While The Conners season 7 will see Roseanne’s spinoff finally come to an end, the sitcom is following a divisive genre trend when it comes to its conclusion. It is tough to accuse The Conners of borrowing from its network sitcom competitors when the show’s predecessor, Roseanne, shaped the modern sitcom landscape. The Conners focuses on a working-class family who own a struggling restaurant, much like Bob’s Burgers, but Roseanne took on this theme long before that hit animated comedy. Similarly, The Conners centers on a multi-generational dysfunctional family like Modern Family, but Roseanne introduced them years before Modern Family began.
As such, it is easy to forgive The Conners season 7 for borrowing some tricks from earlier sitcoms. Since most family sitcoms owe a creative debt to Roseanne, The Conners can justify following the crowd. However, while its creative decisions might be easily excused, that doesn’t mean they are always necessarily good ideas. The Conners’ cast of characters are central to a range of overlapping storylines and, by following one sitcom trend, the spinoff risks inadvertently ruining all their character arcs in its final outing. Season 7’s brevity could be a big mistake for the sitcom series.
The Conners season 6 finally ended a plot that the Roseanne spinoff started years ago, and I’m glad the show finally wrapped up this storyline.
The Conners Season 7 Is Another Sitcom With A Short Final Season
Young Sheldon, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, And New Girl All Followed This Formula
After Young Sheldon, New Girl, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Conners is the latest sitcom to feature a massively truncated final season. The final outing of The Conners will debut mid-season and, in contrast with the show’s earlier outings, will reportedly include less than ten episodes. The Hollywood Reporter reported that viewers could expect a smaller season 7 in its announcement of The Conners’ renewal, and this could prove a problem for the show. The Conners season 7 may struggle to end all of its storylines satisfyingly when the show has so little screen time for its heroes.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine decreased its output from between 18 and 23 episodes in seasons 1-6 to only 13 in season 7 and a mere 10 in season 8.
Even though shorter final seasons are divisive, they have become increasingly common among sitcoms in recent years. While New Girl’s first 6 seasons featured between 22 and 25 episodes, its final outing cut this down to only 8 episodes. Similarly, Brooklyn Nine-Nine decreased its output from between 18 and 23 episodes in seasons 1-6 to only 13 in season 7 and a mere 10 in season 8. That said, Brooklyn Nine-Nine faced backlash towards its depiction of the police before season 8 began, which was instrumental to its restructuring. The Conners is unlikely to face similar existential behind-the-scenes rewriting.
Why Shorter Final Seasons Sometimes Work Well
New Girl Managed To Make Its Time Jump Ending A Success
While The Conners season 7 can’t get worse than the end of Roseanne’s original run, the spinoff does have the opportunity to use its shorter final season to its benefit. New Girl’s final season managed to wrap up the story of its central friend group relatively quickly by jumping ahead a few years between seasons 6 and 7, conveniently ending some pointless subplots in the process. The Conners season 7 could benefit from a time jump since this would wrap up a lot of the show’s unfinished plotlines instantly. Some of these subplots have dragged on fruitlessly for years.
Becky’s relationship with Tyler in season 6 was a slow, repetitive plot.
Harris’s takeover of The Lunchbox is an exciting development, but Becky’s seemingly never-ending Psychology course is a plot that could comfortably be wrapped up with an off-screen graduation. Similarly, Becky’s relationship with Tyler in season 6 was a slow, repetitive plot that saw her repeatedly face the same commitment issues. Season 7 could open with the revelation that the couple have been together for years, arriving at a more stable place. It is only Mark’s dark The Conners season 7 plot that complicates this. Darlene’s son began working for email scammers to save for college in season 6’s finale.
Why The Conners Season 7’s Shorter Final Season Is Risky
Young Sheldon And Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Final Seasons Proved Divisive
Mark’s storyline will likely end with him getting caught working on this illegal operation and may even jeopardize his future University of Chicago attendance. However, a time jump could be somewhat awkward here. If The Conners skips ahead a few years in between seasons, Mark would already be attending university and presumably would no longer be working for the scammers. This would make season 6’s tense final storyline a pointless red herring. However, this may be worth it for the sake of wrapping up other character arcs. After all, a lot of shorter final seasons fail to provide closure.
In the case of Young Sheldon, season 7’s brevity was The Big Bang Theory spinoff’s main problem. Young Sheldon’s shorter final season didn’t give viewers a chance to say goodbye, even though most of its episodes were individually strong. Since The Conners season 7 already needs to pay tribute to Martin Mull’s underrated Roseanne character Leon Carp, the spinoff is under pressure when it comes to allotting screen time. A final season that has fewer than ten twenty-minute episodes to wrap up the family’s entire story could struggle to fit in everyone’s fate.
Roseanne’s Original Run Proves The Conners Season 7 Can Work
Season 9 Proved Roseanne Should Have Ended Earlier
Luckily, Roseanne’s original ending proves that a longer season 7 would not necessarily help The Conners. The Conners has undeniably struggled with fitting in all of its characters, with the show unceremoniously dropping supporting stars when they require too much screen time. However, although Roseanne season 9 had 25 episodes to work with, the outing still ended up becoming one of the most critically reviled seasons in sitcom history. Roseanne season 9’s infamously terrible reception wasn’t helped by its 25-episode length, and the embarrassingly misguided outing might have been helped by The Conners season 7’s shorter runtime.
If the show pulls off a time jump, this final outing could be a surprising update on the family’s new lives.
Rosanne season 9 is an object lesson in what happens when a family sitcom’s final outing has too much time and creative freedom for its good. Thus, while The Conners did drop Roseanne’s DJ due to the show’s limited screen time, this doesn’t mean that season 7’s brevity is automatically cause for alarm. If the show pulls off a time jump, this final outing could be a surprising update on the family’s new lives. If not, The Conners season 7 still has enough time to wrap up Roseanne’s story a lot better than the original show’s ending did.
