QUESTION: What’s next for Will and Grace, and Jack and Karen?

ALEX HERSCHLAG: Jack and Karen, well, you know, just to reiterate, we are going to go back to "Will & Grace" stories because we're lucky to have Grace coming back. But we are going to have different sort of adventures for Jack and Karen. And Jack, I guess I'll say this, I wasn't going to, but he will become an executive – a television executive on, not LOGO, but the other new gay network. So that will be an arc for his character this year --

SEAN HAYES: And it's also to ground my character more and give him -- you know, every year we talk about giving him a substantial job to go to. And this -- and he always ends up getting fired or quitting or whatever. But I think he'll still be acting on the side, and – but it will give him something to grab on to and sustain throughout the whole season.

Executive Producer DAVE FLEBOTTE, also present: But he'll still be Jack. There won't be any change in Jack as far as, you know, he'll still be broke all the time even though he's making good money now.

ALEX HERSCHLAG: He's still going to be who he is. And Karen, one thing I'm really excited about is with Grace being separated at the beginning, you know, from last year at least, that we've never had the opportunity to have Grace and Karen single at the same time. And I think we'll have some interesting stories about them setting each other up or falling for the same guy or things like that that there's going to be a different dynamic between Grace and Karen because of that. Also, Harry Connick will be back for at least one episode and that we are going to take our characters, especially Will and Grace, on interesting journeys this year.

QUESTION: And just to follow that, is Bobby Cannavale --is it the same boyfriend or –

ALEX HERSCHLAG: Yes, it is.

QUESTION: It sounds llike you're saying that the audience should not just expect to see what they've already seen. They expect to see the envelope pushed. How much further can you push it in today’s political and social climate?

DAVE FLEBOTTE: We can't give specifics of things. It all comes out in the writing, and it's organic. We never go out to start and go, "Well, let's do this." It's just that sometimes in the writing sometimes you discover, well, it would really happen this way. Let's push for that. I mean, it's never -- you're never doing it by design, like thinking ahead of time like let's push the envelope. It just happens in the writing on all shows. Every show that's worth its salt pushes the envelope exactly, and you do it as you break a story or as you do a rewrite. You realize we can go a little further with this or sometimes we go so far that we get pulled back to the point that we really want to be.

ERIC McCORMACK: I always said on that, at least where Will is concerned, it's not going to be about some shocking sweeps week kiss. It’s not going to be about waking up in bed together just so we could turn off half of America and inspire five percent -- I mean, it has always been about a consistent build towards earning everybody's trust. We're now a show, especially through syndication, that has 10-year-old viewers and 90-year-old viewers, of all races and creeds. And now I think we have a responsibility to stay envelope pushing, but at the same time to not blow it. And I think what's happened with Bobby Cannavale the last six, seven episodes is great -- I've personally been hoping for that kind of thing, not a big star to come in and do a stunt. I'm not going to make out with Brad Pitt just to please certain people.

This is going to be a year where Will has earned this. And we've all earned it. You know, you’ve (to Debra) been through a divorce. The characters have earned a kind of -- despite how crazy we are, there's an adult quality to the show that I think we've grown into.

QUESTION: It must be odd to be one of the few comedies remaining on NBC, or on Prime Time altogether, for that matter…..

ERIC McCORMACK: I think the main -- for me, the main reason that reality television has taken over so much is people want surprise. They haven't had surprise in television for a long time. It's always surprising who wins or who gets kicked off, and not a lot of sitcoms were that surprising. And I think we, apropos of the envelope pushing, we continue to surprise. And I think that's why we're one of the "Last Comedies Standing," if you will.