Frasier to return

[Werthead]

On 7/12/2021 at 12:02 AM, john MCG said:

I always imagined Frasier as a middle aged man (although he was in his late 20s when he started in Cheers) so the “third act” of life thing isn’t really computing.

He was 29 when he first appeared in Cheers and 38 when Frasier started and 49 when it finished, so yeah, he was pretty much middle-aged (if at the lower end of middle-aged to start with) in his solo show.

Frasier's level of wealth in the show was always a bit odd. He could afford things like art and his apartment was absurdly huge even by sitcom standards and he had some big ticket items like the piano. But there were a few episodes which suggested he was living close to the edge of his means and his wealth was inferior to Niles's (at least before he divorced Maris) and many of the other rich characters who appear in the show and look down on him for his job. It's also unclear how much the radio station could afford to pay him, and he's presumably paying to support his son as well. They note a few times he's not making as much as could in private practice.

Maybe the through-line of the new show is that he's absurdly rich but it's not bought him happiness, and presumably he's not with the woman he hooked up with in the final season any more. I'm not sure we need a show about an old, mega-rich-but-still-unhappy Frasier.

I also think he's risking the Ricky Gervais thing of mistaking the popularity of the show with the popularity of his character; just like The Office worked because of the entire cast and the attempted reboot fell flat on its face because it just brought back Gervais and not the other actors playing the characters people loved more, it feels like this could collapse because nobody watched Frasier and certainly not Cheers (which he didn't even appear on until the third season) for Grammer, they watched it for that specific set of characters and actors and their interplay.

[Aemon Stark]

Frasier's wealth never made much sense; he was a local daytime AM radio personality, after all. And aside from being one of the lowest paid medical specialties, psychiatry is a lot more about drugs and ECT than psychotherapy (let alone Freud and Jung!). 

Still feel iffy over this sequel/reboot/whatever. 

[mormont]

I believe there was an idea put around (endorsed by the writers, IIRC?) that Frasier had got in on the ground floor investing in Microsoft and that was how he could afford the apartment etc. It's not really consistent with the episode in which Bill Gates appears and it's never referenced, so it's not a great explanation.

(Frasier's income level also varies with the needs of the story - he had to cut back when he was laid off by the station when they got taken over, for example, but was never in danger of losing his apartment and was clearly not in the straits Bulldog and Roz were in at that point.)

But that's sitcoms for you. They don't really care about the characters' income level. See Friends, for example.

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

I'm not sure we need a show about an old, mega-rich-but-still-unhappy Frasier.

No shit. Another show about how hard it is to be a rich white guy? Frasier (the show) works because Frasier (the character) never actually has any real problems, and the writers know it. Or hardly any, anyway - sometimes he will have a genuine problem and the writers make him sympathetic at that point instead of the pompous twit he is when he's screwed up his latest relationship or fluffed his latest social climbing attempts through his own vanity,

[Mindwalker]

17 hours ago, Werthead said:

I also think he's risking the Ricky Gervais thing of mistaking the popularity of the show with the popularity of his character; just like The Office worked because of the entire cast and the attempted reboot fell flat on its face because it just brought back Gervais and not the other actors playing the characters people loved more, it feels like this could collapse because nobody watched Frasier and certainly not Cheers (which he didn't even appear on until the third season) for Grammer, they watched it for that specific set of characters and actors and their interplay.

Indeed. I think what made the show - at lest the first 3 to 5 seasons - so charming was he combination of Frasier, Niles, Martin, Roz and EarlyDaphne. Maybe even Eddie...  And the writing - I doubt they'll find writers of similar quality. And while I liked Frasier/ Grammer, my favorite was definitely Niles. Oh, and I'd probably watch any show with the much-maligned Lilith!

14 hours ago, Aemon Stark said:

Frasier's wealth never made much sense; he was a local daytime AM radio personality, after all.

Plus, over the course of the show, tons of people recognized his voice, he was a celeb - almost everyone was listening to a call-in psychological radio show!

[mormont]

10 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

Indeed. I think what made the show - at lest the first 3 to 5 seasons - so charming was he combination of Frasier, Niles, Martin and EarlyDaphne. Maybe even Eddie

What does Roz have to do to get any love here?  No joke, she's probably the most relatable character in the series. 

[Mindwalker]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

What does Roz have to do to get any love here?  No joke, she's probably the most relatable character in the series. 

Oh, you're right! Loved Roz. Fixed.

[Annara Snow]

On 7/12/2021 at 1:02 AM, john said:

I always imagined Frasier as a middle aged man (although he was in his late 20s when he started in Cheers) so the “third act” of life thing isn’t really computing.

That's because Kelsey Grammar is one of those people who always looked middle aged even when they were young. Kind of like Angela Lansbury. I was surprised to learn his actual age in early seasons of Frasier.