A Thursday-night sitcom that a Vice President credited with shifting American attitudes
Will & Grace paired a gay New York lawyer with his straight best friend, an interior designer, and made them the centre of prime-time comedy on NBC from 1998. Early critics called its gay characters stereotyped; later, Joe Biden said the show had taught Americans more about LGBT issues than almost anything else.
Max Mutchnick and David Kohan created the series around Will Truman, played by Eric McCormack, and Grace Adler, played by Debra Messing. The two met as freshmen at Columbia and behave, friends keep noting, rather like a married couple; Will is precise and reserved, Grace is neurotic and leans on him after every break-up. Megan Mullally's Karen Walker, a rich socialite who works as Grace's assistant without bothering to cash her paychecks, and Sean Hayes's Jack McFarland, a flamboyant actor forever switching jobs and boyfriends, supplied much of the chaos.
The first run lasted eight seasons, ending in May 2006. It spent half those years in the Nielsen top 20 and from 2001 to 2005 was the top-rated sitcom among viewers aged 18 to 49. The tally reached 18 Primetime Emmys from 96 nominations, with every lead actor winning at least once, and in 2014 the Writers Guild of America ranked it 94th among the best-written series ever. Most episodes were taped before a live audience on Tuesday nights at Stage 17 of CBS Studio Center, while the creators fought NBC in court between 2003 and 2007.
Its cultural reach outlasted the ratings. In 2014 the Smithsonian included objects from the show in a new LGBT history collection, its curator praising how the comedy made gay culture familiar to mainstream audiences. Mutchnick donated the set of the shared apartment to the Emerson College Library.
A 10-minute online reunion in September 2016, encouraging people to vote in that year's presidential election, persuaded NBC to bring the show back. A ninth season arrived for 2017 to 2018, followed by two more; the final episode aired on April 23, 2020.
Source: Will & Grace
