Will & Grace hasn’t changed, but the reboot succeeds because it fits perfectly in its new context of 2017

Slate

“From its opening scene, Will & Grace is back in its groove, no worse for the intervening years, down to the cast’s impressively ageless faces,” says Willa Paskin. “But if the show hasn’t changed, its context has. Will & Grace had a very ’90s political bent, in which just being yourself was radical enough. In our more polarized, urgent moment, this I-centric sensibility has become almost entirely indistinguishable from narcissism. Will, Grace, and Jack are now members of the liberal establishment (Karen, of course, is a Republican): older, affluent, white people with identity politics affiliations—gay, female—that in New York City no longer hazard their very comfortable daily lives. In 2017, Will & Grace is still a show that America needs, because now it’s a sharp comedy about white, moneyed, liberal hypocrisy.”

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• There’s something refreshing about a show that doesn’t try to engineer an explanation for its comeback
• The absurd old setup still works thanks to the strength of its characters and the actors who play them
• They haven’t missed a beat, easily return to mocking all things modern like Grindr
• The first episode is a bit clumsy and cringeworthy, but it really returns to form in Episode 2
• It emphasizes that it’s 2017, yet watching it is akin to jumping through a portal back to the year 2000
• The revival is best at recognizing that time has passed the characters by
• Debra Messing and Eric McCormack remind us just how good they were—caustic and clever and neurotically in sync
• Will & Grace creators turned down previous offers to reboot the series
• At its peak, 25 million watched Will & Grace — double Game of Thrones’ audience
• Leslie Jordan is returning as Karen's nemesis, Max Greenfield to guest-star