Despite creating record-breaking ratings and scoring a renewal only a few days after its premiere, the Roseanne revival has been the center of a lot of negative buzz in recent weeks. The smash hit series was cancelled after star Roseanne Barr fired off a controversial tweet, prompting ABC to take immediate action. Barr came to regret her words and even blamed the tweet on Ambien, but her regret wasn't enough to save the series, and the Conner family will be back without Roseanne in an upcoming spinoff. Now, legendary comedian and sitcom star in his own right Jerry Seinfeld has weighed in on the controversial firing, saying this:
I didn't see why it was necessary to fire her. Why would you murder someone who's committing suicide? But I never saw someone ruin their entire career with one button push. That was fresh.
According to Jerry Seinfeld, ABC didn't need to fire Roseanne Barr from Roseanne, which might be a controversial stance to take if not for the rest of his comment. After all, a lot of people were upset at the content of her tweet, and ABC didn't waste any time in taking action in response to it. That said, the rest of what Seinfeld had to say points toward his belief that Barr was going to tank her career anyway, even without ABC's quick move to cancel her series and boot her out of the Conner family.
The odds are that Roseanne Barr won't be welcomed back into the Conner family despite the fact that the rest of the Roseanne cast will reprise their roles in the upcoming spinoff, currently titled The Conners. While ABC hasn't announced how Roseanne will be written out of the spinoff, the first description for the project states that it will pick up after "a sudden turn of events," which could point toward Roseanne Conner dying off-screen at some point between the end of the Roseanne revival and the premiere of The Conners.
It wouldn't be the first time in recent years that a sitcom kills off a matriarch between seasons, and ABC took steps to guarantee that Barr won't benefit financially from the spinoff. The Alphabet Network seems to have definitively cut ties with Barr, and viewers probably shouldn't count on her in the mix with new footage at any point on the spinoff. That said, if Jerry Seinfeld has his way, The Conners will bring back Roseanne Conner without bringing back Roseanne Barr. He went on in his chat with ET to pitch a way for the whole Conner family to return to primetime:
I think they should get another Roseanne. They brought Dan Conner back, he was dead and they just brought him back. So, why can't we get another Roseanne? There's other funny women that could do that part. You need to get the comic in there. I hate to see a comic lose a job.
Jerry Seinfeld would apparently be on board with The Conners recasting the role of Roseanne. Recasting the character actually named after the original actress would be a bold move, but why not? ABC is already gambling that viewers will tune in to a Roseanne-less spinoff, so maybe a recast could be worth the gamble. That said, when Roseanne brought Dan Conner back from the dead for the revival, John Goodman still played the role. Would viewers really accept a Roseanne played by another actress, no matter how skilled?
We'll have to wait and see. Although I wouldn't put any money on ABC recasting Roseanne for The Conners, anything can happen at this point. The Conners will hit the airwaves in the fall to replace Roseanne's planned second season. For what you can watch in the meantime, check out our summer TV premiere guide.
