The Roseanne that existed two decades ago didnt have to remind us that it was topical. From 1988 to 1997, the show built its foundation on the everyday plight of a working-class family struggling to stay afloat in small-town America. The verisimilitude was often searing, and always rollicking. Even in the titular matriarchs loudest moments, no one preached about current events in such a way that politics superseded the actual situations greeting characters in this situational comedy.

But todays rendition , returning to ABC on Tuesday, is jonesing to announce its topicality, figurative megaphone in hand, almost as quickly as the opening credits roll. Face-to-face with the Donald Trump era, the inaugural episodes politics are thundering, confrontational and ham-fisted.