NBC Renews "Will & Grace" Revival for 3rd Season and Expands Season 2

[JamesG]

"Will & Grace" Revival Renewed for Season 3 By NBC, Season 2 Expanded
by Nellie Andreeva
March 17, 2018


The "Will & Grace" revival is getting another very early renewal. With two episodes left to air from of its first season, NBC has ordered an 18-episode third season for fall 2019.

That would be the multi-camera comedy’s 11th season overall, including its original eight-season run on NBC.




The network picked up the "Will & Grace" revival for a 13-episode second season in August, ahead of its September debut. That second season, slated for fall 2018, has now been expanded from 13 to 18 episodes with an order for five additional episodes.

The announcement is being made tonight during the "Will & Grace" panel at PaleyFest. With today’s pickup of 23 more episodes — 5 in Season 2 and 18 in Season 3 — the revival’s episode total has climbed to 52.




The renewal extends "Will & Grace‘s" improbable comeback. It started with a surprise 10-minute election-themed mini-episode in fall 2016 that led to a 10-episode series order for a new season of the Emmy-winning comedy on NBC.

That order was increased to 12 episodes in spring 2017 and to 16 in August the same year. The last two of the 16 episodes are slated to air March 29 and April 5.







"Will & Grace" has been a commercial and critical success for NBC. It is anchoring the network’s new Must See TV Thursday lineup, Will & Grace is averaging a 3.1 adults 19-49 rating and 9.8 million viewers overall in Live+7. It is NBC’s top rated comedy series, improving its Thursday time slot by +48% versus NBC’s year-ago results for regular non-sports programming in 18-49.

"Will & Grace" is NBC’s most-watched primetime comedy at this point in the season in eight years.




Additionally, the revival has garnered critical praise, returning to awards consideration with major nominations after winning a slew of trophies during its original run. It also opened the door for other revivals of classic sitcoms with the original cast, including ABC’s "Roseanne" and CBS’ "Murphy Brown".

“As far as I’m concerned, we can’t get enough of Will & Grace, and 23 more episodes is music to my ears,” NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said.

“We’re eternally grateful that Debra, Eric, Sean and Megan feel the same way and wanted to keep this good thing going. I’m overwhelmed by the euphoric response the new show has received from the press and the audience, and my hat is off to the unrivaled writing team of Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, as well as the brilliant directing of Jimmy Burrows, for consistently delivering one of the best shows on television.”

http://deadline.com/2018/03/will-gra...es-1202339735/

[JamesG]

"Will & Grace" Cast React to Season 3 Renewal; Talk Favorite Guest Stars
by Antonia Blyth
March 17, 2018


With the "Will & Grace" revival’s Season 3 renewal announcement, fans rejoiced at PaleyFest in Los Angeles on Saturday. This will also be a longer run than the previous season, said creator/executive producer Max Mutchnick.

“We have been picked up for five more episodes next year, so we’re not doing 13, we’re doing 18,” he said, while cast members Debra Messing and Eric McCormack got up and did a little dance on the PaleyFest stage, and Megan Mullally kicked up her legs up in delight.





“There’s certainly a pressure to live up to it this time around,” McCormack said of the revival, “but we knew we could be these characters again. I just feel like this has been a magic carpet ride, this reboot.”

“I was pretty excited to see what was going on in Grace’s life at that time,” Messing added. “I loved the fact that she was a single working woman, who was thriving and happy, and had great friendships and was just doing great.”



Mullally said she’d had a “psychic” feeling the show would come back as soon as she saw the script for the short election video that would eventually spark the show’s revival.

“When I first read the election video script,” she said, “I put it down and I emailed Max Mutchnick, and I said, ‘Why can’t we just do the show again?’ And he emailed back, ‘We can.’ And neither of us knew, we just pulled it out of asses. But I just got this strong, incredibly overpowering feeling that we would do the show again.”





Following a screening of the revival’s Season 2 penultimate episode “One Job,” guest starring Alec Baldwin, panel moderator Dan Bucatinsky asked the cast about their favorite guest stars. Messing recalled Debbie Reynolds, who played Grace’s mother for ten episodes.

“Working with Debbie was really indescribable,” Messing said.

“She was a broad in the greatest sense, and she always was entertaining and singing and dancing, then running off and doing a one-woman show 300 days a year. She and I would talk about being mothers, because I was a new mother….we talked about Carrie, and we talked about the challenges of being a working mom. She really became someone very, very special in my heart.”



Bucatinsky also guest starred as Neil in 1998, and reprised his role in the revival’s second season.

He said that the original show “gave us gay people the permission to be seen and to be heard.”

http://deadline.com/2018/03/will-gra...rs-1202339980/

[jayman75]

I'm hopeful for a story arc in the next two seasons... I feel like a lot of what we've seen this year has been random and unconnected. Will and Grace do QVC... then nothing. They work together, but we rarely see it. They brought Michael back, but just for a brief moment.

And as much I think Debra Messing is beautiful, her appearance on the show seems different than her social media. Her eyes are dark, and her eyebrows are victims of Botox.

I loved the original series, and I like the current... but I wish there was something to follow.