It was a desultory scene on “The Conners” last night.
The wedding of Roseanne’s widower Dan to Louise got overnight numbers of 3.3 million, just less than half of the 7 million plus audience for NBC’s “Chicago Fire.” Who is even on “Fire’? Does anyone know?
“The Conners” are not on fire. The show — I watched it– is very badly written now. Bruce Helford is not writing the scripts. The credited writer is Dave Caplan, PhD. PhD???? That “The Conners” writer advertises a PhD in his credit tells you everything. Also, Caplan was the writer of Charlie Sheen’s hideous “Anger Management” series. He’s even imported Brian Austin Green from there.
Poor Laurie Metcalf is just flailing around. She did a bit of shtick on last night’s show but it was lost on everyone. She’s sublime. Lacey Goranson has really turned out to be terrific. But John Goodman has the appearance of being unwell, which is very upsetting.
And there was no mention of the deceased Roseanne. Her kids and sister didn’t even say her name, Dan didn’t reflect on remarrying. She is dead again.
Three seasons into the post-Roseanne exile world, “The Conners” is just a mess. The audience is stable at 3 million but the magic is all gone. And for some reason, Fred Savage, of “Wonder Years” fame, made a cameo last night. Ironically, Savage is involved with the new “Wonder Years,” which isn’t getting an audience a half hour earlier. I miss “Mixed-ish.”
Luckily I was able to get right on Hulu afterwards and watch the latest two episodes of “Only Murders in the Building.” Just a great series, and last night Amy Ryan– bless her heart– stole the show.
