One of the latest popular shows to receive the revival treatment was Roseanne, which ran for for nine successful seasons between 1988 and 1997 before coming to an end. Last year ABC announced they had greenlit a new season of the sitcom, with the original cast returning for the premiere in March this year.
The show got a mixed reception, even though there were a lot of people tuning in to watch it each week. Tackling the United States' heated politics in a way that wasn't satisfactory for a lot of people out there, it also backtracked on some of its more progressive views from back in the 90s in a peculiar way.
Still, ABC were happy to have such a successful show on the air, right up until its star posted some unsavoury comments online.
In May, Roseanne Barr tweeted a racist joke about Valerie Jarrett, a former advisor to the Obama administration. Valerie, an African-American woman who was born in Iran, was referred to in the tweet, with Barr writing: "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj".
There was a lot of backlash to this tweet, though many weren't surprised that Barr had said something like this, given her history on social media.
In the past, she has falsely accused one of the Parkland school shooting survivors of performing a Nazi salute, tweeted about debunked right-wing conspiracy theory 'Pizzagate' (which suggests that Hillary Clinton used a pizzeria as a base for child trafficking), and said that Obama had "killed more innocent people than anyone else in U.S. history".
This recent tweet, however, was the final straw for ABC, who decided to cancel the show. "Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show," ABC said in a statement.
While many are glad to see the show go, the fact is that the cancellation will have left to a number of lost jobs - including those who decided to quit voluntarily after Barr's recent comments and the direction the show was heading in.
Rumours of a spin-off have begun to circulate in the last few weeks, with producers apparently in talks to make a show without Barr. Now, according to Page Six, the disgraced TV star "feels so bad" about what has happened that she is "seriously considering" stepping away from any financial or creative participation in this project to ensure it will go forward.
A source close to the comic said:
"Roseanne feels so bad about her antics she is trying to figure out a way to help people harmed by the cancellation. She’s considering giving up financial and creative participation in a spinoff so the people she loves can have jobs. Barr holding on is a stumbling block."
After her comments, and the now-infamous apology in which she blamed Memorial Day and ambien for her outbursts, it may be best for Barr to step away from the project. We'll have to wait and see whether the spin-off goes ahead at all.
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