Will & Grace
Will & Grace is an American television sitcom created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan. Set in New York City, the show focuses on the friendship between best friends Will Truman (Eric McCormack), a gay lawyer, and Grace Adler (Debra Messing), a straight interior designer. The show was originally broadcast on NBC from September 21, 1998, to May 18, 2006, for a total of eight seasons, and returned to NBC on September 28, 2017, and permanently ended on April 23, 2020. Will & Grace has been one of the most successful television series with gay principal characters.[1]
Will & Grace
United States
English
11
246 (list of episodes)
- Max Mutchnick
- David Kohan
- James Burrows
- Jhoni Marchinko
- Jeff Greenstein
- Alex Herschlag
- Dave Flebotte
- Jon Kinnally
- Tracy Poust
- Gary Janetti
- Greg Malins
- Bill Wrubel
- John Quaintance
- Suzanne Martin
- Adam Barr
Tony Askins
Gary Baum
Peter Chakos
Peter D. Beyt
22 minutes
- KoMut Entertainment
- 3 Sisters Entertainment
(1998–2006) - 3 Princesses and a P Productions
(2017–2020) - NBC Studios
(1998–2004) - NBCUniversal Television Studio
(2004–2006) - Universal Television
(2017–2020)
September 21, 1998 –
May 18, 2006
September 28, 2017 –
April 23, 2020
Despite initial criticism for its stereotypical portrayal of gay characters, it went on to become a staple of NBC's Must See TV Thursday night lineup and was met with continued critical acclaim. It was ensconced in the Nielsen top 20 for half of its 1998–2006 network run. The show was the highest-rated sitcom among adults 18–49 from 2001 to 2005. Will & Grace earned 18 Primetime Emmy Awards and 96 nominations. Each main actor received an Emmy Award throughout the series. In 2014, the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 94 in their list of the 101 best-written TV series of all time.[2]
Since the final episode of the 1998–2006 run aired, the sitcom has been credited with helping and improving public opinion of the LGBT community, with then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden commenting that the show "probably did more to educate the American public" on LGBT issues "than almost anything anybody has ever done so far".[3] In 2014, the Smithsonian Institution added an LGBT history collection to their museum which included items from Will & Grace. Curator Dwight Blocker Bowers stated that the sitcom used "comedy to familiarize a mainstream audience with gay culture" in a way that was "daring and broke ground" in American media.[4]
During its original run, Will & Grace was filmed in front of a live studio audience (most episodes and scenes) on Tuesday nights,[5] at Stage 17 in CBS Studio Center. A long-running legal battle between both the original executive producers and creators and NBC took place between 2003 and 2007. Will and Grace's apartment was put on display at the Emerson College Library, donated by series creator Max Mutchnick.[6] When the set was removed in 2014, rumors came up about a cast reunion, but the actors involved denied that such a reunion was planned, explaining it was merely being moved.
In September 2016, the cast reunited for a 10-minute special (released online), urging Americans to vote in the 2016 presidential election.[7] After its success, NBC announced that the network was exploring the idea of putting Will & Grace back into production.[8] In January 2017, NBC confirmed the series' return for a ninth season, for the 2017–2018 television season,[9][10] which was eventually expanded to 16 episodes.[11] This was followed by renewals for 18-episode tenth and eleventh seasons.[12] On July 25, 2019, it was announced that the eleventh season would be the final season of the series[13] which premiered on October 24, 2019.[14]
Premise[edit]
Will & Grace is set in New York City and focuses on the relationship between Will Truman (Eric McCormack), a gay lawyer, and his best friend Grace Adler (Debra Messing), a Jewish woman who owns an interior design firm. Alongside them are their friends Karen Walker (Megan Mullally), a demonically alcoholic socialite, and Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes), a gay actor. The interplay of relationships features the trials and tribulations of dating, marriage, divorce, and casual sex; as well as comical key stereotypes of gay and Jewish culture.
Production[edit]
Conception[edit]
Creators of Will & Grace and real-life friends Max Mutchnick and David Kohan modeled the show after Mutchnick's relationship with childhood friend Janet Eisenberg, a New York City voice-over casting agent. Mutchnick, who is gay, met Eisenberg while rehearsing a play at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California, when aged 13.[16] He was the main star of the Hebrew school musical, while she was a student in the drama department. About three years later, she introduced him to Kohan, the son of comedy writer Alan Kohan, in the drama department at Beverly Hills High School. "Max and Janet seemed to have a lovely rapport, but the romantic element confused me, and it confused them as well", Kohan later recalled. "They went out for a couple of years, then they went off to different colleges. And Max comes out of the closet, springs it on her—and she was stunned. It was a shocking revelation for her, so I kind of functioned as a liaison between the two of them, because they both still really loved each other."[16]
While Kohan practiced his shuttle diplomacy, he and Mutchnick began developing sitcom ideas, which prompted the pair to start writing as a duo.[16] They eventually landed staff jobs on HBO's adult-themed sitcom Dream On and executive produced the short-lived NBC sitcom Boston Common.[16] In 1997, they developed an ensemble comedy about six friends, two of them based on Mutchnick and Eisenberg.[16] At the same time, Warren Littlefield, the then-president of NBC Entertainment, was seeking another relationship comedy for the network as Mad About You was going off the air.[17][18] When Kohan and Mutchnick pitched their idea, which centered on three couples, one of which was a gay man living with a straight woman, Littlefield was not excited about the first two couples, but wanted to learn more about the gay and straight couple, so Mutchnick and Kohan were sent to create a pilot script centering on those two characters.[18] While Kohan and Mutchnick elaborated on the pilot script, they spent four tense months faxing Littlefield the box office grosses from hit films with gay characters such as The Birdcage and My Best Friend's Wedding.[16]
NBC was positive about the project, but there was still some concern that the homosexual subject matter would cause alarm. Ellen DeGeneres's sitcom Ellen, which aired on ABC, was canceled the year before Will & Grace premiered because ratings had plummeted after the show became "too gay."[19][20] Despite the criticism ABC received for DeGeneres's coming out episode, "The Puppy Episode", Kohan said, "there's no question that show made it easier for Will & Grace to make it on the air." He added: "Will & Grace had a better shot at succeeding where Ellen failed, however, because Will has known about his homosexuality for 20 years. He's not exploring that awkward territory for the first time, as Ellen did. The process of self-discovery and the pain most gay men go through is fascinating, but the average American is put off by it."[21]
Lawsuit[edit]
In December 2003, in the midst of the series' sixth season, executive producers and creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick sued NBC and NBC Studios. Alleging that the network sold the rights to the series in an attempt to keep profits within the NBC family, Kohan and Mutchnick felt that they were cheated out of considerable profits because the network did not shop the show to the highest bidder. Another allegation against the network was that during the first four seasons of the series, the studio licensed the rights for amounts that were insufficient for covering production costs, thus leading to extraordinarily large production deficits.[34] Three months later, NBC filed a countersuit against Kohan and Mutchnick stating that the co-creators were expected to act as an independent third party in the negotiations between NBC and its subsidiary, NBC Studios (since subsumed into Universal Television).[35]
With a pending lawsuit and production beginning on other projects, Kohan and Mutchnick were absent on the Will & Grace set for most of its final seasons. They wrote the season 4 episode, "A Buncha White Chicks Sittin' Around Talkin'" and did not return to the writers' seat until the series finale four years later. Three years after NBC's countersuit and one year after the series ended, the legal battle between NBC and Kohan and Mutchnick ended in 2007 when all parties agreed on a settlement, with the series creators being awarded $49 million of the $65 million they sued for.[36]
Syndication[edit]
Will & Grace entered off-network syndication in 2002, and remained in local syndication until 2008. In 2002 WGN America acquired the cable rights to air the series, where it aired until 2005 when Lifetime Television acquired the cable rights to the series. After eight years and the expiration of Lifetime's contract, the rights to the series were picked up by WeTV and Logo TV in 2013, with both eventually letting the rights lapse.
The streaming service Hulu later picked up the show, in anticipation of the show's revival in 2017, with the entire series also carried on NBC.com. Around the same time, NBC's classic subchannel network Cozi TV picked up the series and airs it four times nightly, and promotes it as "The Original Series" to avert confusion with the current-day run.[37]
In the United Kingdom, the series was broadcast on Channel 4 up until its season finale in 2006. The revival of the show was picked up by Channel 5 instead, premiering in January 2018. The channel chose not to broadcast any further episodes, and the tenth (and eleventh) seasons went straight to a DVD release in August 2019 and July 2020 respectively,[38] before Comedy Central – a sister channel – began the tenth season in January 2021.[39]
In Ireland, the series first aired on TV3 Ireland until its conclusion in 2006. It was confirmed in January 2018 rival channel RTÉ2 picked up the broadcasting rights for the 2017–18 season run, beginning in February 2018.
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
The show has been criticized for not fully challenging stereotypes. "Battles and Hilton-Morrow (2002) analyse Will & Grace with regard to its dependence on traditional sitcom formulas and argue that the narratives diminish any of the show's potentially subversive themes...Kanner (2003) notes that the gayness of Will & Grace is normalized because the driving force of the show is their heterosexual friendship. Will's sexuality is assumed and incorporated into the show mostly as comic source and rarely as driving narrative."[40]
The show garnered a fair amount of criticism and negative reviews upon its debut in 1998, most of which compared the show to the recently canceled ABC sitcom Ellen. One such review said, "If Will & Grace can somehow survive a brutal time period opposite football and Ally McBeal, it could grow into a reasonably entertaining little anomaly—that is, a series about a man and a woman who have no sexual interest in one another. But don't bet on it. If it's doomed relationships viewers want, they'll probably opt for Ally."[41] As popular as the show came to be, particularly among gay viewers, Will & Grace continuously dealt with criticism for having a limited view of the gay community and for reinforcing stereotypes when some felt it should have torn them down.[42]
The series finale was heavily promoted by NBC, and McCormack, Messing, Mullally and Hayes appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Today Show to bid farewell, on May 10 and 18, respectively. NBC devoted a two-hour block in its primetime schedule on May 18, 2006, for the Will & Grace send-off. An hour-long series retrospective, "Say Goodnight, Gracie", featuring interviews with the cast, crew, and guest stars, preceded the hour-long series finale. Series creators and executive producers Kohan and Mutchnick, who had not served as writers since the season 4 finale, penned the script for "The Finale". Regarding the finale, Mutchnick stated, "We wrote about what you want to have happen with people you love... All the things that matter in life, they end up having."[43]
The ninth season was met with generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season has a rating of 86% based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Will & Grace reunites its ever-hilarious cast for a revival season that picks up right where the show left off 11 years ago—adding a fresh relevance and a series of stories that make sharply funny use of the passage of time."[44] On Metacritic, the season has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[45]
Spin-offs[edit]
Karen: The Musical[edit]
It had been announced that Megan Mullally would be creating and starring in a new Broadway musical titled Karen: The Musical. This musical would have had Mullally reprising her role of Karen Walker. She stated in an interview that the show may also involve recurring guest star Leslie Jordan in his role as Beverley Leslie, with a story revolving around their rivalry.[81]
According to Mullally, the project was cancelled due to the rights to the Karen character being withdrawn. Mullally stated to have already gained approval from the network, as well as having the Broadway production company Fox Theatricals, director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw and composer Jeff Blumenkrantz all lined up to participate in the production, before certain stakeholders in the Karen Walker character withdrew the rights for its use in the production.[82]
Jack & Karen[edit]
There had been talk in 2008 that a spin-off was being developed by NBC titled Jack & Karen, featuring Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally reprising their roles. Hayes initially showed interest in the spin-off but was ultimately put off by the short-lived Friends spin-off, Joey. Furthermore, Mullally's new work schedule in the form of her talk show, which was canceled several months later, did not allow her to pursue the spin-off at the time.[83]
#VoteHoney[edit]
On September 26, 2016, the main cast—McCormack, Messing, Hayes, and Mullally, plus Morrison in a cameo role—reunited for a 10-minute web special, urging Americans to vote in the 2016 presidential election.[7] In the special – titled #VoteHoney – Karen, an avid Donald Trump supporter, tries to persuade Jack to vote for Trump, while Will and Grace, both avid Hillary Clinton supporters, try to persuade him to vote for Clinton. At the end, Will reveals that singer Katy Perry is a supporter of Clinton, which persuades Jack to vote for Clinton. The success of the special resulted in the series' revival in 2017.