Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

'Will & Grace' already renewed for 2nd (2nd) season

The show's first (and ninth) season begins Sept. 28.

“Will & Grace”: From left: executive producers Max Mutchnick and  David Kohan, with stars  Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally, Sean Hayes
“Will & Grace”: From left: executive producers Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, with stars Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally, Sean HayesRead morePAUL DRINKWATER/NBC

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It's back to stay awhile.

The question of whether the return of NBC's Will & Grace would be a onetime stunt was answered Thursday as NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt announced the network had ordered a second season, more than a month before the reboot's Sept. 28 premiere.

That would also be the show's 10th season, for those keeping score at home.

The network had already upped the order for this season, bringing it to 16 episodes, and it's ordered 13 more for 2018-19.

Greenblatt, who said the paperwork had just been done, then introduced the cast and producers at the Television Critics Association's summer meetings.

It all felt pretty familiar, as Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally, and Sean Hayes fielded questions along with creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick.

If you're wondering how this is going to work, given that the show's 2006 finale projected a future for the characters that appears to have been forgotten, well, try to remember this is a sitcom.

"It was a projection, that last episode, into the future," Kohan said, but "I think that what we missed was the dynamic of the four of them more" than whatever the future once held for them.

I expect we'll hear something similar about that Roseanne reboot in which Dan (John Goodman) isn't dead after all.
@page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in }

They're "resetting the rules," Mutchnick added. "Because we did have this finale, and we talked about things that aren't going to be on the show."

He said they think they've found a way to make it work, but "we just want to hold off on telling you exactly what that is" to avoid spoiling it.

One character who definitely won't be returning is Rosario (Shelley Morrison), who played Karen's maid from 1999 to 2006. Morrison has told producers she's retired and will not be available even for an episode to say farewell to the character on the show, they said.