The Conners: What time is the premiere and how does Roseanne die?

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Six months after the Roseanne reboot was axed following Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, its spin-off, The Conners, comes to US TV without the parent show’s lead actress.

However, top ABC brass are reportedly worried that they pulled the plug on Roseanne’s character too soon, with DailyMail TV exclusively revealing last week that two senior ABC execs thought it was a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction by the president of the network.

Here is all you need to know about Roseanne spin-off The Conners including when does it premiere, how many episodes are there and how does Roseanne die.

Roseanne spin-off The Conners will air on ABC, six months after the popular reboot was axed

What time is The Conners premiere?

Roseanne spin-off The Conners will premiere on ABC on Tuesday, October 16 at 8pm ET. ABC ordered a ten-episode series.

How does Roseanne die in the spin-off?

There have been many theories about how the show would deal with extricating Roseanne Barr’s character from the spin-off.

While critics who have received advance screeners of the show are not allowed to discuss the details of or reasons for Roseanne’s absence, they do reveal that the subject matter is dealt with in the opening scene of the premiere.

Back in August, John Goodman, who plays Roseanne’s husband Dan Conner, hinted that Roseanne’s character would be killed off. 

The Sunday Times asked Goodman how his character would handle Roseanne’s absence, to which the actor replied: 'It’s an unknown. I guess he’ll be mopey and sad because his wife’s dead.'

Barr added fuel to the fire when she potentially spoiled her character’s death last month on the YouTube show called Walk Away. 

The actress suggested that her character would be killed off with an ‘opioid overdose’, which she says is a ‘cynical and horrible’ way for the character to go.

'It’s so cynical and horrible. She should have died as a hero or not at all,' she said. 'It wasn’t enough to [fire me], they had to so cruelly insult the people who loved that family and that show.'

Ahead of the premiere, DailyMail TV reported that senior ABC executives said that firing Barr was a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction and top ABC brass now worry that the spin-off will suffer without its star.

'We didn't think it through properly. What Roseanne did was wrong but we shouldn't have rushed to fire her. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction by Ben [Sherwood] and Channing [Dungey] who should have launched an investigation,' one insider said.

'This would have given them more time to listen to the public, advertisers and cast members to determine the best decision.'

ABC is reportedly now worried that viewers will be upset by Barr’s departure and won’t watch the new spin-off out of loyalty for the actress.

Why was Roseanne cancelled?

Roseanne was one of the most popular shows during the 1990s, running for nine seasons between 1988 and 1997.

It was brought back in March 2018 and was an immediate ratings hit, scoring 27 million viewers for its season finale at the end of May.

However, on May 29, Roseanne tweeted about Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s one-time adviser. 

The actress said about her: 'Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.'

The fallout was swift.

ABC cut ties with Barr quickly, telling Deadline: ‘It was nice that it was so clear to everyone that there wasn’t a lot of debate and discussion about it.

'Certainly this tweet crossed the line that cannot be crossed, but it was for us a sense of enough is enough and something had to be done.'

Barr apologised and denied racism, but quickly followed up by blaming her tweet on sleeping pills, before going on another Twitter rant, in which she said she was being targeted because of her support of Donald Trump.

In June, ABC revealed that a spin-off series about the Conners would go ahead without Barr, who would have ‘no financial or creative involvement in the new series.'

The returning cast released a statement following the announcement: 'We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today.

‘We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter.'