Roseanne Canceled--Twice

Mon., Aug. 18, 2003 12:30 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

A short-lived prime-time comeback for Roseanne.

ABC has yanked the comic's new reality series, The Real Roseanne Show, from the schedule--effective immediately, the network announced Tuesday. Just two weeks' worth of back-to-back episodes aired. Sitcom repeats will air in its Wednesday time slot.

The move comes after ABC's sister cable network, ABC Family Channel, pulled the plug on the former sitcom queen's latest talk-show effort, Domestic Goddess, before it even it began gabbing.

Domestic Goddess was to premiere September 20 on ABC Family Channel, three days after The Real Roseanne's scheduled September 17 finale on ABC.

The Real Roseanne debuted on August 6 to so-so ratings. It trailed its titular star as she and hers developed the ABC Family Channel show. Make that, the never-to-be ABC Family Channel show.

The cable net ditched Domestic Goddess Friday, days after Roseanne announced she'd be out of commission due to a planned hysterectomy this week.

Production of the show was to begin last week. Twelve half-hour episodes were planned.

Sources say ABC Family Channel wasn't concerned by The Real Roseanne's ratings, or lack thereof. (Its first episode was watched by 5.5 million, and ran third in its time slot.) Rather, the network was said to be concerned that Domestic Goddess' September 20 air date was going to be lost to the delay.

The Real Roseanne and Domestic Goddess were designed to work as complementary parts, with ABC getting a summer reality show, and ABC Family Channel getting a talk entry with a built-in audience, built up by the prime-time series. When Domestic Goddess died, The Real Roseanne became expendable.

Domestic Goddess, originally envisioned as a cooking/lifestyle show, had morphed into a "dysfunctional dinner party," as ABC Family Channel put it earlier this month.

The show was to feature celebs guests dishing on the talk-show topics of the day over a meal with Roseanne. With the cancellation, promised dinner party games such as "Spin the Spoon" and "Truth or Dare" will never be played.

No word yet from Roseanne's camp on the offing of her two shows.

Aside from needing a hysterectomy for what were termed non-life-threatening reasons, the 50-year-old comic was described by an aide last week as a "real healthy" person.

Her career, however, isn't looking as robust. Roseanne has struggled to find a worthy followup to her critically acclaimed and audience embraced 1988-1997 sitcom. In 1997, she unsuccessfully pitched ABC a followup sitcom to Roseanne to star her character. In 2000, her daytime talk show died after an undistinguished two-year run.

Plans for The Real Roseanne were announced last October. At the time, its star said she was "really, really excited to be back home at ABC."