Will and Grace: Series 1 (Episodes 16-22) Eric McCormack 2002 New DVD

Episodes 16 to 22 from the first season of the popular US sitcom. ‘Big Brother is Coming (Part 1)’ has Will worried about a visit from his estranged older brother Sam. ‘Big Brother is Coming (Part 2)’ sees Will shocked to discover that Grace spent the night with Sam. ‘Yours, Mine or Ours’ finds Will and Grace fighting for the attention of a new neighbour. ‘Alley Cats’ sees Grace try to become less competitive. ‘Grace Replaced’ finds Grace and neighbour Val fighting for the role of Will’s right-hand-girl. ‘Saving Grace’ has Grace decorate the house of a man who wants to get a date with Will. Finally, in ‘Object of My Rejection’, Jack marries Karen’s maid.
Hit American sitcom Will and Grace is as perky as Friends and as wittily urbane as Frasier. The premise concerns Will (Eric McCormack), a mildly uptight lawyer who agrees to have as a flatmate his best friend, interior designer Grace (Debra Messing). Their relationship has all the hallmarks of lovers–emotional dependency, little things that get on each others’ nerves, strong mutual interests and volcanic arguments. The only snag is that while Grace is straight, Will is gay.
Though not shy of poking sharp fun at that situation, Will and Grace is among sitcom’s most potent and sophisticated antidotes to homophobia. Though initially a little too pleased with its own camp pertness, the show grows and grows on you with successive episodes, finally becoming indispensable. It also benefits from secondary characters Jack (Sean P Hayes) and Karen (Megan Mullally), also gay and straight respectively, both outrageously and hilariously irresponsible characters: he a free spirit and freeloader, she’s “working” as Grace’s assistant even though she doesn’t need the money, having married it. Despite its diamond and rapid-fire punchlines, Will and Grace conveys enough sense of the main characters’ lovelorn predicament to prevent it from becoming too cute. –David Stubbs