As producers work to bring Roseanne and The Conners’ combined 17-season run to a close, several legacy characters could resurface. The list includes Johnny Galecki’s David Healy and Michael Fishman’s DJ Conner, who were last seen in Seasons 2 and 4 of The Conners, respectively.
When we last encountered David, he was walking out of therapy after breaking things off with Darlene. At the time, though, it was established that David moved back to Lanford to take a more active role in Harris and Mark’s lives, which feasibly could have happened off screen. But in The Conners‘ Season 5 finale, the Powers That Be seemed to cement David’s revival status as a deadbeat when it was revealed that he hadn’t bothered with his children in four years. David was referenced twice more in the spinoff’s most recent sixth season, including Wednesday’s finale, when Mark mentioned that he hadn’t heard from David in years.
But in a new interview with TVLine, executive producers Bruce Helford and Dave Caplan say that they are open to salvaging David, previously a fan-favorite character on the original run of Roseanne, during the offshoot’s farewell season.
“The door is always open to Johnny,” Helford tells us. “I’m sure we’ll be talking to him.”
Adds fellow EP Dave Caplan: “He and Sara [Gilbert] are close, and these [final] six [episodes] will be all about completion, so it would be great to have the David character because he has been so absent from his kids’ lives.
“It’s questionable whether Darlene has any unfinished business with David,” Caplan points out, “but the kids certainly do. That’s really a matter of whether Johnny wants to do something or not…. We’re open to doing something.”
The same goes for fellow legacy cast member Michael Fishman, who was written out after Season 4. It was subsequently established that DJ is overseas with his wife Geena.
“Anything is possible,” Helford tells TVLine. “We’re more focused on story than guest stars at the moment, but there are a lot of people that we want to see again for completion, so every and any door is open.”
The Conners’ six-episode sendoff will premiere in 2025 on ABC, and the EPs previously told TVLine about the pressure that comes with carrying the weight of the Roseanne legacy.
“The whole time that we’ve been doing The Conners, we’ve never stopped feeling the pressure of the legacy of the entire run,” Caplan said. “We owe it to these characters because they’re the same characters. That is at the forefront of our minds with all of the stories that we’ve broken for The Conners, and it will be on our minds for the last six.”
