help Me Todd (CBS)

As one of the more unique original series in CBS' primetime lineup, So Help Me Todd won over audiences with its offbeat mother-son relationship and non-procedural storylines, and was drawing in 4+ million viewers with nightly episodes, with millions more watching in delayed viewing. But with its upcoming programming slate already filled to the brim, the network pulled the plug on the Wright family's investigations.

Final Episode: Aired May 16, 2024

Life & Beth (Hulu)

Amy Schumer’s first scripted TV creation following Inside Amy Schumer (and her stand-up specials, obviously) was Hulu’s introspective dramedy Life & Beth. Its first season was a hit with critics and with viewers upon its 2022 release, earning a second season from the streamer. That second effort, which dropped in February 2024, didn’t match the buzz of the first, and Hulu canceled several months later.

Final Episodes: Aired February 16, 2024

Clone High (Max)

First existing on MTV from 2002-03, Clone High was brought out of cryogenics by Max, which ordered up two follow-up seasons of the historical figure-filled comedy. Unfortunately, the creative team set up a similar cliffhanger situation as the O.G. series, and the streaming service confirmed it will remain unresolved by canceling the revival in July 2024.

Final Episodes: Aired February 1, 2024

Superman & Lois (The CW)

As the CW’s final DC Comics outing in the wake of the Arrowverse, Superman & Lois Season 4 will follow up on Season 3’s overarching clash between Tyler Hoechlin’s Clark and Michael Cudlitz’s Lex Luthor. The fourth season was ordered in June 2023, months after The CW was taken over by Nexstar, which jettisoned the majority of the network’s original series after the acquisition, with quite a few casting changes being necessary for the renewal.

Final Episode: Airing TBA 2025

This Fool (Hulu)

Spearheaded by Corporate’s trio of Matt Ingebretson, Jake Weisman and Pat Bishop, as well as stand-up comedian Chris Estrada, This Fool hilariously puts its spotlight on L.A.’s cholo culture, centering on Estrada’s goal-minded Julio and his just-out-of-prison cousin Luis (portrayed with A+ gusto by Frankie Quiñones). With Sopranos vet Michael Imperioli also co-starring, This Fool lasted two seasons before Hulu pulled the plug in Feb. 2024, seven months after Season 2 debuted.

Final Episode Aired July 28, 2023

Rap Sh*t (Max)

Issa Rae’s second series created for Max through her overall deal, which sparked by the success of HBO’s Insecure, Rap Sh*t followed the hilarious and often intense journey of Aida Osman and KaMillion’s Miami rappers Shawna and Mia. Its strike-delayed second season was released in November 2023 to widespread acclaim, though they couldn’t seduce and scheme their way into a third season, and Max canceled the series in January 2024.

Final Episode: Aired December 21, 2023

Blue Bloods (CBS)

One of TV’s most under-discussed and most-watched series, Blue Bloods was revealed by CBS to be ending with its 14th season, giving fans one more year of Reagan family dinners to appreciate. Unlike most series facing strike-hampered final seasons, Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg’s legal-minded drama is in the midst of its 18-episode swan song that was split across 2024.

Final Episode: TBA

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)

There are only so many times a group of powered-up misfits can save the planet for apocalyptic devastation, so perhaps it makes sense that The Umbrella Academy is capping its run on Netflix at four seasons, with the final year set to give the Hargreeves siblings their biggest challenges yet. Netflix revealed back in August 2022 that the show only had one batch of eps left to wrap things up. The Umbrella Academy Season 4 has yet to reveal any concrete info about what to expect.

Final Episode: Aired August 8, 2024

Dave (FXX)

Considering some of the ridiculously risqué moments that went down on FXX’s Dave, it’s kind of amazing we got three full seasons of the coming-of-race comedy centered on co-creator Dave Burd’s rapper persona Lil Dicky. And while the musician’s fictionalized universe could return in the future, Burd made the call in early February to step away from the series to focus on his music career and other opportunities.

Final Episode: Aired May 31, 2023

Secrets Of Sulphur Springs (Disney Channel)

Soap opera writers Tracey Thompson and Charles Pratt Jr. brought their talents to The Disney Channel for missing-person mysteries, ghosts and more paranormal fun in Secrets of Sulphur Springs. The show aired for three seasons, with its third suffering a fairly noteworthy drop in viewership, which is possibly what influenced execs to cancel the series in January 2024.

Final Episode: Aired on May 5, 2023

Chad (Roku Channel)

Created by Saturday Night Live vet Nasim Pedrard all the way back in 2016 for Fox, the high school comedy Chad later shifted to TBS, where its first season aired. Before the pandemic-stalled Season 2 could arrive, the cable channel axed most of its original content, Chad included. Months later, Roku Channel stepped up as the new home for the already filmed season, confirming no more were on the way.

Final Episode: Aired January 19, 2024

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+)

In its first three seasons, Star Trek: Lower Decks delivered more than enough canon-skewing sci-fi comedy to rank among the best animated series of all time, and it seemed like there was enough creative energy to keep the crew in space for many years. But it was when announcing Strange New World's Season 4 renewal that Paramount+ revealed Lower Decks' fifth season will be its last. No word on whether characters will make the jump to live-action.

Final Episode: Airing Late 2024

The Flight Attendant (Max)

Big Bang Theory vet Kaley Cuoco jumped from broadcast sitcoms to streaming thrillers with Max’s The Flight Attendant, whose first season garnered awards buzz. The second run seemingly wasn’t on the same level of popularity or success, and it took Max until January 2024 to confirm the show wouldn’t be back for Season 3. Kaley Cuoco’s response to the news drew attention to the fact that the show was envisioned as more of a limited series anyway.

Final Episode: Aired April 21, 2022

Wolf Pack (Paramount+)

It seemed like a dream pairing for Teen Wolf and Criminal Minds creator Jeff Davis to team with Buffy vet Sarah Michelle Gellar for a new drama about a town affected by werewolf attacks. Alas, its first and only season didn’t move the meter too drastically when it arrived on Paramount+ in 2023, and it wasn’t wildly surprising when Paramount+ revealed in January 2024 that the show wouldn’t return for Season 2.

Final Episode: Aired March 16, 2023

Bob Hearts Abishola (CBS)

After four steady seasons on CBS’ Monday night schedule, the network ordered up Season 5 in January 2023, with April bringing the surprising update that 11 of the sitcom’s 13 series regulars were being demoted to recurring roles, and that none of them would appear for more than 5 episodes each. Seven months later, in November, CBS made the call to cancel the show’s forward progress after Season 5.

Final Episode: Aired May 13, 2024

The Other Black Girl (Hulu)

Based on the 2021 novel by Sakiya Dalila Harris, who co-developed the show with Rashida Jones, The Other Black Girl starred Sinclair Daniel as a book editor caught up in a potential conspiracy involving her bosses and co-workers, including Ashleigh Murray, Bellamy Young and Eric McCormack. Hulu made the call in May 2024 to cancel the dramedy without a second season.

Final Episode: Aired September 13, 2023

Schmigadoon! (Apple TV+)

With Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon!, co-creators Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio checked all the right boxes for episodic musicals, even winning the 2022 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. But Season 2’s focus on Chicago didn’t create quite the same rhythmic buzz, and in January 2024, Paul shared on Instagram that despite Season 3 being written, with 25 songs planned out, the streaming service wouldn’t be going forward with it.

Final Episode: Aired May 3, 2023

Vikings: Valhalla (Netflix)

A sequel to Michael Hirst’s cable hit Vikings, Jeb Stuart’s streaming sequel Vikings: Valhalla was seemingly always destined for at least a three-season run, with reports of Netflix granting it a 24-episode order in November 2019. The final eight eps were filmed between May and October 2022, and it was only after they were filmed was it confirmed that they'd serve as the final season, which aired in Summer 2024.

Final Episode: Aired July 11, 2024

Minx (Starz)

As Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond’s comedy about an erotic magazine, Minx, was in the final stages of finishing up Season 2, Max pulled the plug, with Starz stepping in to help pay for the production to be completed. Unfortunately, the premium cable channel made it clear in early January 2024 that a third season isn’t on the horizon.

Final Episode: Aired September 8, 2023

Constellation (Apple TV+

Apple TV+ is arguably the best streaming service for original sci-fi TV shows, even if promising projects such as Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks’ psychological thriller Constellation don’t always get to make it beyond a single season. The series, which followed the aftermath of a deadly collision involving the ISS, debuted to largely acclaim in February 2024, but it was quietly canceled by the streaming service just six weeks after the season concluded.

Final Episode: Aired March 27, 2024

Bunk'd (Disney Channel)

One of The Disney Channel’s longest-running live-action series, the Jessie spinoff Bunk’d has given viewers going on seven seasons of misadventures at Camp Kikiwaka (and later at Kikiwaka Ranch), with Miranda May and more. Following the first batch of strike-delayed episodes airing, Disney announced that Season 7 was being extended to 22 episodes, and that the series would wrap afterward.

Final Episode: Aired August 2, 2024

Primo (Freevee)

Co-executive produced by The Good Place and Parks and Rec creator Michael Schur, Primo was a coming-of-age comedy created by (and based on the Texas upbringing of) writer Shea Serrano, which was first pitched to ABC back in 2017. It took five years to get the Latino-fronted series into production — it eventually landed on Freevee — and the show earned widespread acclaim with its eight-episode season. Unfortunately, Freevee canceled the series in May 2024, though Serrano claimed at the time that the series would be shopped around at other studios.

Final Episode: Aired May 19, 2023

High School (Freevee)

Oddly enough, High School first arrived on Freevee back in October 2022, with Clea DuVall helping musician duo Tegan and Sara adapt their memoir of the same name for TV. Following its critically acclaimed eight-episode run, fans heard relatively zero news about the show’s future until May 2024, when THR reported its cancellation. At one point, the Amazon-owned network reportedly tasked DuVall with setting up a mini writers room for Season 2 scripts, which were reportedly finished at the time the cancellation was confirmed.

Final Episode: Aired October 28, 2022

Quantum Leap (NBC)

For two seasons, Quantum Leap fans watched the reboot's Ben and Addison play out their love story amidst jaunts across space and time. Their ability to start leaping together is perhaps the silver lining when it comes to NBC canceling the sci-fi drama in April 2024 without a third season.

Final Episode: Aired February 20, 2024

grown-ish (Freeform)

Freeform’s grown-ish didn’t quite make it to the eight-season mark set by its predecessor black-ish, but has still enjoyed a lengthy run for a network-shifted spinoff. The dramedy’s sixth season was ordered up in January 2023, with the news dropping two months later that those episodes would wrap up Zoey and Junior Johnson’s stories. The first half of the season aired in the summer months of 2023, with the back half closing out the show's run in Spring 2024.

Final Episode: Aired May 22, 2024

SEAL Team (Paramount+)

With the military drama having shifted to Paramount+ from CBS ahead of its fifth season, SEAL Team’s cast and crew first got the good news in January 2023 that Season 7 was ordered up, and then ten whole months later, the streaming service affirmed that those episodes would be SEAL Team’s final tour. The strike-delayed production kicked off in January 2024, so fans can expect it to be a late-year arrival.

Final Episode: Airing October 6, 2024

Tacoma FC (truTV)

Co-created by Broken Lizard troupe members Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme, Tacoma FD did for the firefighter profession what the sketch group’s Super Troopers films did for cops. Co-starring Hassie Harrison, Eugene Cordero, Marcus Henderson and Gabriel Hogan, the comedy mixed hilarious professional ineptitude with surreal and silly humor, and earned itself a four-season run in the process. Unfortunately, none of the show’s captains or commissioners could pull enough weight to make Season 5 happen, as truTV canceled it in February 2024.

Final Episode: Aired October 5, 2023

My Brilliant Friend (HBO)

One of HBO’s most acclaimed and under-discussed originals in recent years, the coming-of-age drama My Brilliant Friend was first developed in 2016 with the goal of adapting the popular Neapolitan Novels attributed to the writer pseudonym Elena Ferrante. With the first three season having aired in 2018, 2020, and 2022, the stage is set for the final eight episodes to take viewers to the last era in the lives of BFFs Elena and Raffaella.

Final Episode: Airing November 11, 2024.

Big Mouth (Netflix)

One of the relatively rare scripted Netflix Originals to extend all the way to eight seasons, the Nick Kroll-starring animated hit Big Mouth has presumably earned its consistent renewals, with seemingly no limit to the amount of pubescent and hyper-hormonal chaos in the teen characters’ lives. The streaming service revealed in April 2023 that Season 8 will cap off Nick and Andrew’s masturbatory adventures, which outlasted the two-season run of spinoff Human Resources.

Final Episode: Airing TBA 2025

Good Trouble (Freeform)

The spinoff of the fan-favorite drama The Fosters, Freeform’s Good Trouble made it through four-and-a-half ratings-challenged seasons so far. In December 2023, around seven months after the first half of Season 5 aired, the Disney-owned channel confirmed that Good Trouble would be done-zo after the back half of the fifth season dropped in early 2024. Freeform was reportedly interested in continuing the drama, but budget issues forced the execs’ hands.

Final Episode: Aired February 27, 2024

American Born Chinese (Disney+)

Based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name, the fantastical action-comedy American Born Chinese won over audiences with its stacked cast (including Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh) and embrace of various cultures, albeit with some criticism sprinkled throughout. Despite its popularity, Disney canceled the show after the cast members’ contract options expired.

Final Episode: Aired May 24, 2023

Magnum P.I. (NBC)

Few TV dramas, network or otherwise, went through quite the same year that Magnum P.I.'s cast and crew did in 2002, when it was canceled by CBS and then subsequently saved with a 20-episode order from NBC. While that gave the Jay Hernandez character more time to build into a better close-out, the network didn’t take that long before dropping its own axe, canceling Magnum P.I. anew in June 2023.

Final Episode: Aired January 3, 2024

World On Fire (PBS)

Created for BBC One in the U.K., the war drama World on Fire made its way stateside as part of PBS’ Masterpiece, debuting its first WWII-set season back in 2019, nearly four years before the start of its second and final season. Despite a stacked cast that included Helen Hunt, Sean Bean and more, World on Fire’s numbers dropped in its second season, and it was canceled without fanfare in Feb. 2024, before creator Peter Bowker could deliver on a third season that depicted the U.S.’ entry into the war.

Final Episode: Aired November 19, 2023

Julia (Max)

Led in part by the stretch of star Sarah Lancashire as the titular culinary legend Julia Child, Max’s biographical dramedy Julia earned creator Daniel Goldfarb mostly compliments and lauding with its pair of eight-episode seasons. Max reps didn’t share any reasoning behind the show’s cancellation news that dropped in January 2024, but a smaller-than-desired viewership is likely a big factor.

Final Episode: Aired December 21, 2023

Still Up (Apple TV+)

Several top-notch UK comedy actors joined forces for the Apple TV+ dramedy Still Up, which followed the late-night bonding between The Good Doctor’s Antonia Thomas and Red Oaks’ Craig Roberts as Lisa and Danny, respectively. It debuted in September 2023 to largely positive reactions, if quiet ones, and all remained fairly quiet until May 2024, when the streaming service canceled the series without a second season.

Final Episode: Aired October 27, 2023

Bupkis (Peacock)

Pete Davidson’s semi-autobiographical dramedy Bupkis will not see a second season on Peacock after all. Despite the series receiving a new order and production set to begin this summer, the comedian appears to have put the kibosh on the project. In a statement, the former SNL cast member called the show the part of his career that he’s “most proud of,” however, he said, “I do also feel that this part of my life is finished.”

Final Episode: Aired May 4, 2023

LA Fire and Rescue (NBC)

Dick Wolf has found a lot of success with his fictional procedurals, but his unscripted offering for NBC, LA Fire and Rescue, didn’t have the longevity of some of his other projects. The reality series that showed the daily life of firefighters protecting their communities was canceled after a single eight-episode season.

Final Episode: Aired August 9, 2023

Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge (NBC)

Another single-season casualty over at NBC is Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge. This competition series pit its contestants against each other, tasking them with giving Hot Wheels-inspired makeovers to cars that held sentimental value in hopes of nabbing a $25,000 grand prize.

Final Episode: Aired August 8, 2023

The Upshaws (Netflix)

The family comedy from co-creators Wandy Sykes and Regina Y. Hicks has enjoyed a sporadic run on Netflix, with Mike Epps and Kim Fields leading the fray as the parental figures for the Upshaw clan. Ahead of the sitcom’s fourth season (which is being dubbed Part 6), the streaming service ordered a fifth and final season on June 7, 2024, which will run for 12 episodes.

Final Episode: Airing TBA Early 2025

All American: Homecoming (The CW)

The CW is down to just a single scripted original series leftover from the pre Nexstar buyout, All American, following the network’s execs making the call to end the follow-up drama All American: Homecoming after its third season, which is set to premiere on Monday, July 8. While the series is popular among younger demographics, that crowd wasn’t big enough to justify a new season as the network continues transitioning to content that draws in older viewers.

Final Episode: Airing September 30, 2024

The Girls On The Bus (Max)

Based on Amy Shozick’s 2018 memoir Chasing Hillary, with the author serving as co-creator alongside Julie Plec, the political drama The Girls on the Bus debuted on Max in March bolstered by talents such as Melissa Benoist (who also produced), Carla Gugino and Christina Elmore. Unfortunately, the 10-episode first season’s impact on critics and audiences wasn’t overwhelming enough to secure a second season, and Max’s execs canceled it outright in late May, just two weeks after the finale aired.

Final Episode: Aired May 9, 2024

Ratched (Netflix)

Sarah Paulson reteamed with her American Horror Story boss Ryan Murphy to take on the iconic literary character Nurse Ratched for a standalone Netflix series that predated Jack Nicholson'a flight over the cuckoo’s nest. Though it was given a two-season order from the start, and though its viewership numbers were nothing to sneeze at, Netflix quietly reversed plans for Season 2, and Paulson herself let the cat-ched out of the bag in early February 2024 (via X).

Final Episode: Aired September 18, 2020

We’re Here (HBO

Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara and several other RuPaul’s Drag Race vets came together for the HBO reality TV series We’re Here, and spent four seasons spreading the good word about drag shows as entertainment in a variety of cities and small towns around the country. The Emmy-winning series wrapped its latest season in May, and the cable network revealed the cancellation news in September.

Final Episode: Aired May 31, 2024

The total number of projects facing their endgames in 2024 continues to grow from week to week, and will no doubt expand even more as the May finale season hits. Stay tuned for more updates.

Hopefully everyone out there is ready to head back to Lanford, Illinois, because The Conners is finally returning to ABC for its long-awaited sixth season. And while details about the new episodes have been largely absent so far in 2024 — Emma Kenney even censored her on-set pics — now we know a bit more about what TV’s most dysfunctionally adoring family will be up to when the new episodes arrive. 

Showrunner Bruce Helford and fellow executive producer Dave Caplan, along with the rest of the cast and crew, had to hold off on putting new stories together throughout the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, but now everything is back in line for a shortened but no less exciting Season 6. Speaking with TVLine, the duo dropped some somewhat revealing details about who and what we can expect to see in the near future, and I’m possibly pumped about two of those reveals more than others.

Sounds Like Louise Has Big Ambitions

One of the best/worst things about The Conners is that the cast is too stacked and talented to put all the focus on Katey Sagal’s Louise every episode, so her storylines aren’t quite as numerous as most of the others. But things may be changing a little in Season 6 as she grows more restless as both a married woman and a former touring musician. As it usually goes, money will be a guiding force for her decisions, with Bruce Helford saying:

Not that there’s anything wrong with Louise earning wages at the Lunchbox, especially when it means viewers get to see Sagal and Laurie Metcalf mixing it up. But she doesn’t seem to be all that happy about trading her creative ideals for service industry duties. So I’m very excited to see what new ventures are introduced for her. Maybe she can give singing lessons, allowing for Sagal and John Goodman to duet together at some point. 

Dave Caplan also talked about what’s next for Louise and Dan, and at least it sounds like he’ll be joining her in support, as opposed to fighting against her wishes. According to the EP:

She might need to branch out from just the area around Lanford to find conquerable mountains, but if anyone would do it, it’s Louise. 

Possible Good News For Bev

Season 6 will also feature the return of a very familiar face: Estelle Parsons, whose Bev Harris is already lined up for a pair of installments early on. Jackie and Roseanne's mother made quite the appearance in Season 5, and while it wasn't quite as depressing or fatal as I expected, Bev was shown to be suffering from dementia, which led to a twisty reveal about the family's past. 

While it wouldn't be anti-intuitive to think her next appearance would be another step closer to doom, Bruce Helford teased the opposite, saying:

Estelle Parsons will be back for both Episodes 2 and 3, so hopefully we won't have to wait long to see what the surprise will be. I'd like to think it's Bev blackmailing Dan into letting her live with him and Louise, but that probably wouldn't be ideal for anyone involved. 

• And Let's Not Forget About Nick Offerman's Guest Spot

Now a full-on Emmy winner for his work on HBO's The Last of Us, Nick Offerman was the second guest star to get an early confirmation for The Conners' new season, on the heels of Seth Astin coming back as Becky's latest (and greatest?) beau Tyler. While details were previously light about what fans could expect, we now know that the Parks and Rec vet, who first worked with Bruce Helford quite a few years ago on the sitcom The George Lopez show, will be playing a TV host. 

Specifically, Offerman's character heads up a restaurant rescue series, and is contacted by Becky as a means of trying to pull The Lunch Box out of a rut caused in part by Jackie being far less dependable on the job front. Becky and Louise aren't pleased with the way things are going, and you know it's an extreme feeling if they attempt to bring a whole TV production into it. 

Check out the first Season 6 trailer below!

With more fun coming for Ben and Darlene, Becky and Tyler and more, The Conners will debut Season 6 on ABC on Wednesday, February 7, at 8:00 p.m. ET. Head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what else is hitting the small screen in the near future.

2024 has already been a big year for Nick Offerman, and we're still only in the first month! The Parks and Recreation favorite took a very dramatic turn for HBO's The Last of Us and earned an Emmy for his efforts; now, he's returning to the realm of sitcoms for a role in ABC's The Conners, and a first look at his arrival in the 2024 TV schedule shows an awkward encounter with John Goodman's Dan that already has me ready for more of the comedy greats together.

Nick Offerman's Emmy Win

While The Last of Us lost out to Succession in the Drama categories during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, the post-apocalyptic series based on the video game of the same name fared better at the Creative Arts Emmys. Nick Offerman took the trophy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role in the episode that centered on the love story between Bill (Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) in a hopeless time. Bartlett was in the running for Outstanding Guest Actor as well. 

Offerman's win is especially notable due to the fact that he wasn't actually the first choice to play Bill, and changes were made from Bill and Frank's story in the video game to the TV show. Steven Spielberg himself was moved by the episode, and Offerman jokingly pitched a way for Bill and Frank to return despite their tear-jerking deaths in Season 1. 

Nick Offerman Is Coming To The Conners

If you, like me, found yourself tearing up at Offerman's performance as Bill on The Last of Us, you probably don't have to worry about tragedy in his next role. The actor, who is largely known for his comedy work on NBC's Parks and Rec, is coming to The Conners in the Season 6 premiere as a guest star. While there are currently no details available about his character or what brings him into the mix, a preview for the premiere indicates that he and John Goodman could be hilarious together. Take a look:

Nick Offerman has a grand total of one line in the preview – "Are you family?" – but the ABC video is certainly hyping his arrival. Plus, Dan adopting a Cockney accent to deny that he's related to other members of the Conner family suggests that this could be a great scene when the sitcom finally returns after the long hiatus.

Given that Offerman is only billed as a guest star, we shouldn't count on seeing too much of him in Season 6. Then again, who could have guessed how large of a role Katey Sagal would have by the sixth season after she was booked for one episode back in 2018?  

The Conners is well known for bringing in big names as guest stars by this point, including (but definitely not limited to) Dan Aykroyd, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Whoopi Goldberg. Plus, Sean Astin will be back in the Season 6 premiere as Becky's boyfriend, after debuting as the character in Season 5.

Tune in to ABC on Wednesday, February 7 at 8 p.m. ET for the Season 6 premiere of The Conners, featuring Nick Offerman opposite John Goodman. If you want to revisit how the fifth season wrapped back in the spring of 2023, you can find the last four episodes streaming with a Hulu subscription now.

Of all the potentially great and wonderful things happening in the world of entertainment throughout 2024, scripted TV’s return to primetime is easily one of the most welcomed. Along with virtually every broadcast series out there, The Conners’ return was delayed due to writer and actor strikes, but fans can look forward to seeing the beloved family struggling anew when Season 6 arrives in February. And star Emma Kenney just offered up a behind-the-scene tease that may or may not be hiding a big spoiler.

The 24-year-old Shameless vet shared an Instagram Story celebrating her first day of filming The Conners in 2024, with her name-emblazoned chair very clear and prominent in the shot. But it’s the blocked out imagery above the chair that has my spidey-sense tingling. (Unless that’s just the after-effects of an actual spider bite.) Check it out!

First and foremost, a big congratulations to Emma Kenney and the rest of the Conners cast and crew for working hard on another new season, which may or may not end up being the final one. (That’s not set in stone or anything, but a possibility several of the stars have discussed.) Production kicked off ahead of 2023 concluding, and ABC gave viewers a holiday treat with the first Season 6 trailer, which confirmed Sean Astin’s return as Becky’s new love interest.

Now what’s behind that pixelated blob?!? It appears to be in front of a screen, possibly showing either dailies footage or a live camera feed, so the intention appears to be to stop her followers from seeing whatever, or whoever, is on it at the time. 

To be sure, I fully understand that there might not be anything shocking lurking behind the blocky pixels, and that sharing peeks of footage from upcoming episodes may be frowned upon by the powers that. But free-flowing guest-star speculation is way more fun than thinking about network standards and practices, so here we are.

Since we already know that Astin’s Tyler will be back to add more smiles and good vibes for Lecy Goranson’s character, we can probably rule him out as being the answer to the mystery. Unless perhaps his relationship with Becky is already going so well that The Conners is introducing someone from his family. Or maybe Winona Ryder could play his ex-girlfriend, in a mirror-verse callback to their on-screen relationship in Stranger Things. 

That may be too out there, though. It’s possible the pixels are covering the face of Estelle Parsons, who could possibly be making another emotional return as Bev. The last time viewers caught up with the Harris side of the family’s matriarch, she was diagnosed with dementia, which led to some uncomfortable hidden memories surfacing. 

For a far less dour guess, it’s possible the Harris Conner actress is hiding the face of past recurring star Tony Cavalero as Harris’ near-husband and ex-boyfriend Aldo. When CinemaBlend talked to Emma Kenney ahead of Season 5’s premiere, she told us that while she agreed with her character’s decision to break it off, she did hope for Cavalero to return down the line.

And while I’m making random guesses, I might as well throw this one out there: George Clooney, the white whale of all Roseanne actors that haven’t made returns after their initial stints. But that’s not likely, and it’s also not likely that it’ll end up being a shot of Mary Conner, as we reported Jayden Rey has exited the sitcom.

The Conners is set to debut Season 6 on ABC starting on Wednesday, February 7, at 8:00 p.m. ET, kicking off a night of laughter rounded off by the Season 2 premiere of Not Dead Yet, Abbott Elementary’s Season 3 premiere, and the winter return of Judge Steve Harvey’s second season. Head to our 2024 TV schedule to see when all the other new and returning shows will be popping up.

The Conners will finally return to primetime as part of the 2024 TV premiere schedule, and the first trailer for the upcoming sixth season confirmed the return of none other than Sean Astin. One member of the cast won't be back in the new batch of episodes, as an actor has been cut as a series regular. While that may be a bummer for fans who enjoy seeing as many Conners as possible involved in the shenanigans, the departure makes enough sense that it was arguably a long time coming. Jayden Rey will not return as a regular for Season 6.

Jayden Rey debuted in her role as Mary Conner back in 2018 as part of the Roseanne revival, and she was brought back when The Conners premiered to replace Roseanne following its unceremonious cancellation. While Mary was originally involved in the family shenanigans on a regular basis due to her dad D.J. agreeing to let her move in with his sisters when he was too busy to spend much time with her and her mom Geena was overseas. Now, Deadline confirms that Rey is out as a series regular, but guest appearances in the sixth season are possible. 

While it's always news when a cast member leaves a hit TV show on the level of The Conners, Rey's absence won't be hard to explain away when the show returns. D.J.'s daughter only appeared in five episodes of the fifth season, although she was listed in the credits for all 22. 

Seeing less of Mary was inevitable after Michael Fishman, who had played D.J. Conner since he was just seven years old going back to the original run of Roseanne, left the series between Season 4 and Season 5. Fishman eventually spoke up about his departure, noting that he was "told I would not be returning for Season 5," making it clear that he did not choose to leave the hit show. 

The Conners explained his absence first by establishing that D.J. had gone overseas to visit his wife and then the family reuniting back in the U.S., with Mary returning to her parents and leaving the main Conner house. Fishman has not appeared in the show since the Season 4 finale, so Jayden Rey technically outlasted him on the spinoff. 

It remains to be seen if The Conners will address Mary's absence upon returning for Season 6. She appeared in few enough episodes of the fifth season that the show might not actually need to do much to explain why she's not around, although I for one would like to see her again. After all, only a handful of episodes are available streaming via Hulu subscription, rather than the entire run of Rey as Mary. As for what we know is on the way in Season 6, take a look at the first trailer:

The Conners will premiere Season 6 on Wednesday, February 7 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. The comedy kicks off a big night of comedy for the network, followed by the debuts of Not Dead Yet Season 2 at 8:30 p.m., Abbott Elementary Season 3 at 9 p.m., and Judge Steve Harvey Season 2 winter premiere at 10 p.m. 

When scripted series return to TV following all the New Year’s Day celebrations, it’ll likely feel like Christmas all over again, with hits such as The Conners and other ABC faves forced to delay new seasons due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. So while Season 6 didn’t get a fall debut, audiences can take comfort in knowing Dan, Darlene, Becky and more will be back on the small screen relatively soon, with the first trailer shining a little light on what’s coming for ABC viewers (and those with Hulu subscriptions). So let’s dive in!

Sean Astin's Return As Becky's New Boyfriend

Easily the biggest takeaway from this first look at The Conners Season 6 is the all-out confirmation that Sean Astin’s Tyler will indeed be back in this family’s inner circle when new episodes arrive. As many fans are aware, the Stranger Things and Goonies vet first appeared as new love interest Tyler back in April ahead of the Season 5 finale, and was introduced as a FedEx pilot who rather quickly hit it off with Lecy Goranson’s Becky.

It wasn’t just Becky that took a liking to Tyler, either, as their potential relationship also sparked some love within the fanbase. A happy and healthy relationship is exactly what Becky has been missing in recent seasons, as each hint of happiness she comes across ends up tainted in some way, occasionally even by her own actions. 

And I’d say Tyler appears to be getting on quite well with the fam-fam in the trailer above, as he’s already been welcomed into the kitchen table poker game. Plus, he’s confident enough to amusingly make threats about liberating Dan from both his money and his first-born. No sign of anything going south there, either, which is perfect. 

When CinemaBlend spoke with The Conners’ executive producers Bruce Helford (showrunner) and Dave Caplan ahead of the Season 5 finale, they were already pretty confident about being able to expand on Tyler and Becky’s future in later episodes, with Helford saying:

Of course, the WGA strike started up soon after that interview took place, which threw wrenches into the works for not just The Conners, but the entire entertainment industry. But while there certainly could have been updates that got in the way of Astin's return, Helford and Caplan apparently worked whatever magic was needed to make the scheduling work. In Tyler we trust. (No, not Tyler Durden, but just in this one instance.)

• RELATED: The Conners' EPs And Star Lecy Goranson Hilariously Had Same Idea For Disney Theme Park Ride Based On The Sitcom
• RELATED: The Conners Bosses On Bringing Those Guardians Of The Galaxy References Into Season 5 Finale
• RELATED: The Conners EPs Talk Dealing With David's Story In Season Finale, Why Johnny Galecki's Absence Worked For Mark And Ben

The Conner Family Looks Too Happy, And I'm Not Comfortable With It

I say this partially in jest, but something feels off about the fact that The Conners' first look at Season 6 is almost entirely smiling faces and studio audience laughter. This sitcom's own sense of logic dictates that if something extremely positive like Sean Astin's Tyler is teased, an opposite-but-equal force of devestation is almost certainly lurking around the corner. 

For the majority of broadcast sitcoms, this wouldn't be so much of an issue, but The Conners has very steadily trudged along with a firm balance between positive-minded plotting and dramatic stings, with plenty of hilarious self-deprecation in the mix. So for ABC to promote Season 6 with a teaser full of laughter, charm and glee? I think we're dealing with a Trojan Horse situation. 

The only moment in the trailer that may legitimately point to a less jubilant moment is when Darlene tells Dan, “I’m scared, Daddy.” But even that bit features laughter in the background, presumably sparked by the use of “Daddy,” so it doesn’t seem like it’s leading into anything too bonkers. 

At this point, it’s entirely possible that Season 6 will be The Conners’ final outing, with John Goodman and co-stars having discussed the show ending with more frequency in the past year or so. Which I think more or less feeds into my light-hearted worries about what’s on the way. There’s no way this show is going to bow out without at least one or two more genuinely heartbreaking plotlines. 

The easiest guess to make would be that something awful will happen to Estelle Parsons’ Bev, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s during one of Season 5’s most emotional eps. I fully thought she was going to be killed off in the aftermath, but that thankfully didn’t happen. (Yet, anyway.) Otherwise, I’m not quite sure who else could be targeted with bad news in Season 6, and I don’t even want to think about it, lest anything come true.

Fans hoping to see more of the family on the small screen can take comfort in The CW’s recent announcement that it now holds the rights to eps from the first five seasons, and will thus be airing back-to-back Conners repeats starting in January.

The Conners Season 6 will debut on ABC starting on Wednesday, February 7, at 8:00 p.m. ET. Head to our 2024 TV premiere schedule to see what other new and returning shows will be arriving soon.

A new era is dawning at The CW, which conducted a cancelation bloodbath earlier this year. As Nexstar Media Group seeks to cut costs and make the network profitable, various changes have been made. In addition to axing most of the original content that was being produced, the corporation has also been brokering deals to acquire content. The latest may be the most surprising yet, as it’ll see ABC’s The Conners being rerun on the channel. Not only that, but a since-canceled series from Hallmark is also set to make its way onto the broadcast schedule. 

The Conners presence on The CW’s roster of small-screen offerings comes by way of a deal that was worked out with Lionsgate. According to Deadline, the network has acquired the rights to the five seasons of the sitcom that have aired thus far. The show is set to air on Thursdays back-to-back from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET, starting on January 4. With this, the ensemble comedy will sit between Canadian comedies Son of a Critch and Children Ruin Everything. The trade also reports that the Roseanne spinoff will be plugged into other parts of the schedule as needed. To be clear, this is not a broadcast syndication deal for Nexstar but is instead part of a distribution deal between Werner Entertainment and Lionsgate.

Another series that the network has managed to pick up is Hallmark’s Ride, which was canceled after one season in November. Only 10 episodes of the show aired before the plug was pulled on the production. Those installments will reportedly begin airing on The CW on January 22 and will be followed by repeats of the original series Wild Cards. One might wonder whether this pick-up means that new episodes of the axed show might be produced, but Deadline reports that a new-season order isn’t planned, at this time. 

These are interesting programming moves to say the least, especially when it comes to The Conners. As the trade points out, it’s not often that reruns of a currently airing show are aired in primetime on another network. Still, one can understand why the entertainment conglomerate would want to get its hands on the sitcom, which premiered in 2018. It’s been a solid ratings earner over the years, and reruns could draw some eyes.

As for the series’ first-run broadcast status, it’s been a little while since viewers have been able to feast their eyes on new installments. This is, of course, due to the Hollywood strikes that persisted for months. It was confirmed in August that The Conners wouldn’t return this fall, but it was at that same time that it was confirmed that the show would be able to hit syndication due to Wener Entertainment’s licensing deal. ABC also just confirmed that the series will return for its sixth season at 8 p.m. ET on February 7 as part of the 2024 TV schedule.

Fans are sure to be happy about its return, while faithful CW watchers are probably still lamenting the bevy of series that have met their demise this year. Among the shows to be canned just earlier this year were The Winchesters, Gotham Knights, Walker: Independence and Kung-Fu. The only four scripted original programs left in the fray are Superman & Lois (which is returning for its final season), Walker, All American and All American: Homecoming. And even those renewals were bittersweet, as all of the programs have been hit with budget cuts. 

The future of this network is hard to predict, but the powers that be seem incredibly confident that these content acquisitions will be beneficial in the long run. Time will tell whether the sitcom featuring the blue-collar family from Lanford, Illinois as well as other sitcoms can help boost viewership – and by extension, revenue. 

Those who’d like to check out The Conners now ahead of its debut on The CW and return to ABC can stream episodes using a Hulu subscription. 

The Conners has been a comedy staple for ABC going back to the premiere in 2018, but the Roseanne spinoff doesn’t have a spot in the network’s reality TV-heavy fall schedule. Due to the WGA writers strike followed by the SAG-AFTRA actors strike, there’s currently no saying when shows like The Conners will be able to start production for the 2023-2024 TV season. While that’s bad news for fans who have been ready for more since the Season 5 finale back in May, there’s some good news as well. It’s just a matter of time before viewers will have the chance to watch in a whole new way. 

Production company Werner Entertainment has finalized a deal with Lionsgate’s Worldwide Television Distribution Group and distribution company Debmar-Mercury for a licensing deal for The Conners, according to Variety. This means that the comedy can officially enter syndication, with the terms of the deal including basic cable, SVOD (subscription video on demand), AVOD (ad-based video on demand), and FAST (free ad-supported television). Global distribution will be handled by Worldwide Television Distribution, with domestic syndication handled by Debmar-Mercury. The expectation is that domestic syndication will begin in fall 2024. 

Now, fall 2024 may sound like a long time off considering that the autumn portion of the 2023 TV schedule hasn’t even begun yet, but it does mean that fans will be able to watch The Conners with methods other than live broadcasts on ABC and streaming with a Hulu subscription. Hulu is a great place to watch recent episodes of the sitcom, but only the most recent season is available. At this point, you can only find Season 5 on Hulu. The syndication deal includes all five seasons of the show so far, as well as any future seasons. The Conners was renewed for Season 6 back in May. 

The Season 6 renewal means that the sitcom, which is ABC’s most-watched comedy series, will hit 100 episodes, and that is not a milestone that too many network TV shows hit in recent years. As of the end of the fifth season, 93 episodes have aired. Assuming that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes don’t last so long that Season 6 runs for just six episodes, fans will be able to celebrate that milestone when the show returns. 

Of course, the cast members who reprised their roles from Roseanne have been back for more than 100 episodes already. The original series was revived for a tenth season back in 2018, with Roseanne Barr once again starring as Roseanne Conner, but the revival ultimately only ran for nine episodes before it was cancelled due to controversial remarks made by Barr. Roseanne had already been renewed for Season 11 prior to ABC deciding to cancel it and move forward with a spinoff that ultimately killed off Barr’s character. 

For now, fans of the sitcom can celebrate the deal to bring it to syndication while also crossing fingers that the strikes will be resolved soon and enable The Conners to get into production on Season 6. For now, you can always revisit the fifth season streaming on Hulu.

So often, the fates of TV casts and crews are decided by the whims of audience behavior, and that’s only become more clear as streaming’s hold on entertainment grows stronger. Thankfully, not all shows deal with such precipices, with ABC’s The Conners trucking along while still holding strong as one of the network’s top comedies alongside Abbott Elementary. And while there hasn’t been much worry about the Lanford family facing the cancellation axe directly, it sounds like the comedy’s sixth season may be its endgame, with both star John Goodman and showrunner Bruce Helford speaking to that fact in the aftermath of Season 5.

Making the planning process even more difficult at the moment is the ongoing WGA writers strike, which has completely shaken up the TV industry months after it went into effect. We know that ABC already prepared for a lack of Fall TV premieres and is set to hold off on its big scripted shows until the new year. While it’s unclear if that will have any direct effect on how The Conners will continue exploring the titular family’s livelihood, let’s dig into what’s been said about this next year possibly being the final outing.  

What John Goodman Has Said

Despite previously considering a step back from working so much, John Goodman has been crushing the double-series life in recent years, bouncing between The Conners’ lo-fi dysfunction and the far higher-profile chaos at the heart of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones. But while the televangelist comedy’s future isn’t up for discussion at the moment, Goodman did address the idea that Dan Conner & Co. may only be around for another year, while also pointing out that ABC already defied expectations by renewing the show as many times as it already has. Here’s how he put it to France 24: 

Goodman sounds like he might be of two minds on the idea, in that he might be perfectly fine with saying goodbye to the TV set he’s called home for more than 15 (non-continuous) years, but also wouldn’t fight against the idea of keeping The Conners going until the last possible moment. We probably shouldn’t expect to see him reuniting with Roseanne Barr during the show’s swan song, but that would be one of the biggest TV moments of the century if it happened.

What The Showrunner Has Said

For all that John Goodman has and can say about The Conners possibly wrapping up, it’s technically not his area of expertise to speak to the creative and production side of things. That falls more on showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan, who have been steering the ship throughout all the seasons that have aired to date, as well as co-star and fellow EP Sara Gilbert. When things hit the point where Gilbert isn’t interested anymore, that’s when everyone will hang it up, and Helford hinted at that being a likelihood going forward, telling this to TVLine around the time when Season 5 was wrapping up: 

When it comes to ongoing goals for the show's creative team, Bruce Helford previously talked to CinemaBlend about the desire to bring Stranger Things and The Goonies vet Sean Astin back on the show as Becky’s latest love interest for the long haul, even if that only ends up being a single season. Becky deserves it more than fans do, but fans also deserve seeing these characters reaching points of extended glee. As well, Lecy Goranson talked with us about the guest stars she'd love to see join the show before it all wraps up, so here's hoping the powers that be can make more magic happen once the strike is over.

Fans can rewatch the fifth season of The Conners in its entirety with a Hulu subscription while waiting to see if and when Season 6 will indeed be the final batch of eps for this multigenerational clan. 

The Conners recently received good news from ABC, with the announcement of a sixth season to come this fall (though probably later than usual). However, as fans celebrate the renewal news, it might be easy to forget that five years ago the spinoff was born after controversial comments from Rosanne Barr caused the cancellation of her eponymous sitcom. Barr certainly hasn’t forgotten that, and she spoke out again recently, putting the blame on her former co-star Sara Gilbert, saying that The Conners star “stabbed me in the back.”

Roseanne Barr has seemingly always seen Sara Gilbert as the reason the Roseanne revival came to end, after the Darlene portrayer denounced Barr’s racist tweet about former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, with Barr even comparing Gilbert to Hanibal Lector. The former queen of primetime repeated similar sentiments on The Megyn Kelly Show’s YouTube channel in a conversation about cancel culture, in which Barr said: 

Not only does Roseanne Barr feel that Sara Gilbert speaking out on Twitter led to her show’s cancellation, but she was clearly hurt by her former co-star’s discussions of the issue on the CBS daytime talk show. 

However, the Roseanne star was known at the time for tweeting her strong opinions, and ABC had reportedly already contacted her on multiple occasions about her Twitter rage. The racist comment toward Valerie Jarrett proved to be the nail in the sitcom’s coffin, and for that of her character.

When The Conners premiered in 2018 sans-Roseanne Barr, it was revealed that the Conner matriarch had died of an opioid overdose. The actress spoke about her distaste for that decision at the time, and she divulged to Megyn Kelly that she took the message personally, saying it wasn’t just her TV character who died, but her personal character as well. She explained: 

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, and Roseanne Barr admitted that she thinks she’s better off without her former co-stars in her life now. You can see their conversation below: 

While the comedian hasn’t appeared on television since her fall from grace, she did record a standup special, Roseanne Barr: Cancel This!, in which she namechecked Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. in regard to their own controversies.

As for The Conners, the ongoing WGA writers strike has things up in the air in regards to its Season 6 premiere date, but keep an eye on the 2023 TV schedule to see all of the upcoming premieres. 

With The Conners Season 5 finale wrapping up with various family members celebrating the high school “graduations” they weren’t privy to in the past, it might have been a unique way for the network sitcom to close out entirely. Luckily for the show’s loyal fanbase, ABC is all about keeping its most popular comedy series around, with the Season 6 renewal officially getting announced this week amid all the cancellation news. What can we expect to see from the Lanford clan whenever new episodes arrive? If it looks like a happy Becky romance, and sounds like a happy Becky romance, I think we can assume that’s what it’ll be, assuming past guest star Sean Astin can make the scheduling work.

CinemaBlend talked with The Conners showrunner Bruce Helford and fellow executive producer Dave Caplan ahead of the Season 5 finale (and thus ahead of the now-ongoing WGA writers strike), and also ahead of ABC’s renewal announcement. But considering both of them are aware enough of how well the show has been doing for ABC, they talked with confidence about where they’re interested in taking the story next, and everything may be coming up roses for Lecy Goranson’s Becky and Sean Astin’s Tyler, who was first introduced as a possible love interest in the episode “What's So Funny About Peas, Love and Understanding?” Here’s how Helford teased things: 

What what? Becky Conner in an actual loving and romantic relationship for the long haul that (presumably) won’t involve potential deportation or an unplanned pregnancy from freezer sex? That sounds like a winner on all fronts, since Becky has gone through a whole lot of hardships and emotional wrangling without many avenues to long-lasting happiness. Obviously her and Emilio’s daughter Beverly Rose counts as one, but since she’s not always in Becky’s care, even she feels like less of a permanent source of glee. 

But it was very clear from Episode 520 that Becky and Tyler shared a connection that felt as if it extended to the actors themselves successfully bonding in the relatively short amount of time Sean Astin was available for filming. To that end, Dave Caplan said they also feel Becky is now at a centered place where she’s ready to take on a serious romance from a sensible perspective.

For as much as The Conners’ producers probably wanted the best from bringing Sean Astin into the cast, especially since the show is a proven magnet for awesome guest stars, it sounds like Bruce Helford & Co. weren’t initially hooked to the idea of bringing Tyler in on a more permanent basis. Rather, it sounds like everyone’s experiences filming the episode led to further conversations about where that storyline could go. In his words: 

As awesome as all of the above is, we’ll close things out on a slightly more bittersweet note, with Dave Caplan sharing hopes for a lack of setbacks from the writers strike, not realizing it would soon derail the networks’ Fall TV lineup, with all scripted shows being currently held for midseason debuts.  

Somehow I doubt the strike counts as something they all wanted to do, but if anything, here's hoping it leads to the best storylines possible being conceived, if not yet put to paper. As well, nobody ask Sean Astin to be in any giant movies where he would have to turn down The Conners. Please, and thank you.

While waiting to see when The Conners will return to audiences for Season 6, fans can rewatch all of Season 5 with a Hulu subscription.

Those who regularly watch network television surely have a general understanding of how scheduling works for scripted programming. The TV season begins in the fall, with a number of major shows either premiering or returning between September and November. When it comes to the alphabet network, its planning to bring back a number of notable shows for the 2023-2024 circuit. However, based on the ABC fall TV schedule, things are going to look somewhat different near the end of this year. And it means that fans of The Conners, Grey’s Anatomy and more are going to have to wait longer than usual for new seasons. 

How Does ABC’s Fall TV Schedule Look Different This Time Around?

As is usually the case for this time of the year, the alphabet network unveiled its schedule for the upcoming TV season. However, anyone who checked it out was probably surprised to see that it doesn’t include new episodes of returning or premiering scripted shows. Instead, there’s a plethora of reality TV series and game shows. Among those titles are Dancing with the Stars, Celebrity Jeopardy!, Bachelor in Paradise and Judge Steve Harvey. You can see the schedule in its entirety down below: 

Monday
8 p.m. Dancing with the Stars
10 p.m. The Golden Bachelor
Tuesday
8 p.m. Celebrity Jeopardy!
9 p.m. Bachelor in Paradise
Wednesday
8 p.m. Judge Steve Harvey
9 p.m. Abbott Elementary (Encore)
9:30 p.m. Abbott Elementary (Encore)
10 p.m. What Would You Do?
Thursday
8 p.m. Celebrity Wheel of Fortune
9 p.m. Press Your Luck
10 p.m. The $100,000 Pyramid
Friday
8 p.m. Shark Tank
9:01 p.m. 20/20
Saturday
7:30 p.m. College Football
Sunday
7 p.m. America's Funniest Home Videos
8 p.m. The Wonderful World of Disney

Interestingly, the one piece of scripted content that still appears to be in the mix is Abbott Elementary, but even those will simply be reruns of the Emmy-winning workplace comedy. To be fair, all of that probably looks incredibly appealing for anyone who loves reality TV or competition-centric fare. But it’s honestly weird to see the lack of sitcoms and dramas. Upon the schedule’s release, Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich had this to say: 

So some of you may be wondering what the hold-up is when it comes to the other various series. Well, it more than likely has to do with an ongoing situation in Hollywood.

What’s Led To This Change In ABC’s Schedule?

The key factor at play here is the ongoing WGA writers strike, which kicked off earlier this month. It’s the first protest of its kind to take place in 15 years and, at this point, there’s no telling just how long it might last. The previous one began in 2007 and lasted more than three months. While that doesn’t necessarily mean that this current situation will have that kind of longevity, it’s still a possibility. With all of that in mind, the ABC fall TV schedule indicates that Disney is bracing for that scenario. The company isn't the only entity making big changes either, as NBC's schedule raises some serious questions as well.

In its press release, the company mentioned that other dates would be confirmed at a later date. I suppose that if there’s any positive that fans can derive from this, it’s that there are a number of shows that have been renewed. For instance, The Good Doctor is returning for Season 7, while The Conners has a sixth season on the way. The long-running Grey’s Anatomy, meanwhile, is looking towards its 20th. On top of all this, Fox drama 9-1-1 is moving to the network for its seventh season. So there’s still a lot to look forward to – it’s just going to take longer for all of it to arrive. 

For now, keep an eye on the 2023 TV schedule for any changes, and know that you can stream Grey’s, The Conners, Abbott Elementary and many of the other shows on hold using a Hulu subscription.

Scripted TV shows aren’t always the best at telling extremely timely stories, since episodes are often written weeks, if not months, ahead of their eventual airdates. But as The Conners proved with its Season 5 finale, it’s easier to achieve currency relevance when angling to the future, leading to not just one, but two scenes referencing Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. And one of them involving Mark ripping on his mom, which doesn’t seem like it would be approved by Star-Lord.

In The Conners’ latest season capper, an early scene showed Jay R. Ferguson’s Ben rocking a sweet T-shirt featuring Chris Pratt’s Walkman-adoring hero, while a later scene specifically namechecked the second and third Guardians of the Galaxy films. When I talked to showrunner Bruce Helford and executive producer Dave Caplan about crossing paths with space-faring superheroes, at least in reference form, the latter confirmed that was indeed a request made by ABC and Disney, saying: 

Bruce Helford chimed in, stressing that it was more of a friendly ask and not a corporate demand, while also explaining why he was perfectly happy with giving it a thumbs up.

In the scheme of things, it now seems weird that Ben doesn't wear way more T-shirts that display all of his pop culture loves. And without even bringing the Disney/Marvel-ness into it, none of the characters central to The Conners would stand out if they'd be seen in a movie theater chowing down on popcorn while watching Quantumania, The Marvels, or the slew of upcoming Marvel movies down the line.

On the flip side, it was slightly more bizarre to see Nathan Fillion’s John Nolan wearing a Guardians of the Galaxy T-shirt in The Rookie’s cliffhanger finale, even though Fillion is actually IN GOTG Vol. 3. Which isn’t to say Nolan looks like he abhors superheroes, but it still felt like more of a shoehorned-in approach. 

The Conners circled back to the super-squad later, when Ben was attempting to bond more with Mark in light of all things David-related coming back into play temporarily. They had the following exchange:

• Ben: Come on, we can watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Get ready for Guardians 3. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm gonna say that they'll be guarding the galaxy.
• Mark: Do you think they'll be battling intergalactic monsters like Mother?

How sweet would it be if the real villain for the franchise was actually Sara Gilbert's Darlene? I mean, it wouldn't be sweet for the universe.

Can we expect any other upcoming Disney movies to show up on The Conners in the future? Dave Caplan joked about another highly anticipated blockbuster, but don’t actually expect it to happen. (Especially if the WGA writers strike continues.)

The Conners recently enjoyed some synergy-driven fun by bringing in Whoopi Goldberg as a guest star, with Lecy Goranson saying it was “such a delight” to have the View moderator on the set. And to a similar, I asked her, Helford and Caplan about their thoughts on what a Conners Disney theme park ride would be like if it happened, and they offered up some A+ ideas. 

For now, it’s unknown if and when The Conners will be back on ABC, with Season 6 news still unconfirmed. But it seems likely, even with the strike, so keep those fingers crossed, whether they’re human, raccoon, tree, or otherwise.