Customer Reviews for
Roseanne - The Complete Third Season
Nice packaging, good content
First off, the packaging: the DVDs are set up to get out of the way and let you watch the episodes, which is great. They're not really fancy, but one of the things that annoys me is when you have to wade through previews, or several layers of menus, just to watch the episodes. It'd be nice to have a "Play All" option, but not necessary.
As for the content of this season, I was surprised to see how well the show held up. I remembered liking the show, and after buying the first season as a trial, I liked it enough to get the second and third. The characters develop well and storylines carry over from one episode to another. The writing was particularly sharp at this point in the run, with great interplay between the characters and a lot of real-life issues for the family to deal with. It's still very much a sitcom, where problems get resolved within half an hour, but at least the resolutions feel plausible, often stretched in the framework of the show to cover several days of time. The hook of this show was always the gritty realism, and that holds up over time.Roseanne - The Complete Third Season
Roseanne Rocks
Roseanne was one of the funniest and best sitcoms on TV. The third season is funny and reminds everyone of their own family growing up.Roseanne - The Complete Third Season
And the best sitcom in TV history is....
Ahh Roseanne, quite easily the greatest sitcom in TV history (sorry Seinfeld [overrated and repetitive] and move over MASH). For a great many Americans, Roseanne was the ONLY sitcom depicting house life that even remotely approached ringing true. My wife and I are both such big fans that we periodically watch the show from beginning to end (yes, all the episodes), something made easy by the fact that we never watch TV, only DVDs (greater freedom, no commercials). As I do in many of my reviews I will try to offer a few observations that other reviews haven't already made.
The show was serendipitously blessed by its cast, the best any sitcom has ever enjoyed. The comic timing between Roseanne and John Goodman was not only flawless, but their chemistry rang so true that they really did seem like they were married. The show was lucky to cast both Goodman and Metcalf, two actors whose performances really raised the entire show up another level.
The show starts off wonderfully, portraying a blue-collar family that not only seems real, but is real funny (and that says a lot--most sitcoms are not actually all that funny, and, believe it or not, studies show that people are not actually laughing at the jokes [which suck] but because they hear the sound of other people laughing). This in-and-of-itself had a lot to do with the show's immediate appeal: finally here was a family most Americans could actually relate to. Forget the Cosby family (the No. 1 show at the time).
Though the scenes at the plastic factory are pretty flat (which Roseanne was aware of--she joked that the set was built over a burial ground and cursed), the rest of season one is dynamite. In season two the show peters out with a few episodes that are actually quite boring and stupid. Many people say the show got worse in later seasons, I actually think (excepting the last season) that some of season two's episodes are the worst the show ever saw. In fact, in my opinion, the season two episode Sweet Dreams is the worst episode in the entire show's run. Other than this it's still excellent. Seasons three, four, and five are all great, maintaining the show's high standard. At times more episodes focus on incidences outside the Conner residence, which to me is unfortunate as the shows staying inside the house (especially the kitchen) and focusing on the whole family together are the ones that really shine. Thus, when a season focused too much on Roseanne at work (such as endlessly boring scenes of Roseanne at the beauty salon or in the mall's café) it really detracted from the humor.
With season six Sarah Chalke was devastatingly miscast as Becky. It really didn't matter that she didn't at all look like Lecy Goranson, the problem was that the performance she turned in was of an entirely different character (and it was quite a bad performance at that). Sure, other characters changed as the show progressed, but this was ridiculous. Roseanne, for instance, becomes more sarcastic and bitchy as the show progresses, but as my wife pointed out to me, if you revisit season one you'll see that she didn't at all start out that way (in fact she was quite the loving mother at first). And yes, her appearance constantly changed as she lost weight, tanned and had surgeries. Jackie's character changes too, dramatically, as many others have noted here. Many here say that season seven or eight is the beginning of the end of the show. I however think that the beginning of the end was Roseanne's real-life marriage to show producer Tom Arnold. After that fiasco, if I recall, Roseanne went kind of nuts in real life, becoming all new agey and crap, and it started to show in the show. Though the show's very last episode tried to bring things home a little bit, the debacle that was season nine needs a lot of explaining. How did they EVER think that having the Conners win the lottery was in ANY WAY a good idea? Was Roseanne trying to give a comic blue-collar commentary on the wealthy? I don't know, but that simply didn't work.
Some trivia and observations (and feel free to discuss some of this by leaving comments, and by all means, explain the reasoning behind season nine): Lanford Illinois does not really exist. The footage is from Evansville Indiana. Most if not all of Dan's comic mannerisms John Goodman seems to have borrowed from Curly (The Three Stooges), which he justified by making the character of Dan a big fan. When the Conners are watching TV, from the sound of it they are usually watching old movies, especially old B horror movies, sci fi and westerns. The coffee table is almost always covered with comic books. Season one disappointingly does not have a Halloween episode, but Nightmare on Oak Street kind of counts, starting off with a great Halloween feel to it. There are, throughout the first three or four seasons, a great many references to corn and creamed corn (can somebody please explain the significance of this in-joke?) In the pilot Dan tries to make a giant can of corn for dinner. In other episodes Roseanne is called the corn goddess, we see decorative corn hanging on the wall, Dan jokes that he's afraid that aliens are after their creamed corn, and, in the worst episode in the history of Roseanne, Dan's method of execution is to be boiled in creamed corn.
On a side note, it's amusing that Anchor Bay's disclaimer of the "Roseanne trivia" that laces the inside of every jacket reads that they in no way guarantee the accuracy of the information provided. It's a good thing too, because quite a few of their answers are wrong! Examples: In the fourth Halloween episode Roseanne does not dress up as "the goddess of gore," but as the Statue of Liberty. It's not Roseanne who refuses to serve Loretta Lynn, but Darlene.
Roseanne - The Complete Third Season
A six star season, but the DVD set itself could have been better
Season three of Roseanne doesn't revolve around any particular overriding story arc, but the kids are definitely beginning to grow up. As in almost every season, there are quite a few changes taking place in all of the characters' lives, but the show's greatness mainly lies in the "real life" way that each situation is handled and in the raw emotions and interactions of the characters, not in the situations themselves.
"The Test" is a great season opener as Roseanne and her family wait for the outcome of her home pregnancy test. There are some precious moments, such as when DJ asks if he was an accident, and Roseanne tells him that he was a surprise, the difference being that "an accident is something that you wouldn't do over again if you had the chance, but a surprise is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it." The girls show their selfish side, trying to make a case for not having the baby even before the test is complete. Becky goes as far as asking her mother "Don't you want me to go to college?".
The audience gets their first look at the late Glenn Quinn as rebel and smart-mouth Mark Healey in "Becky, Beds, and Boys". Mark doesn't even pretend to care what the Conners think when he shows up in a bar, obviously under-aged and the Conners see him there. His answer to their question of how he got in there when he is only 18 is that he has a piece of paper that says he is 21. Becky's concerned parents forbid her to see Mark anymore, but she keeps coming up with ways to see him anyway. I liked how Mark was portrayed in these early seasons when he was "Rebel Without a Cause" as opposed to the last three seasons when he was transformed into "Rebel Without a Clue". Mark and Becky are the cause of quite a bit of trouble, starting with "Her Boyfriend's Back", in which Mark and Becky take Dan's prize Harley out for a ride without telling him. This infuriates Dan who doesn't even bother punishing Becky - his hurt and anger are so deep that he just ignors her for days. Of course, this is far worse than any punishment he could have given her.
In the Halloween episode, DJ decides he wants to dress as a witch this year, and this has Dan very upset as he believes it might mean DJ is having trouble with his own gender identity. You see, Dan believes only girls should dress as witches. Meanwhile, Roseanne decides to find out what it's like to be one of the guys by dressing up in Dan's clothes. She then goes to the Lobo and enjoys conversing with a group of men there on a variety of subjects. You even see Roseanne trying to make conversation with "another" man at the urinal. Unfortunately, the restroom scene has been cut from most (if not all) syndicated showings of this episode. We also get another look at Crystal's desperation for male companionship as she shows an interest in Roseanne ( alias Bob) after "Bob" pays her some well placed compliments.
"PMS I Love You" is one of my all time favorites. Dan's birthday party collides with Roseanne's PMS, and she is on a rampage. Dan, being the guest of honor, must ride out the rollercoaster of his wife's emotions, including her blurting out to everyone present that he cried when he saw "Old Yeller". In one of those great moments that Dan and Jackie often have together, Dan vents to her privately about how his 39 years have been a blur and he wonders when will it be his turn, when does HE get to have HIS PMS?
Ned Beatty returns as Dan's father, although he is more subdued and less buffoonish than he was in season one when he was first introduced. Dan, however, is still somewhat contemptuous of his dad, and it doesn't make things any better when he finds out that his father is planning to marry one of Roseanne's friends. Matters go from bad to worse when he finds out why - the bride-to-be is pregnant. Dan fears that his new brother/sister will have the same kind of life he had as a child - a life with an unhappy mother and an absentee father who is always on the road.
The other plot developments include Jackie being injured and leaving the police force, Roseanne getting a job at Rodbell's, a diner in the mall, and Dan opening a motorcycle shop of his own. This is truly one of the best seasons of Roseanne, and I highly recommend it. I just wish that there were more extras and interviews in the DVD sets than we have been getting.Roseanne - The Complete Third Season
I loved it.
I loved watching this when I was younger and my daughter loves it now. I actually bought this because she wanted it for her 10th birthday.Roseanne - The Complete Third Season
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