The Good

Great writing, great acting have made this a sitcom one to own forever.

The Bad

I would have liked some commentary tracks on a few of these episodes.

Roseanne: The Complete Second Season is TV at it's finest. Whether Roseanne g to keep their house in order, their kids on the right track or their marriage steamy, this show was never afraid to address true family issues dead on. It was filled with honest portrayals and serious moments, but it's greatest asset was always Roseanne's ability to never take itself too seriously. How many shows can deal with a family struggling to get by without ever falling into a trap of self pity? The fact that Roseanne was able to do that week in and week out for nine years speaks not only to the strength of this show's cast but the writing as well.

Features

John Goodman: A Candid Interview

While this claims to be a candid interview, I didn't expect John Goodman to fully reveal himself here. As a result, I didn't find myself letdown by anything that he had to say. I have always been a fan of this actor so it was nice to see him, with no pretense, discuss the show, his character and his life (a little bit).

Best of Season Two

A highlight reel of sorts that takes us through the characters on this show, as well as some of the funnier moments of the Second Season. Nothing too special, especially when I would recommend just watching the episodes themselves.

Wacky Jackie

This featurette shows us Roseanne's sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) in all her unbridled glory. It doesn't go too in-depth (they have saved that for Season Three) on her character, but there certainly is enough material here to give you a start on the investigation.

Roseanne United--Season One Launch Party

An interesting look at the launch party for this show's first season. It is really weird seeing all of these people at this age (including the adults), because as the show went on their lives (both on and off screen) changed so much. When you realize how long this show actually ran for, I am thankful to have this piece of footage that shows this show in one of it's post-formative stages.

John Goodman Audition

Normally, I don't really care to see actor's auditions for their roles. Mainly, because they usually do them with actors I could care less about. John Goodman is certainly an exception to this rule and to see him "getting into" the role of Dan Conner is really exciting. In fact, I would recommend that all would be thespians check this out.

Video

Full Screen - As a huge fan of this show, they could have literally taken these episodes from a VHS tape, burned them to a disc and sold them without any artwork and I wouldn't have minded either way. As it is, this set has nice packaging and the picture quality on these DVDs is really good. Nothing too special, everything as you might expect it to be (or remember it being) but that's half the fun, right?

Audio

Dolby Digital Stereo - While I can't say that I was blown away by the sound design on this show, I will say that I didn't hear anything that struck me as bad or out of place. The audio sounds just as good as when these shows play on Nick At Night and at the end of the day, I think as long as it sounds as good as it did the first time I heard it, I am certainly not going to complain too much.

Package

The front cover features Roseanne and Dan as they sit on a motorcycle recalling their early years. The back cover gives us some more shots from the show, a well written description summing up what this season is about, a "Special Features" listing and a few technical specs. The four discs that make up this set are neatly housed inside this easy to negotiate packaging, which contains some more artwork from this show, as well as episode indexes and descriptions.

Final Word

For the longest time I resisted Roseanne as a person but I never really minded her on this show. I think we get very comfortable with these characters and when their real life selves act differently than we would like, we oftentimes don't know how to deal with it. As a result, this set idea of who these people are, based on how we have seen them on TV for so many years, is very hard for us to shake. I bring this up because I really like Roseanne a lot. Sure, there are a number of episodes that are probably not that great, but overall I think this show did it's best to deliver each time out. The fact that many of the characters aren't like the people they are playing here, only seems to speak more to just how talented they are and it makes me want to see them in other things.