Which Of These Reason Do You Think Cause The Ratings to Drop In the 1994-1995 Season?

[The Jeffersons Fan]

In The !994-1995(Season 7)The Ratings Slipped From Number 4 To Number !0 So which Of These Reason do you think cause the Ratings to drop?

The Move To Wednesday
The Shows Aging
Not Very Good Plot Lines Or Episode
Roseanne Character changes
Other Character Changes
Other

[thetornado]

I think just the shows age personally I think Roseanne should have just lasted 8 seasons instead of 9!

[catlover79]

All of the above - but I mostly think it was the move to Wednesday nights that started the downhill slide.

[Buffyboy323]

The Move To Wednesday
The Shows Aging
Not Very Good Plot Lines Or Episode
Other Character Changes
The move to Wednesday did hurt the ratings, but if people were more interested in the show at that point, they would have followed it. There were/are shows that do better in new timeslots all the time.

There's also a bunch of shows that get better with age, Roseanne being one of them; IMO, the show got better every year during the first 5/6 seasons. By the 7th year, the stories were getting weak, the characters starting getting boring (the actors were all still excellent though), and Roseanne and Darlene were missing from several episodes throughout that season (and I'm sure that had something to do with the final ratings).

"Other character changes" also might have contributed to the decline. I'm sure there were "Becky Connors" out there, who grew up with her, and used to relate to the character, but now felt she was a little dumb, and didn't like that she was barely there. There was no balance anymore between all the wackyness/yelling/fighting that went on in the Connor household (aside from David, and by this point he was just another male figure on the show that was looked down upon by the women).

[JulieSomoski]

You keep talking about this huge drop off from 2nd to 4th place. Actually, around that time, I believe only a million viewers were lost from fifth to sixth season. The TV audience in general just became less, which is the main reason why the show slipped to 4th. That's why comparing actual viewers is better than comparing rankings.

I think the main reason for the huge dropoff from the seventh to eighth season was actually the character changes. People obviously weren't interested in where the show was going, and what the characters were doing. I think when Roseanne had that baby, people tuned out, because not many people wanted to see another baby in the show. Plus Jackie was married, which took all the fun out of her character and dating. Darlene was gone for the most part that season, and Lecy left the show. Things were just changing, and people tuned out.

[Dean Winchester]

Season seven was probably the weakest in the entire show because it was the one season it was obvious Roseanne didn't wanna be there anymore, there were so many other things going on in her life like the divorce with Tom and the pregnancy and her illness at the time (I remember in early 95 there was a brief moment where people thought she was going to die), that the show was rightfully at the bottom of her priorities at the moment. Which was why she was missing in so many episodes and why characters like Dan, Jackie, Fred, David, Mark and Becky seemed to really have their roles beefed up in the season.

The differences between 7 and 8 are night and day and you can tell it. Roseanne admits that she was happier when making season 8 than she was during the first seven years (having a baby does that to you I guess, but also she was out of Tom Arnold's spell, she was healthy again, etc...). I think if season 7 never happened and season 8 was "season 7" and 9 was "season 8", people would've had more patience for the show at the end because fans were turned off after season 7 and most of them never came back, not even for the finale.

[Ireneparalegal]

All of the above, with the exception of the change to Wednesday nights.

[JulieSomoski]

All of the above, with the exception of the change to Wednesday nights.

I'm with you. I don't think the change to Wednesday has anything to do with a drop in ratings. People were just getting tired of the show.

[Dean Winchester]

I'm with you. I don't think the change to Wednesday has anything to do with a drop in ratings. People were just getting tired of the show.
I agree, the show was just starting to lose it's freshness and people were getting more interested in the "new shows on the block" like Seinfeld (granted, Seinfeld premiered in 89, but it didn't really start to explode in popularity until around 93) and Friends, while Roseanne was starting to become old hat.

[iank]

I thought season 7 was great, myself, bar the last few episodes, which started a decline into silliness that continued into the very bad season 8 and the even worse season 9. I thought 7 was the last really great season.

[Overdose]

I honestly feel season 7 had some of the best episodes in the entire series.

Episodes that brought on the laughs:
"Sleeper" -- David fantasies about Roseanne in a dream.
"Skeleton In The Closet" -- Probably the best Halloween episode. Fred is gay!
"The Blaming Of The Shrew" -- DJ brings home his first date; a domineering young girl.

Episodes with great storylines:
"Two For One" and "Snoop Davey Dave" showed David and Darlene's relationship difficulties in a very compelling and strong way. "Punch And Jimmy" continues this storyline, when Roseanne and Jackie drop in on Darlene and her new boyfriend unannounced.

Other episodes that deserve a mention:
"White Men Can't Kiss" (very powerful episode)
"My Name Is Bev" (Bev drives drunk!)
"Girl Talk" (funny episode where Roseanne gets herself in trouble for sharing sexual secrets with everyone)
"Rear Window" (naked neighbors!)

So that accounts for 10 strong episodes this season out of 25. The other episodes were above average to mediocre -- mostly because they lacked a strong storyline or Roseanne was just too bitchy. They should have included more characters like Nancy in order to provide more compelling stories.

I really think the ratings drop was due to the public being sick of Roseanne Barr in real life. After the extremely public and nasty divorce with Tom Arnold, the public just grew tired of Roseanne and thus got tired of her show. It didn't help that Roseanne, often times, came off bitchy and too sarcastic during the 7th season.