Will & Grace, the NBC sitcom that I had come to think of as The Guppy and the Fag Hag, aired its final episode, an hour long extravaganza fronted by another hour of clips and nostalgic speeches from its major players, on May 18th.

On the one hand, you can’t argue with success. Eight seasons on network television is nothing to sneer at. But, on the other hand, this once enthusiastic booster of the show had grown increasingly annoyed due to W&G’s increasingly out of control plot lines and its burial of normal human reactions in its relentless quest for forever cheaper laughs.

The original premise had promise and appeal. Young, sharp, gay attorney Will, moves in with his college sweetheart, a ditzy, neurotic, straight decorator named Grace.

These two were seen in the perspective provided by Jack, Will’s gayer than gay sidekick and Grace’s spoiled, rich, substance abusing assistant Karen Walker.

These four, as played by Eric McCormack, Deborah Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally, respectively, provided a funny, edgy quartet who spoke head writer and series creator Max Mutchnik’s often very amusing lines with wry energy—making the early episodes of Will & Grace enjoyable and often, downright hilarious.

Although the gay fellas were a bit stereotyped, in their primping and unceasingly campy lingo, they were clever and cute and fun to watch when scampering around in their underwear—a nearly weekly occurrence.

Grace, on the other hand, got more and more frustrated and, alas, less and less appealing, allowing Karen to become the more exciting of the two female leads. Karen’s Latina maid Rosario (Shelley Morrison) also was an endless source of amusement. Remember when Karen addressed Rosario with a mild ethnic slur and real-life civil rights groups bombarded Will & Grace with scoldings and reproaches? At least people were watching.

As with most sitcoms, however, the creative spark of Will & Grace expired after a couple of seasons. To pep things up, many stars were called upon to provide the series with a little extra pizzazz. Will began to lose jobs a lot, and had new bosses, including the late Gregory Hines, and Alec Baldwin. Debbie Reynolds played Grace’s Jewish (!) mother and Blythe Danner portrayed Will’s mom.

In a very funny episode, Jack stalked Kevin Bacon. But the handwriting on the wall appeared when Grace began to seriously quarrel with Will, and at the same time romanced a young doctor named Leo, whom she eventually married. At that point Will & Grace was no longer cute, charming, or even funny.

The final episode attempted to reconcile some of the plot lines, but did so in a most strained and unbelievable fashion. I won’t give anything away, lest you want to Netflix it later, but suffice it to say that we glimpsed the future of the four leads—and it was far from being totally rosy.

As for the characterizations, Mr. McCormack’s Will had become knee-jerk cute, with little depth of personality. Miss Messing, is, simply, not a very gifted actress—and she played the last episode the way she played all the others, in one key: whiny princess. Interestingly, her best work to date has been as another Jewish princess, the Virgin Mary, in an NBC Easter flick a few years back. Go figure.

Mr. Hayes still managed to be funny, even a little outrageous as Jack, leaving Miss Mullally, who has truly blossomed during the run of this series to shine through the finale, in spite of James Burrows’ drab direction.

So, was Will & Grace good for us? I suppose so. The gay characters were played as honest and compassionate, if prone to outbreaks of silliness. I do wish that on TV, gay characters would be less defined by how much showbiz trivia they know, but maybe one shouldn’t take it all so seriously.

The problem is that any program that purports to show character and culture by means of stereotypes, is guilty of working with stereotypes. I think that one of the reasons that the lead actors in Brokeback Mountain were so staggeringly effective was that they were not in the least stereotyped. Maybe someday gay characters on TV will blend in with everybody else. But, I will say that I don’t believe Will & Grace did us any harm. It’s just that it could have been so, so much better, if only the writers had tried harder.

At its best, Will & Grace showed folks that there are many talented gays in the world, each with something to offer. At its worst, Will & Grace was insipid and purile, right along with many other hit sitcoms.

So, Hail and Farewell, Will & Grace—may all your cast members soon find work. I’m going to try to remember Sean Hayes chasing Kevin Bacon.