Hallelujah! ‘Will & Grace’ Proves The Multi-Cam Sitcom Can Be Saved

I’ve felt like a fanatical cult member over the last few years, albeit one slavishly devoted to multi-cam sitcoms instead of a charismatic yet off-putting maniac. Instead of waiting for a comet, I’ve spent every TV season waiting for my own kind of cosmic sign: proof that there is still life in the multi-cam format.

After having a monopoly on TV comedies for 50-something years, the classic sitcom style (three cameras, a soundstage, an audience, and magic) became more cinematic. Single-cam comedies like The Office (UK and US) and Arrested Development weaned audiences off of laugh tracks, and that style of show became the norm. The monopoly reversed, and now TV comedies are almost all single-cam. These shows range from family-friendly (Black-ish) to artful (Master of None) to bizarre (Lady Dynamite), but they all have one thing in common: they aren’t multi-cam. The multi-cam setup seemed doomed, with only the love him or hate him Chuck Lorre still practicing the faith. It’s been a grim few years if you’re a multi-cam devotee like me.

And then came Will & Grace–or rather, Will  & Grace came back. Quite possibly the last great multi-cam show of the network TV era, you can connect W&G to its classics like Friends, Cheers, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show through the work of director James Burrows. During its initial run, the show’s ferociously funny lead foursome and their crackling comedic chemistry represented what multi-cam was always really all about: telling hilarious stories amplified by the kinetic energy of a live performance. If you think multi-cam shows have flatlined, then the new Will & Grace is a defibrillator.

This relaunch proves everything I’ve been screeching about to my comedy nerd friends for years. The only thing holding multi-cam shows back are lazy writing and bland performances, not the format itself. If you put solid jokes in the mouths of gutsy performers, that old multi-cam magic can come back to life. Will & Grace delivers on both those counts in “11 Years Later,” its first episode back in (obviously) 11 years. It has a head start compared to other modern multi-cam shows since it’s stacked with a cast of veterans (Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally), but thank god for that.

These Emmy winners have returned to the format to show how it’s done, with every flawless joke delivery and impeccably timed physical gag. This show is staged with confidence by multi-cam master James Burrows. The shots get in close to capture reactions (like Grace’s palpable disgust over a bag of certain-complexion-colored Cheetos), and they pull back to let the comedic acrobatics soar (Karen treating Grace’s boobs like a “Sugar Ray speed bag”). Other modern multi-cam cameras aren’t so symbiotic with their stars, usually opting to plant on a medium shot. Will & Grace moves, captured by multiple cameras that love these stars and supercharged by an audience that loves what it’s seeing.

That love spreads out to those not in the audience, too, because Will & Grace can still make you cackle. The most common (and, IMO, laziest) critique of multi-cam shows is that the laugh track is “so fake.” jThe ’60s are the only decade where laugh tracks were overwhelmingly canned, as single-cam shows like Bewitched and cartoons like The Flintstones used pre-recorded laughter. The ’70s and ’80s saw a major pushback, and shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers went out of their way to tell viewers that they were recorded in front of a live studio audience. That practice continued through the ’90s and up to today (yes, Fuller House has a studio audience). The laughter isn’t fake and, if the show is doing its job, you feel the energy of the live performance but don’t notice the laughter because you’re laughing too. If the jokes are bad, you side-eye that studio audience and check out.

So in an oddly revolutionary way, Will & Grace breaks with modern multi-cam tradition by being… funny. Like, as-funny-as-all-those-single-cam-shows funny. Grace’s dusty genitals, Karen asking for the “full Pat Nixon” martini pour, Jack’s travel agent via cyberstalking skills, Will’s circuitous pitch to get Grace to move back in with him, every joke hits its target. The show even squeezes laughs out of an extended catch-up session, delivering the info to Karen as she comes out of one of her (many) alcohol stupors. And there are jokes in the exposition too (“Nobody wants to see you two raise kids!”).

The first five minutes of W&G are electrifying because they pack in so many jokes (along with the aforementioned refresher and the opening titles). People complain that laugh tracks take away time that could be spent on jokes, but I crunched the numbers and that ain’t true. Number time: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s Season 3 premiere had 33 jokes in its first five minutes; Will & Grace‘s return episode had 37 jokes in the same timeframe. So, pretty much even. Then I compared those five minutes to five other currently-airing multi-cam comedies. Here’s how many jokes the following shows had in their first five minutes:

• Disjointed Pilot: 19
• The Ranch Pilot: 23
• The Big Bang Theory Season 11 Premiere: 21
• Superior Donuts Pilot: 28
• Fuller House Pilot: 16

Will & Grace crushes all other current multi-cam shows when it comes to jokes-per-minute. This is key to its success, and it speaks to what people find so grating about modern multi-cam shows. These comedies need a lot of jokes, and they need them to come as fast as they do in a single-cam show. The more jokes-per-minute a multi-cam show has, the more natural it feels. Counterintuitive, right? But if the characters are making joke after joke, riffing back and forth and building momentum, the one-liners feel way more like dialogue spoken between characters (it also helps that the characters in W&G actually laugh at each other at times!). Instead of treating the dialogue as jokes and vice versa like W&G, other shows treat dialogue as the ramp-up to a joke. The jokes stick out because there’s line after line of set-up, and it is so much harder to laugh at a zinger you saw coming. Will & Grace keeps you laughing because the jokes jump out from nowhere (“Okay Shonda, now we got a scandal!”) and don’t stop.

I didn’t think it could be done, and my hopes for this relaunch were actually pretty tame. Will & Grace exceeded my expectations and, more importantly, it reaffirmed my faith in this format. I had gotten used to being the weirdo with a multi-cam hangup, the guy still worshipping Cheers in the age of the dramedy. Then Will & Grace returned, as did the vibrant version of the multi-cam comedy that I so missed. Everyone, this is how you do it.

Where to stream Will & Grace