Can Sean Hayes save Thursday night comedy

Sean Hayes, Jack of Will & Grace fame, has returned to the small screen in Sean Saves The World, his first major sitcom role after coming out, and while he’s chosen to again play a gay man his character is quite a departure from his previous roles. Sean Saves The World has begun airing on NBC in the traditional Thursday comedy line-up and now three episodes in it’s already on good form.

Hayes plays Sean, a divorced gay father with a successful, yet demanding, career managing an online retailer (the modern equivalent of the traditional office trope). Sean’s teenage daughter Ellie has recently moved in with him after her mother moved after for her career, though Ellie wanted to stay near her friends, she feels abandoned by her mother. So as Ellie matures into a quick-witted teenager, Sean must battle his new boss and his own pushy mom while learning to be a father and navigating the dating world. The set up is classic, life change and pressures mixed with the standard cast of supporting characters create the setting for comedic situations. Hayes brings his well tuned physical comedy and snap wit to a character widely different from Jack, which is refreshing and helps expand the role a gay man plays; he’s not camp or overly-effeminate, yet he’s bright and caring with enough cattiness to be funny without being too bitchy and spiteful.

Fans of Smash will be happy to see Sean brought in to play his best friend Megan Hilty, who’s Broadway-star character Ivy Lynn played opposite Hayes in the second and final season. Clearly the two actors got on well in Smash and wanted to transport the dynamic to the multi-camera sitcom, and it appears to work. Hilty’s character Liz fills the role of big wild sister to Ellie with just enough inappropriateness, as seen in the second episode when Liz takes Ellie shopping for her first bra and purchases her items not fit for a teenager. Balance Liz’s role with Sean’s mother, a pushy and overbearing single-mother with an active sex life of her own, which she uses an example for Sean to live.

With Hayes delivering comedy gold, a modern and believable premise, and sold supporting cast, it’s possible for Sean Saves The World to have a pretty good run. Despite using story lines already told in every father-daughter TV trope, the combination of Sean being gay and the realness of his character and situation doesn’t make the show too predictable or stale. Hayes does a wonderful job filling the title role, something he’s done on the big screen, without having too large a presence as to eclipse his co-stars. Sean is human, struggling with dating and being a father, yet perfectly open and in charge at work.

Last season saw the gay comedy Partners fail after only a few weeks. It shared a lot with Will & Grace, with the same show creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, and James Burrows directed all 13 episodes. Burrows is a prolific television director who has helmed a ridiculous number of television shows over five decades, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Cheers, Frasier to Friends, Will & Grace to 2 Broke Girls. Though his track record didn’t seem to rub off on Partners, here’s hoping it does for Sean Saves The World.