The show must go on

I wanted to talk about something that happened in the entertainment world that was a surprising twist for some people, Roseanne being canceled and the spin-off The Conners. Roseanne made news when the her sitcom got rebooted after Sara Gilbert and John Goodman teased the idea on her talk show, and then again when after proving itself a hit and getting renewed, the star tweeted something inappropriate and she got fired. To save the rest of the cast, the show will go on with a new title and no Roseanne who will die from an overdose alluded to last season with the intent that he character would overcome the addiction, but real world circumstances sudenly changed the oucome of the storyline.

The thing is, this isn't entirely unprecedented. Sometimes a star will have a problem and think the show can't go on without them only to find out that they can. The most similar situation was Valerie Harper's eponymous sitcom in the '80's and when she had creative differences, she was replaced by Sandy Duncan and the show was renamed the Hogan Family with the rest of the cast going on without her. Another case was Demi Lovato's star vehicle Sunny with a Chance in which her character starred on a show within a show called So Random. When Demi had to quit the show due to personal struggles that got her in rehab, So Random went on as the main show with the rest of he cast going on without her. Charmed relied heavily on three stars with the story explicitly requiring three sisters to be the Charmed ones, but when one of them, Shannon Doherty, decided to quit, they killed her character off and replaced her with a long lost half-sister and went on for several seasons which fans didn't really like but put the blame squarely on Doherty. Then there was 8 Simple Rules starring John Ritter who died during filming and while the show did not ignore this, they continued on with new characters and when on for another season. John Ritter actually went through this once before in his life when his co-star Suzanne Sommers on Three's Company had creative differences and she was also replaced. Then one could argue about the two Darrens on Bewitched which was no doubt more of the same. Even Roseanne itself once had to deal with bizarre cast changes when the actress playing eldest daughter Becky was unavailble not once, but twice for long stretches and was replaced both times by Sarah Chalke.

One thing all of these shows have in common is that when a star who was seemingly irreplaceable was not available for any reason, the irreplaceable became replaceable. The show must go on, even if means making some big changes, but history has shown us that the show will go on. Atthis point it's really a question of whether the remaining cast will bring their A-game, and if they do, the show may be a success. If anyone questions whether this will work, just double check all the examples I gave and keep looking for more, they are out there, and that prase reminds me of another example, the X-files had to go with out both stars at different times for different reasons and the show went on with only one and came back and survived to continue to be a hit and even get rebooted. The list could go on and on, but I think I've made my point, Roseanne made a huge mistake if she thought she was untouchable because she clearly wasn't, nobody is...except maybe Donald Trump but that is another story for another time.