The Conners Just Proved Louise Can’t Replace Roseanne
Katey Sagal is no stranger to playing sitcom matriarchs, but The Connershas proven that her character, Louise, isn’t a Roseanne replacement, and that's a good thing. When a television show loses a pivotal member of its original lineup, producers are often tempted to find an exact stand-in for the missing character and hope that viewers won’t mind the blatant substitution. This maneuver has rarely been more expected — and ultimately more of a relief that it's been avoided — than with Sagal's addition to The Conners.
The current show began life as Roseanne, a successful '80s and '90s sitcom focused on the titular antiheroine and her dysfunctional but loving blue-collar family. However, the 2018 revival of Roseanne becameThe Conners after Roseanne Barr's racist tweets led to the star being fired and to the series being retooled as a result. Since then, there has been a Roseanne-shaped hole in the Conner family’s dynamic and, given how central Barr’s character was to the original Roseanne formula, the spinoff had plenty of reason to replace her with a very similar figure.
Related: The Conners Season 5 Is Essential, But Needs To Fix 2 Major Problems
Given the circumstances of Roseanne’s off-screen death — an unexpected opioid overdose — hastily replacing her would have made the Conners seem callous. As a result, Roseanne’s widow, Dan, was given until season 2 before he warmed to the idea of dating Louise. Then it took until the season 3 finale for Dan and Louise to get engaged. Sagal also came to prominence in an '80s and '90s sitcom about a raucous working-class family, so she might have seemed an easy fit for the vacant matriarch role, but The Conners has surprisingly accepted that her character is not a Roseanne
Read more on screenrant.com
