<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> External links </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Website </Th> <Td> www.nbc.com/willandgrace/ </Td> </Tr> <P> Will & Grace is an American sitcom created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan . Set in New York City, the show focuses on the relationship between best friends Will Truman (Eric McCormack), a gay lawyer, and Grace Adler (Debra Messing), a straight interior designer . The show was broadcast on NBC from September 21, 1998 to May 18, 2006, for a total of eight seasons, and restarted its run on NBC on September 28, 2017 . During its original run, Will & Grace was one of the most successful television series with gay principal characters . </P> <P> Despite initial criticism for its particular portrayal of homosexual characters, it went on to become a staple of NBC's Must See TV Thursday night lineup and was met with continued critical acclaim . It was ensconced in the Nielsen top 20 for half of its network run . The show was the highest - rated sitcom among adults 18--49, from 2001 and 2005 . Throughout its eight - year run, Will & Grace earned 16 Emmy Awards and 83 nominations . Each main actor, with the exception of Morrison, received an Emmy Award throughout the series . In 2014 the Writers Guild of America placed the sitcom at number 94 in their list of the 101 Best Written TV series of all time . Since the final episode aired, the sitcom has been credited with helping and improving public opinion of the LGBT community, with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden commenting that the show "probably did more to educate the American public" on LGBT issues "than almost anything anybody has ever done so far". In 2014, the Smithsonian Institution added an LGBT history collection to their museum which included items from Will and Grace . The curator Dwight Blocker Bowers stated that the sitcom used "comedy to familiarize a mainstream audience with gay culture" that was "daring and broke ground" in American media . </P>

When did will & grace go off the air