Remember the days when we had to go searching far and wide for any kind of queer content on television? Now, all you have to do is catch a commercial for women’s deodorant to see trans women. So how will the Will & Grace reboot fare, now that they’re no longer the only gay game in town?
Here’s what we know of the rumor so far: they reunited for a little webisode a few weeks ago to remind people that voting is important if you live in a swing state. (And if you don’t live in a swing state, you can still have a say in the election as long as you can donate tens of thousands of dollars.)
That little video did well enough that now NBC is thinking about bringing everyone back for a something new — but what? We don’t know. From the sound of things, it would be a little Will & Grace miniseries. Not a full network sitcom, but something short and fun and limited.
At the time, both Debra Messing and Eric McCormack said that they’d be interested in talking about bringing the show back.
How about we take this to the next level?
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But, yeesh, let’s take a minute and think here. When you watch an episode of the show, it really does not feel contemporary, and not just because it’s shot at 1.33:1. You forget how far this country has come until you see the issues queers were dealing with in 1999. Coming out was a huge deal, discrimination was just expected, gay marriage was hahaha yeah right. The show created a happy gay fantasy bubble where the real world seldom intruded, but it had to do so because the real world was so unpleasant at the time.
Now, things are considerably better, the current GOP nominee notwithstanding. We don’t need as much of a fantasy bubble. Will those characters feel as daring and fresh as they did to an America that had never seen so much queerness on TV? Or will they just seem as boring and predictable as urban gays considered them when they first appeared?
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s
Yes! We need it! Best mainstream gay themed show ever. With Trump as president (my concern of the day) it may be the only laughs we get.
adb
Maybe it’s time to stop thinking of Will & Grace as a gay sitcom and think of it as a hilarious sitcom with gay characters. I can still pop in the DVD and laugh my ass off at Matt Damon pretending to be gay, Will hitting on a guy with a mother fixation, Minnie Driver trying to steal the jewelry, and Karen trying to help Jack film a PSA about sexual harassment. Nothing dated about that…
thisiswhatithink
That’s the whole point dumb ass! We need to see how Will & Co respond to this brave new world. This is ageist BS dressed up as cultural relevance. Without W & G we’d never have all the gay friendly on demand shows that nobody watches.
jmichaelfitch
Yes.
Realitycheck
Yes! Big Time!!
miserylovedme24
@adb: Exactly. I think that’s the big mistake here. This post is seeing it as just a gay show and that’s doing a disservice to those that loved it. I personally wasn’t a fan, but I am a fan of shows getting new movies/seasons/whatever these days. Shows from Gilmore Girls to Full House have been resurrected, this is no different. It’s fun to think that the continuation of a show I loved and supported (Veronica Mars) really started this trend.
Charlie in Charge
A miniseries? More? Maybe? There have been so many attempts at gay shows in recent years and they all bite it in the first or second season; W&G was so much more fun and irreverent.
Charlie in Charge
Oops hat shoudl have rad A miniseries? Yes! More? Maybe
Low Country Boy
Benji, snark much? Tone that shit down and be a little more accepting. Seriously. What is wrong with you? Let me guess . . . you are a 20 something gay dude that has nothing better to do than shit all over other people. Get a life, Sir!
rtripboy
Yes, I’d like to see it. Maybe this time NBC wouldn’t be so restrictive on the content of the show. The re-runs feel dated to you because they were dated when they were produced. The producers did the best could with what NBC would allow.
existentialgay
I’d be happy with a W&G that I can download on iTunes. Or watch on Netflix.
Jack Meoff
I always thought Jack & Karen were the more entertaining characters and that they deserved their own spin off when the show stopped filming.
oz1967
Yes and a Queer as Folk update as well, Brian would be nearly 50 years old gotta see how he would be handling that shit, ples I miss Sharon Gless as Debbie
startenout
This article seems to be living in its own bubble. For many of our gay brethren young and old, coming out is difficult and can mean ending up estranged from family or homeless. Discrimination, both individual and systemic, is still the norm in huge swaths of our country or are we choosing to ignore “religious freedom” laws because they’re not in NYC or San Francisco? And so many of the episodes were about the judgements we make within our own community like putting down femmes and artsy gays and pretending to be straight acting at work. Yes, we have seen significant headway in the first two decades of this new century, but not nearly enough to try and mothball Will & Grace as some sort of comedic antique.
JessPH
Yes because there is still a lot of gay issues and stuff that needs to be talked about.
zsmith92
@JessPH: I agree, but it may focus more on the comedy other than the issues, otherwise it’ll go the same way ROC did.
Andy
I loved the show and would love to see it aired again! I enjoyed the comedy aspect of it and was just a good decent show! We’ve come a long way but there’s plenty of gay issues that still need to be addressed, and this show would be a good way to do that.
Len John
Absolutely NOT! Time to grow uo…
J.T.
Jack as a young nasty queen will only become a middle-aged nastier queen, and Will will still be a whiney closet case. We can do without this show.
Heywood Jablowme
@J.T.: That’s what would worry me. The characters couldn’t stay exactly the same as their young, bitchy, admittedly funny selves. Bitchiness doesn’t age well (in straight women either). Can you imagine either Will or Jack having a serious l/t relationship? Or even Grace for long. (Karen, okay we know what kind of relationship she likes!)
Still, out of curiosity I’d like to see W&G come back. It was a great show, perfectly cast, with great writing.
adrianjurado310
I want to see what happens.
Brian
Hollywood is very homophobic and stereotypical in the way it portrays male homosexual desire. A re-make of Will and Grace will probably be along the lines of “screamer male next to woman with big hair who shows a lot of cleavage”. Big yawn.
Heywood Jablowme
@Brian: Yes, it’s so hard for them to make a sitcom about truck stop glory holes that you would approve of.
dvlaries
Nah, I don’t see the need.
*
The ‘game’ here was quickly outdone by Queer As Folk and, much more profoundly by Brokeback Mountain. What we should be hoping for (demanding) is the next ‘Great Gay Love Story,’ with box-office sweep to rival Brokeback and whose leads court warm comparison to Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist.
*
To regress to a couple of gay-in-conversation-only guys who prioritize their buddyships with a pair of straight women over robustly tending their respective sex- and love lives is an old chapter we don’t need to reopen.
Pistolo
Will & Grace is always treated as this incredible vanguard of exposure for homosexuals but I’m not so sure about that. It’s not unlike Hattie McDaniel winning the Oscar for “Gone with the Wind”, it was a well-intentioned gesture but she was still winning it for pandering to white people’s ignorant impression of black women. She didn’t even get to sit with the rest of the cast in the audience because the venue wouldn’t allow it! It’s not terribly different than Will & Grace getting Emmys with a lot of republican execs in the audience still voting “YES” for Prop 8 and helping to elect homophobic politicians. Sean Hayes outright refused to come out too! That should tell you something about how confused this show’s legacy truly is.
People like “Will & Grace” like I like “Gone with the Wind”, it’s very time-specific but you re-contextualize it in today’s world you see just how DATED and even inappropriate it truly is. Let it just be a relic of the past.
Also, no to a relaunch because Debra Messing is just dreadful.
strix1
Really thought everyone would be totally against it…I was so happy to see the reunion PSA vid they did…they all work so well together and would L O V E to see them back to a mini-series or a new full series, I think it would be a hit.
And saying, “Sean Hayes outright refused to come out,” that was his right, no harm no foul on his decision of when HE decided to come out of the closet – That had nothing to do with anything.
Sluggo2007
I only watched the show two or three times because everybody talked so fast that I couldn’t understand what they were saying.