I am not into Debra Messing’s frock here, which is severe and boxy and unfriendly, like a Volvo that won’t start. No one in her life spoke honestly when she put this on and said, “This is it, right?!?” It actually made me miss her Smash character’s avalanche of scarves.

But the Will & Grace reunion series… I’m undecided. By and large, I tend to think lightning strikes once, and that we should leave our warm memories untainted. New Gilmore Girls episodes did not add to the show’s legacy. The X-Files was a mess. I have low hopes for the Prison Break stuff that’s forthcoming, and nothing about the 24 London movie or the new Bauerless episodes was promising. Heroes Reborn? No thanks. It puts so much stress on the cast to prove its old chemistry is there, and sometimes a show’s voice and tone is so affixed to its place in history — culturally and chronologically — that porting it to present day can be jarring.

Having said that, I have nothing but praise for the new ANTM on VH-1. I didn’t see the Arrested Development season on Netflix, but I heard it was fine, I think? And Twin Peaks is coming, but I never saw the first one (I know, I know, I’m sorry; I didn’t live here, and then when I did nobody I knew watched it, so I just missed the boat), so I can’t speak to how this version’s previews look. [If you need to talk about Twin Peaks, I am here for you! – J] All of which is to say that I’m sure it’s possible to get it right; the question is, for me, is whether David Kohan and Max Mutchnick can contemporize the characters (they haven’t had the best string of luck themselves with other shows), or whether they even need it. Will the voice feel stale, or prove timeless? And what justifies bringing the characters back from where we left them? Will & Grace’s series finale did a twenty-year flash forward in which their children were marrying each other, and Will and Grace had stopped speaking in the interim, only becoming friends again when their kids met at college. It laid down some bricks that will be tricky to dislodge. Given that the finale was in 2006, and it’s only eleven years hence… well, I’ll be curious, for sure. I’m trying to stop short of optimism or pessimism, frankly. How about you?