Could ‘Roseanne’ Continue Without Its Lead? Fans Call for a Conner Spinoff

LAURIE METCALF, AMES MCNAMARA, JAYDEN REY, LECY GORANSON, EMMA KENNEY, ROSEANNE BARR, JOHN GOODMAN, MICHAEL FISHMAN, SARA GILBERT
ABC/Adam Rose

News broke Tuesday that ABC had canceled Roseanne after the lead, Roseanne Barr, posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a former aide in the Obama administration.

Since then, the fallout has been fierce: Celebrities and fans celebrated on social media, ABC scrubbed the show from their site, Hulu and Viacom dropped the sitcom from its rerun schedule — as did Paramount Network, TV Land, and CMT.

Then, the Internet exploded with questions about what the network will do next to fill the coveted 8/7c Tuesday night slot. Without the show’s namesake, is there enough star power to continue?

Possibly.

Many fans of the rebooted show feel the success was due to other members of the Conner family — Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), Dan (John Goodman), Darlene (Sara Gilbert) — and believe the show can be revamped without Barr. In fact, they want her character to be killed off.

A very realistic fan-made TV poster about Jackie started to circulate around Twitter and garnered a lot of attention, including a social media shout out from fellow sitcom star Jim Parsons.

Plus, with the gap in the fall lineup, other TV stars are pitching their canceled shows for a new reboot. Would you be into Two and a Half Men or Pushing Daisies coming back? Charlie Sheen and Bryan Fuller are all about it.

The opening is even causing ABC to revisit some of the pilots they passed on like New Girl‘s Hannah Simone’s updated version of The Greatest American Hero.

Deadline is reporting a few different half-hour comedies could fill the void and ABC execs are in talks regarding the new series Schooled (The Goldbergs spinoff) and the Untitled Justin Noble show, starring Kat Dennings. Also in contention is, Steps, starting Once Upon a Time‘s Ginnifer Goodwin, about divorced parents raising kids, which was previously passed over.

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