John Goodman in an interview with USA Today ahead of “The Conners” premiere on Tuesday said that “there’s a hollow center” without his former co-star Roseanne Barr on the show.
“It felt great to be back, but there’s a hollow center. I miss Rosie real bad,” said Goodman, who plays Roseanne’s husband “Dan Conner” on the show.
“The Conners” premiere had lackluster ratings compared to the “Roseanne” premiere, MRCTV reported. The “Roseanne” season premiere drew 18.44 million viewers and had a 5.1 rating among adults 18-49, meanwhile “The Conners” Tuesday night premiere drew 10.5 million viewers and had a 2.3 rating.
That’s down 55 percent.
The episode confirmed rumors that the character “Roseanne” would die from an opioid overdose, as Barr had revealed in an interview in September.
Barr issued a statement on Twitter Tuesday night criticizing ABC for its choice "to cancel Roseanne by killing off the Roseanne Conner character."
"That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show," the statement read.
ABC fired Barr and cancelled the reboot of her show, “Roseanne,” in May after the actress posted a tweet comparing former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett to an "ape."
Barr apologized and insisted she wrote the tweet about Jarrett not because she had an issue with her race, but because she didn't agree "with her politics.”
Goodman came out and defended Barr in a recent interview. He told The Times in August that he knows “for a fact that she’s not racist” and that he was “surprised” at ABC’s reaction to her tweet.
He added that he was “broken-hearted” by the show’s cancellation and went through a period where he was "very depressed" for “about a month” after.
Barr tweeted a day after the interview was published that she appreciates Goodman "for speaking truth about me, despite facing certain peril from producers and network."
After "The Conners" premiere aired Tuesday night, Barr tweeted this:
It remains to be seen how “The Conners” will fair for the rest of its season.