Pilot (Will & Grace) - Reception

Reception

The problem with Ellen wasn't the fact that its star was gay. Most of the country has gotten over prejudice about that. The real issue was that, in its earnest zeal to be a crusader, the show lost the will to be funny. NBC and the industry will pay close interest to Will & Grace as a new and perhaps better test of the public's acceptance of gay characters.

The episode was first broadcast in the United States on NBC on September 21, 1998 in the 9:30–10 p.m. (PST) timeslot. In its original American broadcast, the pilot tied with Working for forty-first place in ratings for the week of September 21–27, 1998. With a Nielsen rating of 8.6, equivalent to approximately 8.4 million viewing households, it was the fifteenth highest-rated show on NBC the week it aired. Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. Joyce Millman of Salon Entertainment said the episode has "glimmers of class" and the jokes are "relatively sophisticated". John Carman of the San Francisco Chronicle commented that Burrows's direction was "sharp as usual" and the writing was "above average". Brian Lambert of the St. Paul Pioneer Press said the pilot was "nicely staged by veteran director Jimmy Burrows, and coming from a couple producers, Max Mutchnick and David Cohan, who assisted Boston Common and Dream On, the show – which is to say the pilot episode (everything could go to hell next week) – has the best verbal interplay of any of the season's new sitcoms." William Horn from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) thought the episode was a "wonderful" representation of a gay man's life "regardless of whether he's in a relationship in that very moment. I think it's important that American audiences realize that lesbians and gay men are not simply all about sexual situations." Ellen Gray of the Chicago Tribune was also positive about the show: "For those who believe that Hollywood's engaging in a conspiracy to 'normalize' a sexual orientation that many Americans still find abhorrent, Will & Grace will look like a candy-coated poison pill. To those who think that Hollywood isn't moving fast enough in offering sexual parity for gays, it may just look like poison. But... there's a large audience out there that's somewhere in the mushy middle, an audience that might be ready to embrace Will & Grace."

The actors' performances were praised by several critics. Carman thought McCormack and Messing worked "nicely" together, and called the supporting cast "an asset". Kay Mcfadden of the Seattle Times also praised McCormack, Messing and the supporting cast as "very funny". Robert Laurence of The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: "Messing and McCormack play wonderfully together, tossing lines back and forth as if they'd been at it for years, making their relationship quite believable. Sean Hayes, as the flamboyantly gay Jack, adds to the mix. Jack is flighty, temperamental, good-humored and highly likable." A reviewer for USA Today said he thought it would be nice to see Will have a "full life of his own", and not just serve as a "love-life adviser" to Grace and Jack. "I know it won't happen soon; NBC is so skittish about the so-called Ellen 'gay show' stigma, it's gone to Herculean lengths to avoid mentioning Will's sexuality. But a grace period can only last so long."

The episode received less positive reviews as well. Rahul Gairola of PopMatters wrote that while "the pilot lays the usual groundwork by showing how the characters' lives are intertwined, it also demonstrates immediately the sitcom's major drawback, that the stereotypical gay character is the stand-out comic figure." A reviewer for the Los Angeles Times said "there's something not quite right about this show's approach to homosexuality... It has everything to do with Will's attitude. It approaches asexual, his gayness appearing to exist solely as a device to give him the moral authority to repeatedly ridicule the mincing manner of his bandanna-wearing homosexual friend, Jack, without being labeled homophobic." Suite101.com's Hana Lewis thought it was "regrettable" that the pilot's jokes revolved "solely around gay stereotypes and sexual innuendo". Some reviewers were also skeptical about the future of the show. One such review said, "If Will & Grace can somehow survive a brutal time period opposite football and Ally McBeal, it could grow into a reasonably entertaining little anomaly — that is, a series about a man and a woman who have no sexual interest in one another. But don't bet on it. If it's a doomed relationships viewers want, they'll probably opt for Ally."