The Conners: Details on Roseanne Spinoff's 'Stealth' Opening Sequence

For ABC’s forthcoming Roseanne spinoff The Conners, change (quite literally) will start at the top. Showrunner Bruce Helford confirms to TVLine that a new opening title sequence is being readied for the offshoot’s Oct. 16 launch. “There will certainly be a new opening,” the EP tells TVLine. “And you will see it in the first episode.”

Helford teases that the new sequence (which may or may not stick with the franchise’s kitchen-table theme) will likely catch viewers off guard, but less because of its content and more because of its location. For the premiere, the opening “won’t be at the beginning of the episode,” he reveals. “It will be somewhere in the episode. And you’ll know it when you see it.”

The 10-episode Roseanne Barr-less offshoot will pick up following a “sudden turn of events,” as “the Conners are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before.” It remains unclear how the spinoff will address the absence of its matriarch, although John Goodman added fuel to the rumored “death scenario” earlier this week when he speculated that his former leading lady would be killed off, leaving Dan “mopey and sad because his wife’s dead.”

ABC on Friday released the first official image of the offshoot; the photo featured the entire principal cast — Goodman, Sara Gilbert, Laurie Metcalf, Lecy Goranson, Michael Fishman, Emma Kenney, Ames McNamara and Jayden Rey — sitting at the signature kitchen table, scripts in hand.

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