Everything ’90s is new again. And the latest news that’ll have you cumbersomely texting on your flip phone is that a reboot of classic sitcom Roseanne is in the works.
Rather than just being inspired by the original series, the new eight-episode version would star some of the same actors who fronted the show back in the day: Roseanne Barr, John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf and Sara Gilbert.
According to Deadline, the show is being shopped around to networks; Netflix and ABC (which first aired the series), are reportedly interested. Original Roseanne co-producers Tom Werner and Bruce Helford will also return.
“Of course I want to do a reboot of Roseanne,” Barr wrote Saturday on Twitter. “New political reality in our country will make for some great jokes!”
Airing from 1988 to 1997, Roseanne featured the flannel-clad antics of the working-class Conner family. Barr and Goodman played sardonic parents Dan and Roseanne, while Gilbert, Michael Fishman and Sarah Chalke (who replaced Lecy Goranson), played their kids.
Johnny Galecki, who now stars on a little show called The Big Bang Theory, embodied Gilbert’s onscreen husband, David. No word yet on whether he’s on board to relive his TV past.
Another unknown? How the series will address Dan’s death from a heart attack in Season 8.
Though Dan appeared throughout Season 9, everything in that season was revealed to be just a dream of Roseanne’s. The finale explained that the events in the series were written as a book based on the character’s life and family, and that she had changed certain things she didn’t like.
“I’ve already written the scenes about Dan’s death,” Barr wrote Sunday on Twitter. “Don’t send me more suggestions, thnx!”
Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon in American Gods [Amazon Prime Canada]
American Gods, based on Neil Gaiman’s like-titled book, is now streaming on Amazon Prime Canada. In it, recently released convict Shadow (Ricky Whittle), meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), who offers him a job that changes his life. In particular, he’s introduced to a hidden world of magic where there’s a power struggle between the old gods and the new gods.
“In this scenario, the old gods have gradually become ordinary people doing ordinary things. And Wednesday decides to awaken them from their slumber because they’re being overtaken by the modern world, and by technology and the ‘gods of nothingness,’ as he calls it, the faithless gods,” McShane recently told Postmedia News.
“It’s not a new idea. I think it’s just become more pronounced the last few years because of the political climate we’re living in. The show wasn’t made to say ‘Oh, this is a political statement’. It just happens to be very apt for the time.”
American Gods was filmed in Ontario and also stars B.C.-born actor Pablo Schreiber as the 4,000-year-old leprechaun Mad Sweeney.
