The Conners will get to take a victory lap — perhaps they’ll even win the lottery? — now that ABC is close to renewing the Roseanne spinoff for a seventh and final season.
Our sister site Deadline reports that the show’s swan song will consist of roughly six episodes and that the main cast is expected to return.
TVLine has reached out to ABC for comment.
Season-to-date, The Conners is averaging 3.8 million total viewers and a 0.4 demo rating (with Live+7 playback), down 24% and 43% from its Season 5 numbers. Out of the three sitcoms that ABC has aired this TV season, it leads the pack in total viewers and distantly trails Abbott Elementary in the demo.
The Roseanne spinoff — which is now streaming on Netflix — recently celebrated its 100th episode and will makes its debut in local syndication this fall. Perhaps even more remarkable: Including Roseanne Season 10, the revival will have produced eight seasons total — just one season shy of Roseanne’s original nine-season run.
A six-episode Season 7 order would bring the series to a total of 112 episodes.
As previously reported, producers planned for the possibility of cancellation and filmed an alternative tag scene for The Conners’ May finale that would have brought the sitcom to a proper (if premature) close.
It was last spring when the producers behind The Conners first floated the idea that the series might end with its current Season 6. “We feel that [next season] is possibly going to be the last season of The Conners,” EP Bruce Helford told TVLine at the time. “I would not [say that] definitively because the numbers were so good this season, and we’ve all had a really great time… but it’s definitely a possibility.”
One month later, leading man John Goodman added fuel to the fire when he suggested that The Conners was rounding the corner. “I think we may be coming to an end on it,” he said in June 2023, before adding, “It’s lasted longer than I thought we would.”
But in February, Helford and fellow EP Dave Caplan told TVLine that they had not been approached about bringing the veteran sitcom to a close.
“As far as going forward, it’s funny… When I made that comment [about the possibility of it being the final season], the response by ABC was, ‘We never agreed to that,’” Helford relayed.
Added Caplan: “When we feel like we’re not telling relatable, interesting, novel stories anymore, we’ll pull the plug.” For now, “the journeys that these characters are on are inspiring us to go places we haven’t. The show continues to feel fresh and interesting, so nobody is all that anxious for it to end.”
And now producers will be able to plan for a proper series finale that will bring Roseanne and The Conners’ combined 17-season run to a close.
