Roseanne: Season 5 [DVD] [1988] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

One of my favorite seasons. The bike shop closes. Becky elopes with Mark. The Lunch Box opens. This had some really good episodes. From Jackies abusive boyfriend, to the death of Roseanne and Jackies father, to David moving in with the Conners. Definately a worthwhile purchase.

98.Terms of Estrangement (1)-- Dan and Roseanne have some adjustments to make, when the Bike shop and the Diner both go out of business, leaving Roseanne the sole wage earner. Becky takes the news hard, it means that Mark will have to leave town; so she elopes with him, and leaves with him.

99.Terms of Estrangement (2)-- Roseanne and Dan prepare to say goodbye to Becky, when her an Mark come back to gather some belongings, and head out to start their married life together.

100.The Dark Ages-- The power company cuts off the Conners' power. Dan and Roseanne must look at Darlene in a new light after David spends the night in her room.

101.Mommy Nearest-- Roseanne and Jackie are stunned when their mother hands each of them a check for ten thousand dollars, to do with what they like. Bev then announces she is moving to Lanford, that causes a series of arguements. Jackie agonizes over dating Fisher, a perfect but much, much younger man.

102.Pretty in Black-- Roseanne mortifies Darlene with a sweet sixteen party, then sends her off to her friends while the adults enjoy the festivities, which include a game of Truth or Dare; the Tildens move in next door; Darlene dyes her hair black to make Roseanne mad, but is shocked when Roseanne reacts differently.

103.Looking for Loans in All the Wrong Places-- Denied a loan to open the restaurant, Roseanne must turn to her mother, who has a different solution to her money woes. Darlene catches D.J. peeping at neighbor Molly. and sets up a trap to teach him a lesson, and gets a lesson herself about the peeper.

104.Halloween IV-- Roseanne sends everyone to a party while she stays home -- and is visited by the ghosts of Halloween past, present, and future.

105.Ladies' Choice-- Nancy takes Roseanne and Jackie by surprise with the announcement that she and Marla are gay lovers; Bev announces she is moving into a Lanford retirement centre, which leaves Roseanne feeling over the hill.

106.Stand on Your Man-- The Lunch Box welcomes its first customers, including a weirdo whose presence sends the gals to a self-defense class. Meanwhile, Arnie questions his own manhood after hearing that Nancy is gay.

107.Good Girls, Bad Girls-- Roseanne reluctantly allows Darlene to go to a rock concert in nearby Rockford with Molly -- who abandons her.

108.Of Ice and Men-- After Dan pressures him to find a sport, or activity, D.J. decides to take up hockey and becomes the terror of the rink. Roseanne meddles to reunite Jackie and Fisher, after Jackie decides that he is too young for her, and breaks it off with no explanation. Dan gives DJ his first sip of beer.

109.It's No Place Like Home for The Holidays-- A Christmas Eve snowstorm scatters the Connors, with Roseanne and Jackie trapped at the Luch Box with Bev and Nana Mary, while Darlene takes shelter at David's and learns the truth about his home life.

110.Crime and Punishment (1)-- After receiving a phone call from the school, Dan is asked to come to speak with the principal, concerning DJ's offensive reading material, which turns out to be Darlene's Comic. When it is uncovered that the reason for Jackie's mood swings is domestic violence, Dan sets off to deal with Fisher man to man. Darlene is sent to bail Dan out, and makes his life hell.

111.War and Peace (2)-- Dan returns home to rampant rumors about his behavior, while Roseanne urges a dazed Jackie to leave her abusive boyfriend.

112.Lanford Daze-- As a punishment, Darlene has to serve meat at The Lunchbox but she refuses to serve a celebrity customer.

113.Wait Till Your Father Gets Home-- The death of their father finds Jackie blubbering, Roseanne angry -- and sharing a drink with the "other woman" in his life. (Roseanne won her only Emmy for this episode)

114.First Cousin, Twice Removed-- A wealthy and successful cousin whom Roseanne hasn't seen in 25 years comes to bury the hachet, and encourages Darlene to leave home.

115.Lose a Job, Winnebago-- The Conners and the Tildens travel to California in a motor home, with Dan pondering his future and Ty contemplating Jackie.

116.It's a Boy!-- Roseanne wants Darlene's boyfriend David to move in with them, but Dan refuses to allow it.

117.It was Twenty Years Ago Today-- For their anniversary, Roseanne poses in a sexy photo for Dan, while he moonlights at a big-and-tall men's store to pay for his present for her.

118.Playing with Matches-- Darlene wants nothing to do with David after Molly kisses him; and a new friend puts a smile on Bev's face.

119.Promises, Promises-- Darlene springs a prom-night surprise on David: she has rented a motel room. Meanwhile, Dan is reluctant to share with Roseanne his plans for a new business.

120.Glengarry, Glen Rosey-- Roseanne and Dan fear a financial crisis when they cannot sell the house they refurbished and their new partner Roger skips town.

121.Tooth or Consequences-- Dan realizes that he needs a steady job to take care of his family when he accidentally knocks out one of Roseanne's teeth on the day she is to meet with a health inspector (who turns out to be Leon); Darlene is accepted to art school - but David is rejected.

122.Daughters and Other Strangers-- Roseanne worries that Darlene may be planning to run away from home; new neighbor George befriends D.J.

Season 5 features guest stars Bill Maher, Joan Collins, Tim Curry, Lorreta Lynn, Red Buttons, Sara Rue, Morgan Fairchild, Ed Begley Jr, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

I agree with the earlier review about the abrupt changes over the years on the show. But they did mention Roseanne's fathers abuse in the fourth season episode "This Old House" Roseanne and Jackie went to the house they grew up in before it was torn down and were discussing the things that went on during childhood. Roseanne pointed to the wall and said to Jackie "Remember what was hanging there?" Referring to the belt they were hit with. Roseanne also referred to her dad as a lunatic in the Tornado episode from the 1st season when Jackie said he used to get them all in the car during a storm and chase it. They changed the character of Dan's mother also. I think in the second season Dan's mother comes to Thanksgiving with her boyfriend and seemed like a perfectly normal woman and in a later season she had mental problems and was put in a hospital. Then Debbie Reynolds played her as a psycho. David's name started as Kevin. They might have cleared that up in a later episode though. And of course the two Beckys. All in all Roseanne was a great show and I am thrilled that they are bringing them out on DVD so quickly. I gave only 4 stars because I felt the 2nd 3rd and 4th seasons were the best, although I absolutely love the episode on this one where the power is turned off. That has some of the biggest laughs of the entire series. I would place Roseanne in my top 5 series of all time. Even the lesser episodes are better than most things on TV. If anybody does read this, could you let me know if the Roseanne 1st season DVD is uncut? I have only watched a couple of the episodes and it seems like exactly what is on Nick at Nite. I always love getting the scenes that they have cut out over the years. Thanks for listening.

Season 5 of Roseanne starts out on a very morose note that corresponds to the deep recession the country was suffering at the time these shows were aired in 1992. Dan's motorcycle shop is failing and will have to be closed in order for him to salvage the mortgage on the Conner home. Rodbell's , the diner in the mall where Roseanne has worked for two years, is closing too, due to business in the mall being so bad. In order to make ends meet, the kids' college fund has been depleted so that Becky, while filling out college applications, throws a fit when she asks her parents about this fund and finds it no longer exists. Like any typical teenager, she is very upset when the harsh realities of life actually have an impact on her individual plans. Thus, she elopes with boyfriend Mark and moves to Minnesota, since with the closing of Dan's shop, Mark is unemployed too. Before she leaves though, she says some hurtful words to her father that basically blame all of the family's problems on him saying that her life has been ruined because Dan is a bad businessman. Everything hits rock bottom when the electric company turns off the power in "The Dark Ages", with Roseanne remarking that "Well, middle class was fun."

The Conner family luck takes an abrupt turn upward when Roseanne's mother, having just finished divorcing Roseanne's father, decides to move back to Lanford and gives both Jackie and Roseanne each ten thousand dollars to do with as they please. Ultimately, though, even this is not enough for the two sisters to do what they really want - open up a diner in a now vacant building. Thus, they reluctantly invite their mother in as a partner in their business venture. She ultimately says yes - but not until she gives their dream her usual shellacking that she sees as motherly advice but comes across as disapproval bordering on contempt. With Becky now departed from the show, the role of David, Mark's brother and Darlene's girlfriend, is increased. We get a good look at his verbally abusive and often absentee mother in the Christmas episode, and his rocky home life is ultimately responsible for Roseanne taking David in to live with the Conners. The season concludes with Dan taking a job as supervisor with the city so that he can have a regular paycheck with benefits after Roseanne cracks a tooth, and the family has no dental insurance. Also, Darlene makes the announcement that she wants to go to school in Chicago where she can finish high school and begin college early at a really good writing school. This announcement is met with absolute resistance at first, but her parents soon realize that keeping Darlene at home will not bring Becky back to them, and they finally grant their permission. This sets up Sarah Gilbert in a recurring role for the rest of the series, since in reality she actually was starting college in the fall of 1993.

There are some other outstanding individual episodes too, including the two-parter where Roseanne discovers that Jackie's younger boyfriend, who seems like Mr. Wonderful in public, has actually been beating her. Even though Jackie is an ex-cop she takes on the typical stance of an abused girlfriend by blaming the violence on herself. When Dan finds out, he decides to teach the young man a lesson with his own fists. Also, in another outstanding episode, Roseanne's father dies and she winds up sharing a drink with a woman who turns out to have been her father's mistress.

Although I thought this season was excellent overall, there were a couple of points that bothered me.

First off, there actually was a VERY bad recession going on in 1992, and I compliment the show for incorporating it into the storyline. However, the Conners' troubles came on very suddenly and were resolved with a very pat answer. In retrospect, it all seemed like a somewhat contrived attempt to help Bill Clinton get elected. Just as homeless people didn't seem to exist on TV until Ronald Reagan was elected president, it seemed like everyone in Lanford was on the road to starvation until the outcome of the 1992 election seemed inevitable, and then economic conditions suddenly normalized.

The second point of contention is the sudden transformation of Roseanne's father into an abusive individual as pointed out in Roseanne and Jackie's comments during the episode in which he dies, and also in the episodes in which Roseanne compares David's horrible parents to her own parents. When Roseanne's parents came to visit at the end of season one, they both seemed like very nice but very annoying people, taking over the Conners' bedroom during their visit, and then waking them at 4:30 in the morning because this is the time of day that Roseanne's father must eat breakfast every morning, no matter what. There was no mention of any childhood trauma. This just seemed like Roseanne writing into the script the accusations she was making at that time about her own father, even if meant abandoning previous characterizations.

However, these are minor points, and I feel the show handled all of the cast changes very well. I highly recommend this season of Roseanne to all who count themselves as fans of the show.