Roseanne

Last night, I had another weird dream--and I should clarify that I tend to have a lot of bizarre dreams. This one placed me in the heart of the Conner household. The Roseanne Conner that began to talk to me looked like the Mrs. Conner from the Roseanne pilot: blue sweatshirt and frizzy brown hair. Surprisingly, she wasn't sarcastic and didn't make jokes at anyone's expense. Dan Conner was unusually quiet, though Darlene and DJ were definitely in character. Where Becky Conner was, I had no idea. I remember interacting with DJ quite a bit, and he was a real brat. Darlene was, well, Darlene. The part that got really strange was when Roseanne took me upstairs and told me to stay in Darlene's room. Somehow, that bedroom was huge--I could've sworn it was the master bedroom. There were wooden floors, wooden dressers, and Darlene evidently had a Queen bed. All I remember was standing speechless and momentarily wishing I was related to Roseanne Conner.

Well, that was just a dream. As bizarre as it was, the dream does reflect my interest in Roseanne. When TV Land reran the show incessantly last summer, I thought to myself, "Oh God, it's that crazy fat woman." But I began to watch the show, and I started to enjoy the zany one-liners and controversial plots. Seasons 1-5 are definitely the show's best with the peak occurring during the third and fourth seasons. The plots and rhetoric were convincing because they reflect real people and real lives. I could barely put the remote down after each episode and was really intrigued by the nuances of each character. Once I started watching season 6, however, I began to lose interest; Roseanne Conner became a selfish diva, and the characters started to morph in different directions. Jackie in particular became more bizarre (though I later found out Roseanne wanted the character to be a reflection of Barnie Fife). Don't even get me started on season 9: the premise was interesting (the Conners win the lottery), but the writing was awful. The show stopped being funny because Roseanne turned into a man-hating feminist, Becky turned into a Barbie doll, Mark became dumber than President Bush, and even Dan started to become unlikeable.

Overall, the show is really good, and despite my not liking the later seasons as much, there are some token gems from all seasons (especially "Girl Talk" from season 7 and "Heart and Soul" and "Fights and Stuff" from season 8). If you have the opportunity, definitely watch Roseanne; if anything, you'll at least be presented with a realistic and truthful point of view.