Roseanne Is Back As A Deplorable: 5 Facts About Sitcom Reboot

Let’s jump back to 1997 when we last checked in on the Conner family on the ABC sitcom "Roseanne." Roseanne and her sister, Jackie, were never lottery millionaires. She dreamt the whole thing to cope with the sudden death of Dan Conner, the patriarch. So, how do scriptwriters come back from that? In TV, anything is possible.

The reboot of “Roseanne,” the sitcom that ran from 1988-1997, returns to ABC at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time Tuesday. The original cast returns, including Roseanne Barr in the title role, John Goodman as Dan, Laurie Metcalf as Jackie, Sara Gilbert as Darlene, Michael Fishman as D.J., and both Beckys — Lecy Goranson, who played Darlene’s older sister in early episodes, and Sarah Chalke, who played the character in later seasons.

The premiere episode, titled “Twenty Years to Life,” will launch an eight-episode reboot. Here are five things to know:

Rosanne is a “deplorable” who voted for President Donald Trump. In its first iteration, “Roseanne” took on progressive issues of the day — birth control for teenagers, gay relationships and abortion among them. The reboot also mirrors real life. Just as the 2016 presidential election divided many American families, Roseanne and Jackie haven’t spoken in nearly a year. Roseanne explains her vote for Trump: “He talked about jobs, Jackie. He said he’d shape things up. I mean, this might come as a complete shock to you, but we almost lost our house, the way things are going.” Jackie appears wearing a pink pussy hat and “nasty woman” T-shirt.

The series maintains its focus on working class American families. As Goranson explained it to Huffington Post that to Barr, “that really is what’s most important, depict the working class” and real-life struggles. “And that’s what drives the show. And that’s what drives her. It’s her passion.” That may not be glamorous, Goranson said, but “at the core, here is a great deal of suffering in this country and a great deal of strife and there’s a lot of voices that aren’t being recognized and aren’t being heard.”

Dan is alive. Forget all about his 1997 death. Roseanne is a writer and took editorial license. “There’s little clues and openings as we go along that explain certain things as much as possible and jibe with the original ending there,” show runner Bruce Helford told FilmSlash.com. “There was a lot of dream sequence to it because Roseanne was coming out of a dream and that affected certain things. And then Roseanne’s writing is acknowledged as well and her work as a writer and how that affected things.”

Sara Gilbert will have a larger presence than Roseanne. The show hasn’t lost its ability to put a sharp point on social issues of the day, according to Tom Arnold, Barr’s one-time husband who appeared in several episodes of the original series. Darlene is grown up, but is unemployed and still living in the Conner home with her gender-fluid son, Mark, played by Ames McNamara.

Roseanne and Dan are on a lot of meds. In the original series, the Conners were leftover hippies who grew up in the sexual and drug revolution of the 1960s, but left their lifestyle behind when they started having kids. In the “A Stash from the Past” episode, they found a small bag of marijuana they thought belonged to David, Darlene’s boyfriend, but later discover they forgot to throw it out. Now, their drugs are legally prescribed.

Photo: “Roseanne” returns for an eight-episode run Tuesday with a cast that includes Ames McNamara, Sara Gilbert, Laurie Metcalf, Emma Kenney, Jayden Rey, Roseanne Barr, Michael Fishman, John Goodman, Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke. (Photo courtesy of ABC Television)