Very few beloved and long-running television series ever truly stick their landing. They are either cut down in their prime, with cancellation coming before any plans are made to bring proceedings to a conclusion, or the opposite applies, and the show will be milked until it is a shell of its glory years.
The initial 1993-2004 run of Frasier was one of only a handful of shows to leave us on a perfect note. With his father Martin (the late John Mahoney) having met and married Ronnie (Wendie Malick), and with his seeming to have found love with Charlotte (Laura Linney), Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) can finally leave his Seattle family in good condition. His brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) had just become a father, and his co-worker and dear friend Roz (Peri Gilpin) had taken the job of running KACL, the radio station for which they both worked. Rather than end the show in Charlotte’s arms, we simply see him disembark a plane in Chicago, where she has recently relocated, one final beacon of hope for the character, who had been expected to move to San Francisco.
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For those uninitiated to show or character, the above wrap-up hints at a substantial number of plots and deep character histories. This was merely part of the story, as Frasier had previously spent nine years propping up the bar at Cheers, equally considered one of the finest sitcoms ever made. We had seen the character ditched at the altar, then later married, and welcoming his only child Frederick. We had seen him return to the west coast and care for his injured father, as well as go through any number of failed relationships and personal crises. The point to all of this, is that the modern trend for revival is immediately up against a stronger set of circumstances here: two rather than one hit show to follow, eleven seasons of the immediate parent show, and endless re-runs of both worldwide, making both predecessors comfort food for viewers, as well as so familiar to many of us as almost to defy critical analysis.
So, Frasier (2023) arrives on the Paramount+ service retooled in the light of many of the supporting cast’s (notably Hyde Pierce’s) refusal to reprise their roles. The initial idea of Les Frères Heureux running a box theatre in Seattle has been replaced with Frasier returning to Boston to reconnect with his son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott). After Martin’s recent passing, he is stopping over there on the way to Paris to research his new book.
His relationship with Charlotte has ended, and we learn that his near-two decades in Chicago have seen him become the wildly wealthy host of a Dr Phil-type television show that ran for nearly fifteen of those years. With his son having decided to quit academia and become a firefighter, the relationship between the two has been distant for years, and he arrives in the city to find him living platonically with a bartender and aspiring actress named Eve (Jess Salgueiro). Eve is also a single mother to a baby named John (presumably a nod to John Mahoney, after whom the bar they all frequent is also named). By episode two Frasier will have purchased the whole building and taken the apartment opposite for he and Freddy to get better acquainted, leaving Eve in her place with the baby.
We meet a few new characters outside of the domestic situation. Alan Cornwall (Nicholas Lyndhurst) is a professor at Harvard University, and a friend of Frasier, with the two having met at Oxford some decades before. Alan is a tweed-clad drunk, with good insight, but little care for his profession, coasting his way through what is left of his career. His boss is Olivia (Toks Olagundoye – incidentally the third Brit in the cast after Lyndhurst and Cutmore-Scott – though only Lyndhurst is playing British), the Head of the Psychology Department, who is desperate to get Frasier to work for her (a goal in which, predictably, she succeeds), mainly for the kudos of his fame as a former TV celebrity, and is competitive with her sister (Provost at Yale) to a degree that would put Niles and Frasier to shame.
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Rounding out the main cast (though we do meet the Provost of Harvard and a few of Freddy’s firefighter colleagues) is David Crane (Anders Keith), son of Niles and Daphne, born in the original series’ finale and an awkward facsimile of Niles, via Sheldon Cooper. We will not dwell on this further than to say he – a first year psychology undergraduate – is the one character who absolutely does not work in season one. He has a little of both of his parents, but Niles, at least, could function in society, David is beyond awkward, and it is also unlikely that a college age student would be spending that much time around his Uncle, but the performance is earnest enough that there could be something with which to work going forward.
Actually, it is probably the supporting cast that will draw the greatest scrutiny, as they were the undisputed trump cards of both predecessor shows. Much like Lyndhurst’s UK hit Only Fools and Horses, the well-developed secondary characters were augmented with occasional recurring cast members that fleshed out the world, making it feel both whole, and inviting to us. In short, this is only a qualified success here. The Alan character absolutely works (it almost beggars belief this is Rodney Trotter), even if the show will need to push him past being just a drunk, in the same way that the original pushed Niles beyond prissy and precious as the show went on.
Eve and Olivia both need work. With the former a victim of a relative lack of screentime and definition (her grief and living situation do feel insufficiently explored), with the latter she is one-note – she is burning with ambition and insecurity. It must be said here though, that Roz, Martin, and Daphne were all one-note when the original show began. Roz was man-obsessed, Martin was the cranky regular Joe and Daphne was kooky (even her accent calmed down significantly after the first season or so).
It is easy to watch early Frasier seasons now and impose our knowledge of the full character arcs on them retrospectively. The show did start strong, but episodes like ‘Space Quest’ and ‘Miracle on Third or Fourth Street’ are not the unimpeachable classics you may remember. The world felt bigger – we do need, desperately, to get some confirmation in season two that there are more than four people working at one of the world’s foremost universities, but characters take time. The main relationship – Freddy and Frasier – is very promising indeed, as they have taken the time to make sure Freddy is not the blue-collar cliche.
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This leaves the writing and stories themselves. They are – mostly – fine. At a mere ten episodes, and a slightly unsatisfying set-up (Charlotte deserved more than a throwaway line), there was the occasional feeling that given we have so few episodes, were these really the best ten scenarios they could produce? We have a couple of failed parties (the latter – Christmas – wasting Peri Gilpin and giving us a lazy subplot game between Alan and David), and, with ‘The Founders Society’ a loose remake of ‘The Club’ where Frasier makes a fool of himself trying to gain access to an exclusive members club. Better use could have been made of the run, yet ‘Blind Date’ recalls classic Frasier, with silly misunderstandings and bizarrely private kitchen conversations reminding us of the glory years, without feeling like a total rehash.
So, there is plenty here with which to work. For anyone watching who misses Niles, Roz et al, their absence may be a deal breaker. Grammer continues to make us root for the title character, despite the undimmed pomposity, and the supporting cast all have potential directions in which to be taken. It has its flaws and mis-steps (many of the earlier episodes, in particular), but we will be watching to see where it goes next.
Frasier (2023) is streaming now on Paramount+.
