Of all the final seasons of any sitcom ever, Roseanne’s is the final-season-iest. It is alarmingly self-indulgent, tonally scattered, and a world away from the show’s premise. It’s so notorious that it had to be undone twice in order to get the show back on track. But while watching Season 9 during my recent Roseanne binge, I was surprised to spot a number of similarities between that dubious year of TV and the current slate of streaming service comedies. Was Roseanne: Season 9 really all that bad, or was it just ahead of its time?!

Short answer: Yes and yes.

Long answer: Keep reading.

The Season 9 premiere, which aired in September 1996, ends with Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) learning that the lotto ticket she and Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) purchased won $108 million. That’s enough money to change their lives forever (or, as it actually plays out, buy new furniture, visit a spa, and get the attention an Eastern European prince). Roseanne, which had spent the previous 8 seasons and 199 episodes detailing the day-to-day of a struggling but determined blue collar family, suddenly became a different show–literally.

Just before Season 9 started, Barr shopped around a US adaptation of Absolutely Fabulous starring Carrie Fisher and Barbara Carrera. Every network passed on it, so Barr just turned Roseanne into AbFab: Illinois, as Roseanne and Jackie became loaded ladies looking to climb the social ladder. Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley guest-starred in a low-key AbFab/Roseanne crossover, and Carrie Fisher ended up writing a Season 9 episode. Season 9 is the height of Roseanne Barr doing whatever she wants. It turns out that in retrospect, what Barr wanted was what a lot of modern comedies–like the Netflix originals–would end up doing.

The main thing you notice when bingeing Season 9 is that the cast is 1. huge and 2. inessential outside of Roseanne and (usually) Jackie. While only six characters appear in the opening credits (Roseanne, Dan, Jackie, Darlene, DJ, and Becky), there are another seven that recur throughout the season (David, Mark, Heather, Beverly, Leon, Scott, and Nancy). Dan and Becky are actually absent for huge chunks of the season, meaning there are only 6 episodes of 24 (!) wherein every actor in the opening credits appears in the episode. There are even two episodes that just feature Barr and Metcalf!

It’s uncommon for a sitcom to have a cast that big and to also have main characters regularly disappear. Imagine if Golden Girls or Will & Grace gave A or even B-plots solely to characters outside of their fab fours. And you can count the episodes of Friends where Ross is M.I.A. on no hands (although doesn’t that sound nice?). But nowadays on streaming sitcoms, characters just come and go. Master of None has a cast of basically just one (Aziz Ansari) as the show shifts from one of Dev’s social settings to another. Love is the same way. Series co-lead Paul Rust didn’t appear in an episode that gave Claudia O’Doherty, a supporting actor, the lead. Instead of finding something for every single character to do, comedies are now willing to let stories dictate an episode’s cast. Roseanne was doing that decades years ago.

Roseanne Season 9 was also packed with celebrity guest stars, either appearing as part of elaborate fantasy sequences (more on that in a bit) or playing tongue-in-cheek characters. Jim Varney guest stars as the Prince of Moldavia, Jackie’s would-be suitor and a far cry from his Ernest persona. Debbie Reynolds takes over the role of Dan’s mentally ill and murderous mom. Tammy Faye Baker appears as a spa worker, and James Brolin plays a member of the Lanford elite that tempts Roseanne. And then Ed Asner, Jerry Springer, and Hugh Hefner appear in elaborate fantasy sequences–and there’s also a cameo from Steven Seagal in an episode that defies explanation. On the Netflix front, big guest stars regularly drop in for an episode or two of their comedies. Jon Hamm, Laura Dern, and Ray Liotta all popped in during Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 3.

And Kimmy Schmidt, like most other streamable comedies, lets plotlines unfold across a whole season. Since episodes are released all at once, shows like Love and Grace and Frankie let stories advance episode by episode. Even though Roseanne aired weekly, Season 9 contains a 6-part storyline detailing the Conners’ trip to New York City, which includes Roseanne and Jackie’s slapstick misadventure in a swanky spa, a Rosemary’s Baby riff while Roseanne mingles with NYC elites, a jaunt up to Martha’s Vineyard, and a thwarted terrorism plot on a Washington, D.C.-bound train (yep). You don’t see the Conner household for four back-to-back episodes!

When the Conners return home, another ongoing plotline begins: Roseanne and Dan’s separation. Roseanne regularly got serious, but breaking up the show’s rock solid pair was an extreme turn in an extreme season (and the hundredth shark jumped). But that willingness to forego laughter can be seen in the heavy episodes of shows like Love or Master of None, and also on tonally lighter sitcoms like One Day at a Time or Kimmy Schmidt.

But Roseanne wasn’t always so serious. In fact, Season 9 was frequently bonkers in every sense of the word. If you think Lady Dynamite has elaborate fantasy sequences that leap over the boundaries of traditional storytelling, just wait. Roseanne basically spends the first chunk of the season in a fugue state taking on a half dozen different identities. There’s an episode devoted to her roleplaying as classic sitcom characters like Mary Richards or Jeannie.

That’s followed by an entire episode where Roseanne daydreams about being on Jerry Springer, posing for Playboy, and winning a beauty pageant. And as previously mentioned, “Roseambo” sees Barr transform into a bandana-wearing feminist action hero, armed with a snarl and killer tampons. It’s a lot.

None of this is to say that Season 9 is good. It’s definitely not a good season of Roseanne, as it’s fundamentally a different show. It’s Roseanne Barr getting the same kind of blank check to make whatever she wants that streaming services given today’s comedians/showrunners, except Barr did all of this on network TV in a multicam format. The result is a nonstop parade of WTF moments seemingly designed to try the patience of every Roseanne fan. But when you look back on the season now, you get a tiny glimpse of the future. Season 9 isn’t good, but now it at least looks forward-thinking.

Where to stream Roseanne