Still, the network desperately needed a hit, perhaps a reason it was willing to let some of Ms. Barr’s more outlandish statements go. “Roseanne,” along with the rookie drama “The Good Doctor,” has helped put the network on better footing, though it will finish the 2017-18 TV season in last place for the third straight year.
Initially, the writers on “Roseanne” were able to work within a bit of a blissful vacuum. The entire season had been written and shot before the premiere episode aired in late March.
Ms. Barr’s on-set presence had also mellowed significantly from what it was during the show’s initial run in the 1990s, when she developed a reputation for being difficult to work with and treating her writers with little respect.
Mr. Rasmussen, who was a supervising producer for one season on the old show before being fired, said there was a sense of purpose this time that the show could speak to a segment of the country that was often overlooked in prime-time TV.
“Everyone trusted each other, and we were all on the same team,” he said.
But by time the show aired, things had changed, and the show had become a lightning rod. Mr. Trump and conservative commentators praised the show for its depiction of a Trump supporter, while some on the left expressed reservations about even watching it.
And then there was the nagging, relentless presence of Ms. Barr’s Twitter feed.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen,” Mr. Rasmussen said of her Twitter account. “She would tweet stuff, then apologize and get off Twitter, and then it would get better. And then it would blow up again. I followed her to just see what was coming. Some of the other writers couldn’t do it, just because they couldn’t handle the stress of it.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/business/media/working-on-roseanne-show.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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