MovieChat Forums > Will & Grace (1998) Discussion > The REAL reason the show went downhill i...

The REAL reason the show went downhill in the last few seasons.

posted 8 years ago by angelofvic
6 replies | jump to latest

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People on this board keep wanting to blame the writers, but that's not the reason the show went into a decline.

Here's the real reason:

When Debra Messing got noticeably pregnant (season 6), she couldn't work the long rehearsals, so James Burrows cut down on rehearsal time for the entire cast. A very large percent of the former very extensive and rigorous rehearsal time simply got removed.

The thing about comedy -- especially comedy at this level of quality -- is that it needs extensive rehearsal, and under someone as rigorous and as perfectionistic as Burrows.

So the quality of the shows immediately started to decline, due to lack of rigor and lack of rehearsals.

(That's also when they started loading up on guest stars, to replace Messing in her absence.)

Unfortunately, even when Debra Messing returned to the show after her maternity leave and so forth, the show kept that short and lax rehearsal schedule because the entire cast had gotten used to it and gotten lazy.

So standards went out the window, and the show never recovered the level of excellence it had prior to Messing's pregnancy. Sad but true.

I kind of blame Burrows for this. He could have kept up the standards and the rigorous rehearsal schedule if he had wanted to -- but he didn't. I guess he got lazy too.

To me the last watchable season is S6. The seasons after that are just boring, or cringe-worthy, or both.
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[–] LovesConfusingJoy 8 years ago

Why would it matter when the actors would know their characters and costars so well?

[–] flowerchild-15037 8 years ago

Yeah I don't think that was the issue. I kinda wish they didn't have Leo cheat on Grace. I felt like that made an awkward shift in the show. Ever since that happened, it was just more of an angry tone. Both Will and Grace were not as happy and they were both really grumpy. They weren't really the same. Maybe I'm the only one but that's just my take.

[–] lucyhannahblue 8 years ago

Yeah I've always said that Will and Grace morph from bright-eyed thirty-somethings to grumpy and bitter middle aged people over the course of the show lmao. Albeit really good-looking grumpy middle aged people.

[–] flowerchild-15037 8 years ago

Will and Grace morph from bright-eyed thirty-somethings to grumpy and bitter middle aged people over the course of the show

Right?? It was almost as if they just weren't really happy people anymore. They sort of got more bitter and insulting to one another. Not too awful, but still. They were more friendly and warm when they were younger.

[–] lucyhannahblue 8 years ago

I'm not sure whether the shift in their dynamic was intentional or not, but to me it does make sense. In Season 1, they appear to have a cute, fun, "more-than-friends, less-than-lovers" type relationship but as the years go by and they get older, there's cracks in their relationship and a mostly-unspoken resentment between them because even though they're enjoying their friendship, there's an elephant in the room that they rarely address until it all comes bubbling over at the end (and once in the bouncy castle in Season 5) is that they are not options for each other romantically. They finally had to address the fact that they were using each other as romantic substitutes and that it was causing them to slowly resent each other (Grace's nightmare in the Finale is a really good example of a caricature of their borderline toxic relationship). I think the writers knew what they were doing.
"It was almost as if there weren't really happy people anymore" I agree - and I think they really WEREN'T happy. It's a lighthearted sitcom so it's not something that's overtly addressed, but in order to be happy, they did have to move on from each other in the end. It was great to see them with their respective partners in the Finale, they were wistful about their estrangement, but you could see that they were still both truly happy without each other.

[–] flowerchild-15037 8 years ago

It's a lighthearted sitcom so it's not something that's overtly addressed, but in order to be happy, they did have to move on from each other in the end. It was great to see them with their respective partners in the Finale, they were wistful about their estrangement, but you could see that they were still both truly happy without each other.

That's why I don't really understand why people had such a problem with the finale. I loved it. Yeah it was sad that they separated for a while but I think it was beneficial for them. It gave them a chance to focus on them and their families.

Of course everyone should have friends (even if you are married) but they basically were together their whole lives and did everything together. It was good for them to have separation to figure their lives out. Then they came back together at the right time.