Will & Grace: The Complete Third Season

It always seems like it takes TV shows a couple of seasons to really hit their stride, to find their character's voices, which plots work and which falter. How long this takes varies from show to show, and some never even get the chance to make it that far. As one of NBC's new slate of sitcoms charged with picking up the void after Seinfeld signed off for good, Will & Grace didn't have much time to bring it all together. And, as it turns out, they didn't need it. By Season Three of the Emmy award-winning show, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick's show really comes into its own. The characters have coalesced and their limits are tested, the plotlines become more intriguing, and the insults get even sharper and fly even faster.

Will & Grace follows the lives of the titular two best friends living together in New York, gay lawyer Will Truman (Eric McCormack) and straight interior designer Grace Adler (Debra Messing), whose strong bond remains even as boyfriends come and go. Thrown into the mix to spice things up are Sean Hayes as Jack McFarland, Will's flamboyant and air-headed pal, and Karen Walker (Megan Mullally), Grace's extravagantly wealthy co-worker and notorious lush.

Season Three picks up where the second season left off (which, really, should come as no surprise), with Will returning from the Caribbean, where he worked for Karen and her never-seen but oft-mentioned husband Stan, in "New Will City." With Will gone, Grace has been forced to find a new confidant in Jack and Will's return creates friction between the three while raising an important question: can their friendship pick up where it left off? But since the title hasn't changed to Jack & Grace, it's safe to assume it can. And, after some initial worries, it does. The producers make a good call in the second episode by moving Grace back in with Will and shipping Jack out to take over Grace's apartment across the hall. With the two pals back under one roof, and "Fear and Clothing" wrapping up the other loose ends by reuniting Karen and Jack after their still-simmering feud from Season Two, the four friends are back to normal (or as normal as they get), and that's when things really take off.

Some highlights include "Lows in the Mid-Eighties," a flashback episode which takes us to 1985 to show how the characters first met, "Love Plus One" where Jack (gasp) actually gets a job, and the show's almost constant parade of celebrity guests. Fueled by plenty of cameos by A-list (and B-list) celebs, the third season of Will & Grace rolls forward and picks up steam. Stars like Sandra Bernhard and Cher make guest appearances playing themselves, and a slew of others include such notables as Natasha Lyonne as Grace's intern, Camryn

Manheim as an accurate but misleading psychic, Ellen DeGeneres playing a quirky nun, and Jeremy Piven in a hilarious turn as Grace's ex that feels like a warm up for his character Ari in HBO's Entourage.

Patrick Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy) appears in a multi-episode arc as Will's new love interest Matt, a sportswriter whose reluctance to come out of the closet strains their relationship in "Brothers, a Love Story." And Woody Harrelson guest-stars as Grace's free-spirited and obnoxious boyfriend Nathan, providing for much of the drama in the season's final episodes. In the show's hour-long season finale, Jack finds he's missed out on meeting his real father but discovers he has a son in Michael Angarano, Will and Nate struggle to get along, and Grace must decide if her relationship with Nate is worth pursuing, even if it puts a strain on her friendship with Will.

Some of the plots mirror old Seinfeld episodes a little too closely for my taste; in "Gypsies, Tramps & Weed," Grace agonizes over getting a waiter fired a la George, and in "Grace 0, Jack 2000," Grace's boyfriend Ben (Gregory Hines) refuses her attempts to dump him much like George's girlfriend, and Jack uses Will's personal life in his act, mimicking Kathy Griffin's unappreciated roasting of Jerry. Watching these "coincidences" reminds you of the long way the show still has to go before it can reach Seinfeld status, the yardstick for all successful sitcoms.

In the end, though, it's the characters themselves that remain the main reason to watch and, in Season Three, they really come alive. Hayes and Mullally takes their already noxious characters to the next level, and it's a real treat to see a sitcom make us laugh with and love characters we really should be hating. Their shameless self-absorption hits new lows in Season Three and yet, inexplicably, we cheer them all the more for it. Messing and McCormack's fine chemistry continues and their well-honed rapport flows fluidly.

The fourth DVD of the four-disc set contains blooper reels from the first three seasons, along with 11 themed featurettes. These featurettes contain montages set to music of episode clips, showcasing many of the season's finest one-liners. Pre-packaged so they're always right at hand are all your favorite moments of the cast dancing, ripping into one another's fashion taste, and, of course, making copious gay jokes. The menus on this season, however, are a source of constant complaint, as they're much too busy and needlessly complicated for my tastes. Each disc contains no more than six episodes but, for some reason, this is split onto two hard-to-navigate menus. A more intuitive way to move between episodes would have been nice but, as it stands, if you're a fan of Will & Grace, it's the episodes' quality that appeals to you more than ease of navigating between them. And, for fans of

the series, Season Three would be a welcome addition to anyone's collection, a season in which the show really starts to hit its stride.

Show Grade: B

DVD Grade: C

Overall Grade: B