It’s time for the saga of The Conners and the long shadow of Roseanne to finally come to an end. ABC announced that it had picked up the sitcom for a seventh and final season today (via The Hollywood Reporter), putting a nice cap on one of television’s more surprising success stories.
The story of The Conners really started with an incredibly misguided tweet. In 2018, ABC decided to bring back Roseanne, the comedy starring Roseanne Barr and her fictional family, The Conners, that originally ran on the network for nine seasons, from 1988 through 1997. The reboot was incredibly popular. That is, until Barr hit send on a racist, “repugnant” Tweet about Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and ABC decided to cancel the show after just one season. There was clearly still a lot of juice in the reboot, however, which left the network in the curious position of attempting to re-reboot Roseanne without actually including Roseanne.
Against all odds, it worked. According to Nielsen data, The Conners has remained ABC’s most-watched comedy throughout its entire run, including the currently-airing sixth season, which is averaging approximately 4.3 million viewers per week (per THR). And that doesn’t even include streaming data! That is a fall from the series’ first season, which averaged 9.53 million viewers, although a lot of those eyeballs were likely coming as a direct result of the controversy. For the show to actually retain such a large chunk of that viewership, especially in the streaming age, is a real feat.
Still, the final season of the series will reportedly be its shortest yet, with less than 10 episodes overall. No release date has been announced, but there will probably be a little time off after the season six finale, which airs May 22.
The Conners stars John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson, Emma Kenney, Ames McNamara, and Jayden Ray, who all reprised their roles from the Roseanne revival. (Roseanne canonically dies offscreen prior to the events of the show.) Jay R. Ferguson and Katey Sagal also joined the cast in later seasons.