Will & Grace: Season 01 (1998)

Member Rating:

The first season of Will & Grace begins as scatterbrained interior designer Grace Adler (Debra Messing), having broken up with the latest in a long line of boyfriends, moves in with her best friend, level-headed attorney Will Truman (Eric McCormack). The set-up is a bit unorthodox, but there can be no question (at least for now!) that the relationship is anything but platonic, if for no other reason than Will is gay and Grace is straight. At the same time, a slightly bizarre friendship develops between Will's flamboyantly gay pal Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes), an aspiring actor, and Grace's business partner Karen Walker (Megan Mullally), a supercilious, self-centered socialite. Also seen in the earliest episodes are Grace's yuppie ex-sweetheart Rob (Tom Gallop) and his fiancee Ellen (Leigh Allyn Barker). Throughout Season One, the perennialy unemployed Jack flounces through a variety of jobs, at one point becoming Karen's personal assistant. Also, we meet such eccentric recurring characters as Grace's insufferable mom Bobbie (Debbie Reynolds), Will's estranged older brother (and Grace's temporary main squeeze) Sam (John Slattery) and Grace's boozy, combustible neighbor Val Bassett (Molly Shannon). Two of these peripheral characters were planned as regulars, but only one made the grade. Gary Grubbs, briefly seen as Will's client Harry Polk, never quite caught on with viewers, though it is he who first makes the sage observation that, despite their polar-opposite sexual preferences, Will and Grace are clearly more than just good friends. As for Shelley Morrison as Karen's middle-aged Latino maid Rosario Salazar, she is destined to skyrocket to prominence at the end of Season One when, in order to save Rosario from deportation, Jack impulsively marries her! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi