TVSquad

So, now that the strike is over -- can I get a 'yippee' to that, people? -- there's a "post strike rush" in Hollywood. It's not gold they're after, it's pilots. According to TV Guide, ABC has just given the thumbs up to the creators of Will & Grace, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, for a new sitcom. The still untitled comedy, done as a spec script prior to the WGA strike, sounds like something right in the Kohan-Mutchnick wheelhouse.

The show revolves around the life of two best friends and business partners who both find romances at the same time. No, not with each other. One partner is gay, the other straight, so there's plenty of room for Will & Grace-like comparisons, and -- hopefully -- humor. It'll be interesting to see if K&M can grab the cultural Zeitgeist with this show the way W&G did. The writers had a four-star success with Will & Grace -- and Jack & Karen -- but their other sitcoms, including The Stones, Four Kings and Good Morning, Miami, failed to click. They were all short runs. They had a pilot with CBS last season, but it wasn't picked up.

Still, this sounds like material they understand inside out. According to Mutchnick, "Our relationship is almost like a marriage in that we finish each other's sentences - and we don't have sex." ABC, which hasn't had a truly must-see sitcom in years (although Samantha Who? did have a good start before the strike), would sorely love a hit in the W&G tradition. For eight years, the comic interplay of Debra Messing, Eric McCormack, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes, kept viewers coming back for more, and that's something would covet.