The Conners Seasons 2 & 4 Featured The Show’s Two Weirdest Ever Experiments & It’s Good They Were Never Revisited 

Although The Conners isn’t the most experimental sitcom ever made, the Roseanne spinoff did try to pull off a pair of bizarrely ambitious live episodes in seasons 2 and 4. It is always hard for sitcoms to maintain an audience’s attention, and the genre is home to some pretty shameless gimmicks when it comes to enticing viewers. From celebrity cameos to killing off recurring characters, sitcoms have run the gamut of sweepstakes tricks over the years in an effort to attract better ratings. Roseanne’s spinoff The Conners is typically a low-key affair, but even this comedy isn’t immune to such efforts.

The Conners, like its predecessor Roseanne, focuses on the eponymous working-class family from the small city of Lanford. Proud of its creative debt to traditional sitcoms like All In The Family, The Conners generally avoids the self-aware meta-humor of recent, more experimental sitcoms. The Conners season 7 is unlikely to feature an animated episode or any similar ratings gimmick, so this made the show’s seasons 2 and 4 surprises all the more unexpected. In these outings, The Conners featured not one, but two live episodes, the latter of which even incorporated improvised scenes from non-professional actors who won a contest.

The Conners Season 4 Episode 1 Featured Non-professional Actors

Contest Winners Played The Conner Relatives Mark Called

In season 4, episode 1, “Trucking Live in Front of a Fully Vaccinated Studio Audience,” The Conners included improvised scenes featuring non-professional actors in a live episode. These actors were called live on air and tasked with improvising alongside Mark’s actor Ames MacNamara in a gimmick that could easily have gone disastrously wrong. Fortunately for everyone involved, the contest winners provided amusing banter in response to Mark’s questions instead of anything more risqué. However, the episode still jarred bizarrely with the grounded tone of the series as a whole, as does its predecessor season 2, episode 13, “Live From Lanford.”

In “Live From Lanford,” the Conner family discussed politics in real time as Mark and Harris watched coverage of the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic primary. Since it didn’t involve any audience participation, this was a more straightforward live episode. That said, the risky format shift still felt like an odd choice for the show. In contrast, “Trucking Live in Front of a Fully Vaccinated Studio Audience” was outright jarring as the episode broke the fourth wall entirely, with Darlene running from one set to another and the aforementioned phone calls from Mark. The effect is bizarre upon a re-watch.

The Conners Season 4 Episode 1’s Live Taping Was Already Risky

Two Versions Of The Live Episode Aired In Quick Succession

Even without the phone call conversations, “Trucking Live in Front of a Fully Vaccinated Studio Audience” was always a risky proposition. Some of the best episodes of The Conners rely on intense dramatic confrontations between the family, but the season 4 premiere’s storyline needed to be a little lighter than usual due to its frequent fourth-wall breaks. Meanwhile, the fact that the episode was intended to air live across America meant that it was performed twice in rapid succession to account for Eastern and Pacific time zones. Thus, every logistical challenge of filming the outing was doubled down on, including Mark’s calls to contest winners.

Fortunately for the show’s creators, The Conners season 4’s live episode went off without a hitch. This didn’t necessarily mean that it was worth the risk, as it was hard not to feel like the episode was a gimmick. There were numerous broader issues with The Conners season 4, including ignoring Roseanne entirely at Dan and Louise’s wedding and sidelining Harris’s relationship with Aldo in the finale. As such, prioritizing the novelty of a live episode over ironing out these story issues smacked of desperation, proving The Conners’ character development wasn’t the primary concern of its creators.

The Conners Season 4’s Experiment Didn’t Fit The Show’s Tone

The Conners successfully pulled off its live episode in season 4, but there is no denying that the episode still felt out of place. 30 Rock and The Simpsons both had successful live episodes before The Conners, but they were also both much weirder, more self-aware sitcoms that frequently addressed their metafictional status. 30 Rock was a comedy show about creating a comedy show, while The Simpsons is filled with nods to its own status as a cartoon that alternate between sly and blatant. In contrast, The Conners generally takes itself relatively seriously and doesn’t break the fourth wall.

Even Roseanne would have been better suited to a live episode thanks to experimental outings like season 2, episode 8, “Sweet Dreams,” or season 9, episode 9, “Rosemabo.” The latter was hardly critically acclaimed, but it proves that Roseanne always had an experimental side that The Conners never shared. There is a reason that few viewers expect The Conners’ upcoming final season to have an extended action movie parody within its six episodes, and it’s because the series prides itself on reflecting reality. This made season 4’s premiere feel oddly misguided, since breaking the fourth wall wasn’t the sitcom’s forte.

The Conners Never Revisited Live Episodes

This One-off Experiment Followed A Live Season 2 Episode

Unlike “Trucking Live in Front of a Fully Vaccinated Studio Audience,” ”Live from Lanford” sidestepped many of the issues that make live episodes feel gimmicky. For one thing, the outing focused on a real-life event that gave it a reason to be broadcast live. For another, the plot centered on the banter between the family and their political disagreements. This ensured the outing still felt somewhat like a normal episode of The Conners. It might not have matched The Conners’ highest-rated outings, but any episode that gets the family into one place and sparks some conflict between them is bound to succeed.

However, the biggest saving grace of this earlier experiment was the lack of audience participation. The contest winners all put in great performances, but the inevitable staginess involved in calling non-professional actors to improvise while on air didn’t fit with the tone of The Conners. There are plenty of broader, sillier sitcoms where this type of comedy would have succeeded, but The Conners was ill-suited to something that felt borrowed from a wilder, wackier series. As such, it is a good thing that The Conners’ second live episode was the Roseanne spinoff’s last attempt at this television tradition.

Source: TheHollywoodReporter

Cast

John Goodman , Sara Gilbert , Macaulay Callard , Laurie Metcalf , Lecy Goranson , Michael Fishman , Emma Kenney , Ames McNamara , Jayden Rey , Maya Lynne Robinson , Jay R. Ferguson

Release Date

October 16, 2018

Seasons

5

Streaming Service(s)

Hulu