It is currently undecided whether or not The Conners season 5 will happen, but the sitcom deserves another outing to fix numerous long-running plot problems. The Conners has a messier history than most screen sitcoms. Where some shows are simply green-lit, aired, and eventually canceled, the long story of The Conners makes Ben and Darlene’s history seem simple.
In short, The Conners has had nine seasons in the 90s as Roseanne, a sitcom that centered on the titular working-class heroine Roseanne and her family, the Conners. Roseanne was popular enough to return almost two decades after its cancellation with ABC’s 2017 Roseanne revival. Roseanne season 10 aired in 2017 before being retooled as The Conners, a Roseanne-sans-Roseanne spinoff that has now aired four seasons.
The Conners is currently is entering its fifth season (or fourteenth, if one includes the show's original iteration), and the fate of season 5 is uncertain. According to news from The Hollywood Reporter, The Conners season 5 has a 50/50 chance of happening, with insiders saying it “could go either way” where other show's renewals are a sure thing. Although The Conners season 4 is still airing new episodes, its ratings have seen a dip in the last year compared to earlier seasons. However, The Conners does need another season to wrap up some long-running plot lines and give satisfying endings to numerous characters arcs that have stalled throughout season 4.
The Unique Case of The Conners
As outlined above, The Conners occupies an unusual place in television history. While a fifth season renewal would not be a big ask for most family sitcoms, the history of The Conners puts it in a strange position. Its un-cancelation and subsequent retooling resulted in a show whose child actors returned to play parents of children themselves, and thus, the sitcom’s multi-generational cast gives it a unique appeal. It also means that The Conners season 4 has seen Darlene recreate fights with her daughter Harris that Roseanne once had with Darlene as a teen, giving The Conners a unique ability to tell a much bigger story than most self-contained sitcoms can hope to envision. However, this has not always been a good thing for The Conners, with the show’s large cast and long history of canon making the sitcom messy and unfocused on occasion.
The Argument Against The Conners Season 5
The drawn-out Harris/Darlene feud in The Conners season 4, along with Darlene’s messy relationship with Ben, both show that the series has never fully been able to retool itself as a Darlene-centric Roseanne spinoff. As for focusing on the rest of the family instead, stories like Becky’s doomed romance with a college professor or Mark’s slow slide into delinquency have been left fallow for weeks at a time. Meanwhile, Dan’s hardware store business and Jackie’s work at The Lunchbox have barely been addressed in season 4 due to the show’s overstuffed storytelling. This has inevitably led some fans to argue that the show is past its prime and The Conners should be canceled after season 4 to avoid its stories getting any messier. However, this ignores the potential that the series has if given the chance to clear up these admittedly pervasive issues.
The Argument For The Conners Season 5
Failing to find screen time for Dan and Jackie is proof that The Conners needs to change its priorities instead of earning itself a cancelation. The fact that veteran stars Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman are as charming as ever gives the show hope, and the success of The Conners shooting episode (which took on a hot button issue and could easily have been crass and exploitative) proves the series still has a unique working-class perspective. Similarly, the only reason Mark and Becky’s stalling subplots frustrated fans is because they are both interesting characters worth getting invested in — meaning that tighter storylines for them in The Conners season 5 could keep viewers invested.
What The Conners Must Fix In Season 5
While The Conners season 5 should happen, the show needs to change its approach to storytelling significantly. For one thing, multi-season plotlines like Ben and Darlene’s on-again, off-again relationship should be avoided. The Conners, like Roseanne before it, is primarily a family sitcom and works best as an exploration of family dynamics. As a result, stories like Ben and Darlene’s romance can draw attention and screen time away from the sprawling ensemble cast of the sitcom and devote too much focus to only two characters. While there is nothing wrong with slow-burn character romances (as evidenced by Becky’s cute Professor Davis subplot), allowing these stories to drag across entire seasons can slow down the momentum of other plots and leave the series feeling repetitive.
How The Conners Season 5 Can Fix The Show
The fact that The Conners is a family sitcom is central to its appeal, but too many of season 4’s biggest stories have left family members split up for far too long. In some cases, such as Louise’s long absence after her and Dan’s wedding, real-life circumstances made this inevitable. However, other stories such as Darlene and Harris’ initially believable season 4 rift could have been one of the season’s most compelling stories were it not for the show allowing the story to drag out for too long. This sapped the fight of any energy, which is why The Conners season 5 needs to bring more urgency to the sitcom’s pacing.
Given how messy Darlene’s history is with Ben, it seems inevitable that Harris would throw this in her face when arguing about her mother not approving of her relationship with Aldo. Similarly, Mark could reasonably argue that his mother’s longstanding anger at authority led to him dismissing the rules of academia, and Becky could reasonably have issues with how Dan handled his late wife Roseanne’s pill addiction as she continues to struggle with her own journey through sobriety. The family has built-in dynamics that make their interpersonal struggles compelling and The Conners, as a show that brought back its young cast as older iterations of their characters, has a rare opportunity to portray the effects of inter-generational trauma without losing its sense of humor, as Roseanne managed to at its best. That said, the question of whether The Conners season 5 will be up to this challenge — or indeed, whether the show will have a chance to prove itself either way — remains to be seen.