The verdict is in, and “The Conners” is a success — for the moment, anyway. Spoilers ahead.
Despite reports of lukewarm expectations from fans, ABC’s spinoff of the axed “Roseanne” — sans former star Roseanne Barr — opened Tuesday night to 10.5 million viewers, making it the season’s most-watched new series. The debut episode also beat Tuesday’s biggest competition: NBC’s consistent ratings champs “This Is Us” (with 8.86 million viewers for the night) and “The Voice” (8.8 million viewers).
Although “The Conners” audience ranked far below that of last winter’s “Roseanne” reboot premiere, which snared a whopping 18.4 million viewers, last night’s premiere was in line with what “Roseanne” garnered with what turned out to be the show’s series finale, when, a week after that episode aired, ABC terminated Barr for a racist tweetstorm.
Tuesday night’s premiere handled Barr’s exit by killing her off her character, Roseanne Conner, via an opioid overdose, which seems almost poetic considering Barr blamed her bigoted social media posts on sleeping pills.
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