TELEVISION 6 series will be leaving the air

'The West Wing' and 'Will & amp; Grace' are two of the shows saying goodbye.
By MIKE DUFFY
DETROIT FREE PRESS
It's the annual bittersweet rite of spring.
Saying goodbye to old friends has become the way of May. A time when hard-core TV fans -- and occasional viewers -- gather for the last channel-surfing dance with favorite shows.
This May the dance card is jammed as these series say adios:
'THE WEST WING'(8 p.m. Sundays, NBC; finale May 14)
Snappy political patter never sounded so good. Series creator Aaron Sorkin whipped up a smart, groundbreaking White House odyssey with the stories of President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his intense, ambitious advisers.
The workaholic producer's unique writing style blessed "The West Wing" with a dramatic tapestry rich in witty repartee, appealing characters, policy wonk substance and an idealized portrait of how the American political system might operate.
'MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE'(8:30 p.m. Sundays, Fox; finale May 14)
Poor, exasperated Malcolm (Frankie Muniz). He's the extremely brainy middle child trapped in a human cartoon of family dysfunction on the dizzy Fox farce.
An imaginative whirlygig of stylized sight gags, goofball slapstick and sarcastic family banter, "Malcolm" also gave Jane Kaczmarek a breakout sitcom mom role as lovably blunt Lois.
'THAT '70S SHOW'(8 p.m. Thursdays, Fox; finale May 18)
The slyly subversive adventures of affable geek Eric Forman (Topher Grace) and his Wisconsin high school pals have had retro fun with the Me Decade since its 1998 premiere.
Surreal dream sequences and 360-degree whip-around scenes in Forman's basement typify the show's signature zonked-out sensibility.
"That '70s Show" also turned Ashton Kutcher -- who plays loopy goofball Kelso -- into a Hollywood star, a successful TV producer ("Punk'd," "Beauty and the Geek") and marital material for Demi Moore.
(A series retrospective, "That '70s Show: The Final Goodbye," airs Thursday 11 on Fox.)
'WILL & amp; GRACE'(9 p.m. Thursdays, NBC; finale May 18)
Ellen DeGeneres bounced out of the sitcom closet first in 1997.
But it was the stories of gay attorney Will Truman (Eric McCormack) and his best friend, straight Jewish interior designer Grace Adler (Debra Messing), that sealed the gay comic sensibility deal in 1998.
Toss in the wigged-out second banana banter of flamboyantly wack Jack (Sean Hayes) and pixilated socialite Karen (Megan Mullally) and "Will & amp; Grace" quickly established itself as an Emmy Award-winning hit.
("Will & amp; Grace: Say Goodnight Gracie," a one-hour series retrospective, airs at 8 p.m. May 18 as a lead-in to the one-hour series finale.)
'CHARMED'(8 p.m. Sundays, WB; finale May 21)
Having hung out in the witches' hollow of WB since 1998, the Halliwell sisters never charmed most of America's television viewers.
But as the last members of WB's first-generation fantasy class that included "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel" and "Roswell," Piper (Holly Marie Combs), Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) and half-sister Paige (Rose McGowan) put a Halliwell spell on a loyal fan base that still chatters obsessively on the Internet.
'ALIAS'(8 p.m. Wednesdays, ABC; finale May 22)
Jennifer Garner soared to major stardom, strutting her glamorous action stuff as spy Sydney Bristow.
But even though ace producer J.J. Abrams ("Lost") created a sleek, sophisticated roller-coaster ride of adrenaline-fueled fun that also packed a surprising emotional wallop, "Alias" never became a breakout hit.