The Conners’ Best Replacement Show Is Still Missing One Crucial Component

As ABC’s best replacement series for The Conners heads into its sophomore season, Shifting Gears still lacks one thing that lies at the heart of the Roseanne spinoff’s unique charm. Tim Allen’s latest series may not focus as much on class struggles, nor boast The Conners’ sizable cast, but neither of these fully capture what the sitcom is missing most.

Tim Allen’s Shifting Gears Is ABC’s Best Replacement Sitcom For The Conners

While the two series may differ in terms of cast size and economic focus, their similarities become readily apparent when comparing Shifting Gears’ Riley to The Conners’ Darlene. Both characters begin their series broke, single, unemployed, and living in a widowed father’s house with two children, all while managing to keep their blistering sarcasm and curiously validating cynicism firmly intact.

Additionally, while the reasons for Roseanne’s death in The Conners were decidedly much different, both series address recurring themes wherein multiple family members’ ways of grieving put them at odds. Granted, The Conners addresses this reality much more thoroughly, benefiting from a larger selection of characters that allow for the show’s exploration of grief to take on widely varying forms.

In terms of family dynamics, the main differences between the two sitcoms are rooted in each series respective starting points. Dan and Darlene Conner don’t have to overcome the same years of estrangement as Matt and Riley Parker, so The Conners typically has to create new sources of tension rather than exploit pre-existing conflicts that were decades in the making.

Both families’ patriarchs also share an admirable trait, in that they’ve both had to learn how to set aside their opinions when it served their daughters best to let them make their own mistakes. However, Matt took much longer not to let his opinions about Riley’s choices cloud his parental judgment, making one difference between the series even more surprising.

Shifting Gears Still Hasn’t Matched The Conners At Embracing Family Dysfunction

Tim Allen’s sitcom isn’t without its criticisms, and ABC almost canceled Shifting Gears despite the show outperforming other series on the network, such as Grey’s Anatomy and The Rookie. But one of the series’ greatest fundamental flaws is that the dynamic that led to Matt and Riley’s estrangement never actually appears on full display. It’s largely relegated to exposition alone.

Riley and Matt still bicker constantly, and they bring up serious issues like Riley not speaking to Matt at her mother’s funeral, but these issues are short-lived. By the time Shifting Gears’ high ratings began to drop, the Parkers have generally begun to approach each other with a stronger degree of understanding. As such, we never truly witness their dysfunction.

It’s difficult to accurately assess their character development without a real look at the seed point from which they’re developing. By contrast, the Conners have been outright abusive toward each other yet demonstrably found ways to come together as a family. Jackie beautifully references this in season 4, when Becky’s preparing to walk away from The Conners’ Lunch Box storyline:

“Remember how excited we were when we were chasin’ the dream? We stole from my mom, I slapped Darlene, we bribed a councilman. And now you’re sayin’ that the fun is over?”

That slap was tense enough to cause borderline physical discomfort, but it was also one of The Conners’ best episodes. Jackie’s throwdown with Darlene evolving into a wacky punchline illustrates that even the Conners’ most extreme moments of dysfunction never truly tear them apart. Viewers who find it relatable don’t often get to see themselves represented positively in mainstream sitcoms.

Why Highlighting Matt And Riley’s Dysfunction Would Improve Shifting Gears Season 2

Because dysfunction is empirically a way of life for the Conner clan, it isn’t entirely necessary for new viewers to have seen Roseanne to understand the dynamic. Shifting Gears doesn’t have the luxury of catering to anything but new viewers, so it’s substantially more important for the audience to understand Matt and Riley’s history of contentious interactions with each other.

Even at the beginning, when their relationship is its most troubled, Matt and Riley trade jabs with a sense of humor that doesn’t feel characteristic of the way they describe their relationship. Witnessing a real blowout would shed light on their exposition while also highlighting how far they’ve come, neither of which the series has accomplished particularly well thus far.

The catalyst for said blowout could also prove enlightening. We know that Matt and Riley’s estrangement seems to have begun around the time she started dating Jimmy, but a deeper dive could reveal how the relationship began fracturing before that. And setting up those old wounds’ reopening could even justify an appearance by Riley’s brother in Shifting Gears season 2.

None of this is to say a sitcom needs to be a clone of its predecessors to succeed. But as the closest thing to The Conners currently on network TV, highlighting the family dysfunction aspect of Shifting Gears could do wonders to appease audiences who found the Conners relatable. Given the nature of Allen’s show, that’s hardly an unworthy goal.

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