Roseanne: The Complete Third Season

Roseanne, Dan, and the clan are back for another round of lower-middle-class heartache and headaches, though this season the Conners' ongoing struggle to put food on the table is replaced by a civil war of parents versus teenage daughters. For the first time in the series, Dan's dry-walling business is bringing in a steady (if meagre) income, while Roseanne has found relative stability as a waitress in a department store cafe. Paying the bills is still a constant concern, but Becky and Darlene's hormones are the more immediate problem.

And, oh yeah, DJ's getting weird. Granted, growing up in this household could make anyone quacky, but DJ's going through an especially striking "experimental phase" to the tune of cutting the heads off his sisters' old dolls and storing them in a shoe box under his bed. That is, when he's not watching Becky and Darlene naked while they change or are in the bathroom. At one point, DJ wonders if he's a "pre-vert," to which Roseanne responds, "No. You're a pervert."

Season 3 is transitional, in that unfinished business from past seasons (Dan's father and Crystal tie the knot, Jackie and Gary break up, Jackie is forced to retire from the police force) is cleared up to make room for the all out slugfest of domestic conflict that would come to define Roseanne for the remainder of its time on the air.

Judging by the shifting focus of the storyline, the cast and crew of Roseanne realized that as a ratings giant, they were going to be around for a good while and could afford to take the time to shift the series in a highly sustainable direction. Granted, families fighting incessantly can get pretty tiresome on network television, but with the amount of acid and bile being hilariously thrown around in the Conner household, the creative minds behind Roseanne knew they were panning comic gold.

Specifically, Roseanne's character continues evolving in season 3 as an example of comedic feminism in practice, refusing to be defined by motherhood or matrimony alone, while constantly fighting back against her surroundings with evidence of a rich, witty inner life and hopes/dreams beyond those of raising a family or running a household. This season also once again reminds viewers that not every financially struggling, blue collar American family votes Republican. The Conners fall somewhere between 60s outlaw idealists and the traditional American view of raising a family and paying the bills with legit jobs, which was truly a unique space to fall into on a Reagan/Bush, Sr.-era sitcom.

For these reasons, Roseanne retains its feel as an ultra-progressive show that allows wit and intense inner lives into characters who work as waitresses and dry wallers and could otherwise be reduced to the negative impression that many people have of the millions of Americans who end up taking the slow road to the middle. Then again, I realize that Roseanne does for blue collar families what The West Wing does for American politics: it's pure fantasy that makes a specific group of people seem funnier and more interesting than they really are. But, as far as working class American fantasy goes, it doesn't get any better than Roseanne.

Dan (John Goodman) and Becky (Alicia Goranson)'s epic standoffs are some of the most memorable moments from season 3, culminating in a series of showdowns over Becky's love for the greasy x-factor of Mark (the late Glenn Quinn), who's introduction into the Conner household leaves Dan and Roseanne in a state of tense bewilderment and frustration. Becky refuses to break up with Mark despite her parents' orders, though interestingly, it's Mark's knack for auto mechanics that starts the ball rolling into a chain of events and mishaps involving motorcycles, including a shocking season finale that sees Dan and Roseanne take a bigger financial risk than they've ever taken in their life.

The extras here are sparser than on the season 1 and season 2 discs, though for the first time this season's episodes are original and uncut, as opposed to the slightly shortened syndication broadcasts that Anchor Bay released for Roseanne's first two seasons. Laurie Metcalf and Lecy Goranson both give interviews with Goranson offering a particularly touching remembrance of working on the show.

It's great that Goranson is so gracious in her recollections of the Roseanne series because she was the one cast member who inevitably got ignored every time acting awards season rolled around. One cast member seems to inevitably get left behind on every great ensemble program (see Rob Lowe on The West Wing), but it's nice when the forgotten can display such class by humbly focusing on recollections of the work itself and the experiences gained, even as co-workers collected one piece of hardward after another. Goranson is a class act, as is Roseanne season 3 on DVD. -- Jason Woloski