Season 9 of “Roseanne:” is one of the most jarring shifts in narrative tone and series concepts I’ve ever seen. Throughout the entire series we’re told time and time again that Dan and Roseanne are humongous fans of two shows: Bonanza and The Beverly Hillbillies. Someone thought it’d be a great idea if the final season of “Roseanne” took off from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” thus betraying every sensibility the show once had. Season 9 is an unwatchable calamity of nonsense.
It varies from really bad comedy to really awful melodrama, and paints its originally lovable characters as parodies of themselves. The once subtly dumb Mark is now a complete and total buffoon, Becky is utterly irrelevant in the skin of the poorly underused Sarah Chalke, DJ is given a boring love interest and suddenly wants to become a filmmaker, and all of the supporting characters are completely idiotic offering no laughs.
You could reasonably make the assertion that I’ve rooted for “Holliston” to stink. And you wouldn’t be that far off. I didn’t root for it to stink, but I was never an ardent supporter of it from out the gates because I simply had nothing to gain from it. “Holliston” is still a vanity project and is still a bit odd, but thankfully the show has gotten better.
