“Will & Grace” arrived on NBC on September 21, 1998, and ran for eight seasons. Max Mutchnick and David Kohan created it. Eric McCormack played Will Truman, a gay lawyer. Debra Messing played Grace Adler, a straight interior designer. When Grace’s engagement fell apart, she moved in with Will, and the show built its whole architecture on that arrangement.
Trailer, via سام سریال | SamSerial.
Will Truman and Grace Adler
The premise is a friendship, not a romance, and the show knows the difference matters. Will and Grace date other people, break up with other people, and butt heads over careers. The banter is the engine. Sean Hayes played Jack McFarland, a gay actor, and Megan Mullally played Karen Walker, a socialite with a serious drinking habit. The interplay of their relationships runs through dating, marriage, divorce and casual sex across 194 episodes.
That structure let the show get away with something network television had not managed before.
Must See TV and the Nielsen Top 20
NBC put “Will & Grace” on its Thursday night Must See TV lineup, and the ratings held. The sitcom sat in the Nielsen top 20 for half of its 1998–2006 run. From 2001 to 2005 it was the highest-rated sitcom among adults 18–49. That is not a niche audience. That is the center of the tent.
| Run | First aired | Last aired |
|---|---|---|
| Original | September 21, 1998 | May 18, 2006 |
| Revival | September 28, 2017 | April 23, 2020 |
The revival eventually landed, but the original run is the one that changed the room.
18 Emmys and a Writers Guild Nod
The awards followed the ratings. “Will & Grace” won 18 Primetime Emmy Awards from 96 nominations. Every one of the four main actors took home an Emmy at some point during the run. In 2014, the Writers Guild of America ranked it number 94 on its list of the 101 best-written TV series of all time.
The early reviews were not all warm. Critics called out stereotypical portrayals of gay characters. The show went on to become a staple of NBC’s Thursday lineup and drew continued critical acclaim. Jack is broad. Karen is broader. The writing carries them anyway.
Joe Biden and the Show’s Second Life
After the 1998–2006 run ended, “Will & Grace” picked up a reputation as a quiet piece of civic infrastructure. Then-Vice President Joe Biden said the show “probably did more to educate the American public” on LGBT issues “than almost anything anybody has ever.” That is a politician’s line, and it should be read as one. It is also not nothing.
A sitcom that ran on NBC for eight seasons and 194 episodes does not usually get remembered for what it taught anybody. This one does.
What Holds Up
The case for “Will & Grace” is not that it was brave. Plenty of shows were braver and reached fewer people. The case is that it was on NBC’s Thursday Must See TV lineup, in front of an audience that had not been asked to think about gay characters as neighbors before. Will and Grace share an apartment. They argue about dating. They support each other. The politics were in the furniture, not the speeches.
The weakness is the same as the strength. The stereotypical portrayals the early critics flagged are still there in the finished show. Karen’s alcoholism is a running gag. Jack’s flamboyance is a running gag. Whether that material would clear a writers’ room today is a guess, not a fact, and this paper will not pretend otherwise.
That is the trade “Will & Grace” made, and it won. Eight seasons, 18 Emmys, a top-20 slot for half its run, and a revival that brought the cast back to NBC. The show is not a museum piece. It is a working sitcom with visible seams, and the seams are worth seeing.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.