Roseanne Spinoff Is Officially Happening, Without Roseanne Barr's Involvement

Just last month ABC cancelled Roseanne after a racist tweet published by Roseanne Barr, a notorious bigot, sparked torrents of criticism. But on Thursday the network announced that it’s going ahead with a Roseanne spinoff in which the show’s namesake will not appear (per Deadline, she also won’t have any financial or creative involvement). The new title is, tentatively, The Conners.

The New York Times reports that the spinoff will debut on ABC in the fall, and will feature the other lead cast members who are not Roseanne, namely John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, and Sara Gilbert. The top producers and entire writing staff will also get to keep their jobs (I mean “get cool new jobs on The Conners”). Now Gilbert’s character, Darlene, will serve as the epicenter of the show. Buzzfeed is speculating they’ll write off Roseanne by making her die of knee surgery…or something (shocker: I’m not a trusted viewer).

Goodman, Gilbert, Metcalf, Lecy Goranson, an Michael Fishman said in a joint statement on Wednesday:

“We have received a tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it’s clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience.

We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today. We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter.”

Barr said in a statement, “I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from ‘Roseanne.’ I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved.” It’s not even subtle how she turned this into her saving jobs, jobs she jeopardized in the first place, “good American jobs,” is something she would probably say.