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Roseanne Barr Raises Dan From The Dead, ‘Will & Grace’ Erase 20-Years: Revivals Take Big Chances

By Roz Zurko
Published on: 12:00 PST, Aug 6, 2017

When Roseanne went off the air 20 years ago they burned one very big bridge on the show’s finale… Dan. It was learned that Dan had died of a heart attack during the previous Roseanne season. To make it even a bit more perplexing, a lot of what the viewers saw in the final season with the Conners became filthy rich “was all an invention of the eponymous character’s writing,” according to the A.V. Club.

With the news from ABC that a Roseanne revival is in the works, fans were surprised to see that John Goodman has signed on to play his role of Dan. With the fans of the show remembering back to his demise, they wondered just how the creators of Roseanne were going to explain this one.

So how is the crew from Roseanne going to raise Dan from the dead? Well, that just might be the first cliffhanger you get from the Roseanne revival. ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey met with the Television Critics Association recently and confirmed that when Roseanne returns in 2018, Dan will be among the cast, although she didn’t say if he’d be living or not.

When the popular shows come to their end, for the sake of going out with a bang, characters die, divorce, move away and go missing, along with other “forever” cliff hangers as the show comes to a close. Thoughts of coming back with another season of the series or even just a revival show are not necessarily taken into consideration when a show with high ratings goes off the air for good. Many shows are known for their finale and many of those finales are controversial. This is what has happened with another show about to return to the air after a decade of being off the air – Will & Grace.

The A.V. Club reports that you will find that the ninth season of Will & Grace, which is due to air this fall, will go against what some of the fans already know. They will “wave away some elements of their season finale.” The creators of the shows from yesteryear are taking liberties and going against the grain of the final episodes of their shows. Roseanne and Will & Grace are two shows that ended one way, but now history is in the middle of a rewrite.

When Will & Grace went off the air in 2006, the finale jumped ahead 20 years into the future. The storyline had the main characters estranged all that time and they reunited with 20 years of a different life under their belts for that show’s finale. Their lives were pretty much set, kids were involved and the Will & Grace characters you once knew were 20 years older in just the time it took to air one more episode.

They are even putting Will & Grace back into their old apartments. The series is taking place in real time, 2017 and it starts off pretty much with a clean slate from back in the days when Will & Grace lived alone across the hall from one another. There are no spouses, as Harry Connick Jr. and Bobby Cannavale have been “chucked as well,” according to the New York Post.

When they return in the fall it will be like the finale never took place. According to the New York Post, creators, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick announced that “the finale has been tossed out.” For the fans of both Roseanne and Will & Grace, this is mostly good news, according to the fans on social media. The consensus seems to be that the fans fell in love with the show the way it was, not the way the shows ended up during the two different finales. Back when they first aired, both finales got backlash because of the large jump they both did from the original plot. As Uprox calls Roseanne’s final shows, the “terribly weird final season.”

So it seems that Roseanne is not the only show that is going to need to rewrite history so all the characters fit together on this plane. With Dan coming back from the dead, at least they are spared making him a dearly departed that joins the cast as a ghostly encounter.

You remember Roseanne and Dan’s semi-adopted son who ended up as their son-in-law as the series progressed. That would be Johnny Galecki, who played the role of David. He is in talks with the show to reprise his role.

If that doesn’t work out, there are plenty of storylines that would have him alive and well and be doing something scientific in far off places. He could always go by the way of Dan’s first exit from the show making Darlene a widow at a young age. The creators of these iconic shows are taking quite a few liberties when rewriting history, but because folks weren’t all that pleased with the way both Roseanne and Will & Grace ended, it might be seen as an improvement rather than a downgrade on both shows. The Roseanne revival is due to air in 2018. Will & Grace will poke their heads out in September when their new season starts.

[Featured Image by Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock]

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