Wait, is the Frasier reboot actually really funny?
We have now watched a full season of the Paramount+ revival and regret to inform you that we laughed much more than we expected to
TV Features Frasier
A funny thing happened when I checked in on the Frasier reboot, lo these past two months: I kept watching the damn thing.
I wasn’t expecting to. The whole thing reeked of a vanity project for series star Kelsey Grammer; the show’s first few episodes were hampered by editing weirdness and a certain stilted discomfort from some of its younger cast members; there was no David Hyde Pierce. None of it boded especially well, even for a dedicated fan of the franchise. But as much as I expected to hate the Frasier reboot, or maybe just to “nothing” it, like so many other revivals of shows I loved as an overly nerdy comedy snob kid—ah, whither Murphy Brown?—I kept tuning in, week after week, and laughing while I did it.
Now it’s December, and the show is zooming toward its first-season finale on December 7—Roz is back! Roz!—and I’m as shocked as anybody to report that I’m still getting laughs out of Dr. Crane’s efforts to reconnect with his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott, who acquits himself surprisingly well as Grammer’s most regular sparring partner). The show remains an imperfect marriage between its classic sitcom DNA and more modern joke-telling trends—there’s a level of irony at work, often amongst the side characters and sub-plots, that sits ill-at-ease with the series’ strengths—but its basic core is shockingly good.
Grammer is the culprit, really. In the Frasier-obsessive essay I wrote back before the new series launched—raising several questions the show has handled surprisingly well in the meantime—I noted that Frasier was frequently the least-compelling character on Frasier. But Grammer genuinely hasn’t lost a step in the intervening decades: He’s very nearly always the most electrifying presence on the screen and remains beautifully willing to make Frasier look as foolish, childish, or obnoxious as necessary in order to make a good joke land. (A recurring early gag that notes the good doctor’s persistent irritation that his Harvard drop-out son is now “only” a fireman underscores the character’s delightful pettiness, before being expanded for better emotional heft.) Grammer’s continued capacity for silliness is the biggest revelation: The show’s sixth episode, which pays homage to the classic series and its love of farce, sees Frasier briefly wax nostalgic for his old days of complicated, idiotic schemes in order to defraud women into liking him—and there’s a real joy in his eyes as he hearkens back to those old, needlessly complex setups.
The rest of the cast remains a mixed bag, although one with an average that’s been persistently trending upward as the season has gone on. Nicholas Lyndhurst is a long-time veteran of the sitcom wars and acquits himself perfectly as Frasier’s new old best friend, mostly lobbing pithy one-liners from the sidelines and dealing out the occasional hard truth. Cutmore-Scott is more of a slow burn; he’s better at the show’s consistently good dramatic side than its taste for quick-fire comedy, but catches up after a few episodes, as the show eases up on holding Freddy up as a stolid hard-working everyman.
Fellow regulars Toks Olagundoye, Jess Salguiero, and Anders Keith, though, all struggle for large chunks of the season with the very strange TV comedy they’ve found themselves mired within, part throwback, part modern sitcom, and not always sitting at ease between its two poles. As Frasier’s boss, tenant, and nephew, respectively, they’re each asked to take on some very broad characteristics here—especially Keith, who’s essentially doing a Pierce impression for much of his screentime—while also dealing with a rhythm of writing that can uncomfortably jam strained wordplay up against moments of more modern meta commentary. All of them can get the laugh, and do, but unlike Grammer or Lyndhurst, they can’t pull it off when the script, and the editing, are working against them. They get better as the season goes on, but their performances still sometimes highlight the difference between lines that sound like the character being funny and ones where an actor is just delivering a joke from the script.
(It’s worth noting that the single biggest laugh of the entire series for me, to date, came from a line delivered by a guest star, not any of the members of the main cast—although given that said guest star was the brilliant Bebe Neuwirth, whose single-episode appearance was an easy series highlight, it’s hard to necessarily fault the show for that.)
There are, to be clear, no perfect episodes of the new Frasier, or at least not yet (in marked contrast to the old Frasier, which had at least a few pieces of pristine clockwork brilliance spread across its 11 seasons on the air). The editing is messy, with scenes often trailing off to some meandering final joke that doesn’t justify the journey. Side characters (like Freddy’s various fellow firemen) are written with a joke-obsessed simplicity that belies the show’s genuine emotional intelligence. There is no David Hyde Pierce. (I know, I know, I’m harping; I just miss the guy!)
But when it hits—when Grammer and Lyndhurst are firing zingers back and forth at each other, or Frasier and Freddy are taking serious swings at a lifetime of familial resentments, occasionally involving an air-hockey table—it really, truly hits. Having watched nine episodes of it so far, I’ll be happily tuning in for the tenth. And if we hear those renewal blues a-callin’, I’ll be tuning in for a second season, too.
Season one of Frasier is available to stream now on Paramount+.
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89 Comments
Sorry its not really funny ,they need better writers . Lots of mis steps with this show the new cast is weak and pretty much forgettable . The son should have been a cop ,and they should have found a better actor for the part . Roz shows up in the last 10 minutes and its the high point of the season . The TV show that the character of Frasier did for 20 years was the better idea. They should have had Frazier working in the college and being pulled into a talk show ,where Roz would show up to produce it. Also the son should have been willed the recliner from Martian ,and Frazier should have been willed a descendant of Eddie .
The wife and I binged the available episodes this weekend, and yeah, it’s just really good.As for Grammer remaining “beautifully willing to make Frasier look as foolish, childish, or obnoxious as necessary in order to make a good joke land,” I’m still a little haunted by the theory that Frasier is his loathsome lampoon of everything he hates about effete liberals.
loathsome lampoonIf that’s true at least it’s accurate and it’s telling that his worst version of a liberal is still somewhat of an okay person.
He is in the new show, for sure, though there’s a pretty good case to be made that he was the villain of the original series.
He’s what conservatives wish liberals were like, much like Hank Hill is what liberals wish conservatives were like.
lmao. We found our both sides dude here. ETA: I don’t even how I accidently responded to you but this comment wasn’t intended for you!
I don’t think that acknowledging that pretty much everyone in the US hates the other side to a degree we haven’t seen in at least a few decades makes me a “both sides dude”. It’s not the same as saying “Well, they both make good points”.
And to be clear: liberals (not leftists; I’m talking the Sorkin types here) love and lionize pRinCipLeD cOnSeRvAtIvEs (McCain, Liz Cheney…fuck, even Dubya these days), whereas conservatives are typically just looking for a punching bag.
I don’t have Paramount+, so haven’t had a chance to watch yet. The Original Frasier is like a warm blanket. It’s comfy and cozy, and at times heartfelt, with John Mahoney being a big part of that. It’s soft-focus before HD. I just can’t imagine a new show capturing that.
The two best characters on the original show are not coming back (Papa Crane and Niles) so they always had a huge hill to climb. And that’s before you get to Leeves’ Daphne.
Frasier really needs a peer to bounce off of. Lyndhurst is great at what he’s required to do, but it’s mostly just jokes about drinking and being a bad professor which makes a poor replacement for Niles. The audience response needs to be toned waaaay down. The overly long pauses for applause when Lilith (and I’m guessing Roz, I haven’t watched it yet) shows up were way over the top. I went back to the episode of the original show when Sam paid a visit to Seattle, and there was some of that, but much more subdued than this. It sounds like a Married With Children episode. And going back to the premiere of this series, there were two shots of Freddie’s roommate’s baby, and both times there was an ‘Awwww’ from the audience. That kind of thing is so tired that making fun of it isn’t even fun anymore.
I completely forgot about the baby until you just mentioned it. What a weird early subplot that they’ve already seemingly brushed under the rug.
You are very on point with Lyndhurst.
“It sounds like a Married With Children episode.”That really only happened noticeably over-the-top in the awful later seasons. IMHO.
You know what Frazier might need to not get cancelled? Ted McGinley!
I blame Garry Marshall for that—“Happy Days” was even worse. By the end of the run, almost every character’s entrance was accompanied with a cacophony of hooting and clapping, while everyone had to awkwardly stand around waiting for it to die down to deliver their lines.
“Frasier really needs a peer to bounce off of. Lyndhurst is great at what he’s required to do, but it’s mostly just jokes about drinking and being a bad professor which makes a poor replacement for Niles.”Yeah, that’s the thing about the Niles/Frasier dynamic—they’re brothers, so naturally they bring out the best and worst in each other. The appeal of Niles isn’t as a someone who occasionally says something catty, it’s as someone who understands Frasier better than anyone else on the show, so he’s uniquely capable of puncturing his ego. At the same time, he brings out Frasier’s childishness and competitiveness (and vice versa). Frasier is generally status conscious but he isn’t status obsessed until and unless Niles has something that he wants. It’s a silly but ultimately very human motivation that nu-Frasier sorely lacks, who just kind of wants things for the sake of wanting them.Alan, meanwhile…likes alcohol? And owns a cat? Snarkiness aside, he’s far more of a sidekick than a genuine rival or foil.
The show is very hit or miss for me. Some scenes work, some don’t but one of my favorite bits was the Christmas game Alan and David were playing with the party guests. I wish it had been focused on more and it was the one time I actually liked David. So, if they keep David as Alan’s assistant that might give a boost to the show.
Agreed about that little runner with David and Alan. The best thing they did for David was pair him with Alan. It made him tolerable.
For me the Original Frasier exists in the media black hole that were my 8 years of college and early work where my evenings were spent on some barstool/ friends apartment and not in front of the TV. Right now I working my way thru a rewatch of Cheers (Season 4 and the introduction of Woody Boyd) and after that I’m going to finally dive head first into Frasier
Apparently, KG is still an unapologetic DT supporter. Guess anything’s worth those tax breaks…
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this new version started to hit its stride when they started bringing on really strong guest stars. The episode with June Diane Raphael was by far better than the first set of episodes, and obviously, Bebe Neuwirth just absolutely crushed it in what was easily the best episode of this season (I have not yet watched the one that was just released). This show was always only as good as its supporting cast, and that’s proving to be true again here. When the cast is elevated in this season, so is the comedy.
I have a hard time even calling Neuwirth a guest star. I know she wasn’t quite a regular the first go-around but she left a presence over the show even when not on.
How does that make her not a guest star?
I thought Raphael was great and fit perfectly into a classic Frasier farce.
Agreed. And it was so immediately clear how much a high quality/caliber guest star can elevate even mediocre material.
Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth have such chemistry, that I think one of the big mistakes of the whole Frasier universe was to fracture their marriage and keep them apart. His perpetual, failed search for love frustrates and proves tiresome, because Lilith IS the one, yet the writers over the years on keeping them apart.
Actually, you can blame Bebe Neuwirth for keeping Frasier and Lilith apart… Neuwirth was having a thriving Broadway career and didn’t want to give it up to commit to a long-running sitcom, so they split them up and had her do guest appearances.
There have been a few lines here and there I’ve liked. Frasier’s professor friend has the feel of someone from the old show.I think a problem is length, which can be said for a lot of streaming shows free from the burden of a network timeslot. There’s no reason these episodes can’t be a tight 22 minutes, and that would certainly help with the more farcical ones.
The thing with his professor friend is that, while he’s very one-note, he also just looks so much like John Mahoney to me that it’s throwing me off a bit, and also just makes me remember that we lost John Mahoney.
“his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott, who acquits himself surprisingly well as Grammer’s most regular sparring partner)”“Cutmore-Smith is more of a slow burn”Which is it?
Grammar’s politics aside:
A few lines have made me genuinely laugh, which is more than I can say for any laugh-track sitcom in the past decade or so. That being said, I find this show to be so frustrating! The 1993 show was actually ahead of it’s time much like Cheers was before it. This, on the other hand, seems to be the same general idea as the 1993 show, rendering it behind it’s time. I think the writers / producers should have gone with a different format.
I haven’t watched the new show, so I can’t comment to specifics, but what format do you think it should have other than not being made at all? Making it as anything other than a multicamera sitcom with a studio audience wouldn’t really feel like Frasier.
I would have done exactly what you say shouldn’t have been done. I think it should have been a single camera comedy. Maybe focusing on his television fame with a tone similar to HBO comedies.
For example, I see the television show Episodes as the real Joey spinoff of Friends. All they would have had to do is change the main character’s name from Matt LeBlanc to Joey and his hit show from Friends to Mac n Cheese or whatever.
I never watched Episodes or Joey, so I can’t comment on those. I think Frasier is of its time and place, and that it was probably best just to leave it there. I really can’t imagine the more modern and edgy style of a single camera show working for Frasier.
We’re just going to disagree and that’s cool.
2 things we do agree on.
1. This was actually completely unnecessary.
2. It shouldn’t be edgy. Sorry if I gave off the impression I wanted it edgy.
Exactly. I think that the actor playing Freddy would work much better in single-camera format, and Schitt’s Creek proved that you can do silly physical comedy and parents living with adult children in that format.
Not sure I care how funny the latest Nazi Sitcom is. It’s sort of not the issue at question, y’know?
Yeah, fuck this guy. I have no problem watching movies Polanski directed or Weinstein produced, but supporting trump is too far for me.
Are you real people, or parodies of them?
I actually found that Frasier’s nephew had most of my favorite jokes, so I endorse that character fully, even if some of the lines are a little clunky.
Unfortunately, I am also really loving it. However, I will fully disagree with you about Freddie, who is by a long mile the weakest link on the show. There’s just no “there” there, you know? I’ve grown to appreciate almost everyone else in the cast, but he’s just not funny.
I’ll take 24 straight hours of Freddie before I take another second of Anders Keith and his laborious, wildly dismaying lukewarm Niles impression.I gave up on this show before Bebe Neuwirth’s guest appearance. For me, having seen both Cheers and the original Frasier multiple times apiece, there’s no getting around the fact that this new show is, at its core, a vanity project for Kelsey Grammer to indulge his worst instincts while being applauded (either by real people or by the laugh track) for it. It’s everything that was beginning to fester toward the end of the original Frasier’s run, when Grammer was doing more directing and had more input in the scripts, culminating in the absolutely dreadful monologue in the series finale with the rest of the cast being forced to stand around looking admiringly at Grammer’s Frasier as if their universes revolved around him.Worse for me, though, is the weaponized nostalgia. I had the same problem with Melissa Rauch’s Night Court. They rebuilt the old sets and dragged John Larroquette out of mothballs, and they hoped that sentimentality would paper over bad writing, awkward and forced ensemble acting, and zero chemistry or likeability. And in Night Court’s case, it worked long enough for them to get a second season greenlit before everyone realized that the new show was less than a pale shadow of the original.Frasier came out when I was already an adult, so I don’t have the deep nostalgia for it that 90s kids have. I still love it – mostly on the strength of David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney, who I will believe for the rest of my life were the real protagonists of the show. The early seasons generated some absolute classics of the sitcom genre. As the show aged, the ensemble was strong enough to carry it through a gradual but unstoppable decline in narrative quality. I find that the new Frasier continues that decline, but without the power of a strong ensemble to distract from it.More power to you if you like it, but for me it’s the old hoary adage – “You can’t go home again.”
“I’ll take 24 straight hours of Freddie before I take another second of Anders Keith and his laborious, wildly dismaying lukewarm Niles impression.”David is what happens when you describe Niles to Chuck Lorre and he stops you mid-sentence. “Yeah, yeah, nebbishy dweeb, I get it. I write those all the time.” Unless it’s some form of filial rebellion, I have an incredibly hard time imagining Niles’s son idolizing Frasier so much. Fuck, I have a hard time imagining Niles’s son even attending Harvard.
David is what happens when Paramount decide they need “one of those Big Bang types” on their sitcom to make it modern.
David is what happens when you describe Niles to Chuck Lorre and he stops you mid-sentence. This is one of the single most devastating things ever written on this site.You takin’ notes, AV Club writers? That is snark.
I think they found a voice for the character which worked when they paired him with Lyndhurst in the Christmas finale. Them bouncing reindeer names off each other in a weird game/bet/thing, that actually worked. Maybe next season we’ll get less of the pseudo Niles and more sidekick of Lyndhurst, same as how Freddie finally worked in the same episode when they started calling him out as being slightly douchebag-esque too. I think the weakest part of the show was Frasier himself, okay, we need him to bring the rest together, but they work best when bouncing off anyone but him. Maybe the show can give Grammer the Roseanne treatment and soft reboot the show to kill him off, but keep the rest. And, somehow, keep Gilpin around too.
Night Court, was so, so bad. I think Melissa Rauch can be very funny but everything about that show is awkward.
It’s not awful, but I do think these kind of relaunched shows are just a terrible idea. And I got some genuine laughs out of the show and the actors. But it looks like the original Cheers compared to the new Night Court. The new Night Court simply isn’t funny. It seriously seems like someone made a rough draft of an entire TV season and forgot to go back and fix the problems.
Niles was absolutely the protagonist of the original series. He is the one who went through the transformation from vain, pretentious, insecure man in a loveless marriage to a loving husband, father and son who didn’t so much need prestige as just people who loved him for who he was. That was all David Hyde Pierce. There main problem in the current series is there is no one to go on that journey. Freddie, Alan, David and Frasier are all happy with who they are. I don’t even remember the female characters’ names, which says a lot, but they are the ones dissatisfied with their lot in life. One is a lampoon of a female academic and career woman and the other is a single mother and actress, two types of women I gather Grammer has a lot of contempt for, though both actresses do their best with what they are given.
I remember how Cheers was at the bottom of the ratings in its first year, but NBC gave it chance after chance. Before long it was one of the top-rated shows of the 1980s, and blossomed into (IMHO) an underrated sitcom gem.Based on the pedigree of the Frasier-verse, I am inclined to give new Frasier time to find its rhythm. I already very much like what I’ve seen so far.
Sure, but sly references to the theme song’s lyrics (“a-callin’,” etc) are quick becoming a really hacky element of every review and think-piece on the reboot.
I’m a Fools and Horses fan so always glad to see Lyndhurst show up but they really need to give him more to do.
I’m looking forward to him taking Frasier back in time to the 40s next season
It’s been very strange watching Rodney play a washed-up Harvard professor. I don’t think the part is doing him any favors either, though I suspect it’s padding his retirement fund quite nicely, so good for him!
Yeah I mean Del Boy’s had a great career, I’ve enjoyed most of his stuff. Rodney always was a plonker.
The bit when Del Boy fell through the bar was great
Rodney, trying to look cool for his date, throwing his cigarette out of the (closed) car window comes a close second.
Haven’t seen it, and am not going to, no matter how funny it may be.
I hate to be that guy, but I am that guy. Kelsey Gramer is allegedly a Trump supporter. As in still a Trump supporter, after Jan 6 and the Mar a Lago raid, and everything. Aside from proving that Tim Allen claim about right wingers being blacklisted is BS, this also proves Werner Krauss would probably do very well in modern day Hollywood.
https://deadline.com/2023/12/bbc-kelsey-grammer-donald-trump-shut-down-paramount-1235650427/
Agreed, and I enjoyed the original show’s run. But either Kelsey is just a piece of shit who truly does believe in what Trump does, or he’s being disingenuous to appeal to far right wing viewers, either way, right now I can’t look at his face without feeling disgust.While I would have looked down on Kelsey for supporting Trump *prior* to everything we’ve learned about what he did and now claims he plans to do re-taking office in 2024, I can’t stand somebody who would willingly take that all as truth and STILL support him.And that’s a shame for the other talented actors on the show.
Yup. A person doesn’t get to fuck around with my right to have my vote counted – lie about it – and remain someone I’ll engage with.G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’
Also 90% of the comedy is “watch cishet guys act stereotypically gay” but without actual gay representation. Frasier is way past “touchy rich cultured guy” territory and into “proper queen” territory, and from this trailer, far more than the original series, essentially flanderizing himself. “My Laquiat 1953 chair, no you’re not sitting on it with those jeans, mr pesky butt!” is borderline queer appropriation.
No, you’re not describing anything that is owned by gay people.
It could be Grammer is an awful person–his former co-stars and everyone who’s ever worked with him can speak to that better than any of us. Or he could be like tens of millions of Americans and be very low-information, dumb and ignorant of who Trump really is. Yes, there’s little excuse for being fooled by the cretin in 2023, but we have a multibillion dollar, highly pervasive propaganda system in this country that turns Americans, who already hate politics and don’t follow the news, into morons. Suffice to say, Dr. Frasier Crane would be horrified by Trump.
It makes no sense to just write off half of the country because you disagree with their politics no matter how harmful they might be. The food you put on your table is mostly coming from people who share those same politics. The people who ensure your safety mostly share those politics. Its just not sustainable to boycott anyone and anything associated with Trump. This is coming from someone who has never voted for a republican in his life and genuinely hates Trump.
And for the guy who says “I just can’t write off half the country,” I watched Trump and the GOP “write off” more than half of the country for four years.
I live in the most Trumpian (or so I sure hope) province of Canada and watched MAGATS (what our provincial conservative party basically are, to the point one of them was photographed at a Trump rally with a red cap) “write off” public health care, education, the Indigenous communities, the environment and anyone who isn’t all “drill baby drill.”
I can and damn will “write off” anyone and everyone who “writes off” me or anyone more vulnerable or marginalized than me.
I understand and respect that.
And at the same time I’m glad I can watch a show, movie, TV, theatre or otherwise and separate the characters from the actors playing them.
If I knew half the actors I watched I probably wouldn’t like them as people.
I haven’t seen it and probably won’t because I just have no desire to see Frasier without his supporting cast (and I don’t have Paramount+). I will say that anything Bebe Neuwirth shows up in is worth a watch though. She is killing it in Julia.
Yes she is killing it in Julia, and the fact that they have David Hyde Pierce is like a little extra twist of the knife.
Hmm…I, too, watched the whole season and no, it is not “really funny.” “Occasionally chuckle-worthy” is the best I can give it. It’s not bad, but it’s a weird uncanny valley experience of watching almost but not quite Frasier-ish characters do almost but not quite Frasier-ish things. It tries its level best to bring an ensemble together but it never escapes feeling like a Kelsey Grammer vanity project. Nu-Frasier is now extraordinarily wealthy and famous—there’s a weird recurring joke about how nice he smells, for some reason—and the show’s occasional efforts to cut him down to size are just kind of silly and cartoonish rather than grounded in the character’s flaws, as in the original. A Niles (not necessarily the Niles, though that would help), is desperately needed for Frasier to bounce off of. Finally, the less said about the show’s understanding of academia and academic types—e.g., the character who desperately wants to become the “youngest Provost in Harvard history”—the better.
*I* really wish someone would pick up the rights to “Boss” (2011), clean up some of the more egregious plotlines and get that raucous beast rolling again.
Can we please bury the word “franchise” to define *every* media IP? Frasier is a series. This is a revival. It’s not a franchise (the original was a spin-off). I’m sick of seeing the word “franchise” abused in every damn article about a TV or film series.
Which word is more annoying… franchise or content? Tough call.
How is it Frasier isn’t in treatment? Or maybe running a treatment center after being in one himself? The character has been drinking for 35 years. And the comedy and pathos that could be mined from that is far deeper than what we’re getting with this iteration. Missed opportunity.
I enjoyed this season of Frasier. It gave me some laughs and it has it’s flaws, but usually a show on their first season or revival season does. Overall this little world just gave me that “feel good” vibes with a warm cozy feeling. I watch a lot of fantastic shows, and they are all pretty dark, twisted, or weird. This one is the one light hearted show to kind of balance it out. It’s one of those shows I don’t really need, and I can take it or leave it. But I’ll enjoy it while it’s available.
It is reliably and inoffensively funny, a better than average standard sitcom, exactly what you’d expect from Frasier. The comedy of errors nature is intact, and I laugh out loud several times an episode. Recommended for fans of the original.
The original was one of those shows where I never found any of the jokes funny. So, for me, probably not.
I at least found this show, the few episodes I watched so far, to be pleasant enough and have some funny bits. Doesn’t equal the original of course, but I found many more laughs in it than any of the current batch of “traditional” style sitcoms out now. Though it still commits the sin of either having a completely invented laugh track or really enhancing it in places. It can get obnoxious. Another reason I didn’t mind it is because I watched some of the new Night Court show and cannot believe it has been renewed. The most that show got out of me was, “I guess that line is a little funny.” Mostly it was painful.
The Murphy Brown revival was so bad
Am I miss remembering or isn’t Kelsey Grammar one of those actors that took the hard right wing turn in the last decade, similiar to Tim Allen where they are not quite over the line into Kevin Sorbo stupid or Trump loving but are very vocal about immigrants “invading” the country and other such bull shit
No, you’re not. I think literally just a few days ago in an interview he said he still supports Trump.
One of the weird things about Grammer is that despite having the Martin character, the fan base of the original Frasier is overwhelmingly liberal and it is a fantasy about reconciliation with your working class family members. Grammer’s other claim to fame is The Simpsons, a show with another strongly left leaning fan base. But Grammer is at heart, despite his time at Juliard, Florida man and his marital history makes this obvious. He was absolutely sh*tty to all his ex-wives.
He’s an out and proud Trumplicker.
Bebe Neuwirth’s appearance wasn’t good. Since there was no Niles or Martin (or Daphne), the vicious jokes about Lilith being some sort of evil incarnate were given to the only person who knew her: Frasier. He was never making those jokes on the original show—he was sort of half-chuckling at them and sort of dismissing them, but not making them himself, and certainly not to her face. In this curious new version of their relationship, they hate each other (but end up making out anyway). The Christmas episode had Frasier running through a Greatest Hits of the worst Crane parties—referencing great episodes of the original show. Why would the writers want to draw comparisons with its much funnier predecessor?! The biggest catastrophe of Frasier’s latest party was that it wasn’t catastrophic at all—Oh boy, too many Christmas trees and a live goose. And the way they’re trying to shoe-horn puns and wordplay into the scripts. “I can’t see the florist for the trees.” Yikes. On the old show, that line might have been delivered, but only if Niles was there to cut him off before he finished, or ask him how long he’d been waiting to use it.
The one sequence in the entire season that had me roaring was the clip of Frasier’s talk show. Season 1—sedate, vaguely early Dr. Phil-like, and then Season 11: Frasier running around the set like a lunatic, on the now “Ellen”-like circus it had devolved into. And that only worked because it plays completely against character. And! We already saw him do that on the original show when he and Bebe hosted that morning show for a week.Ah, well, David Hyde Pierce was smart to stay away. And ironically, if he hadn’t, the new series might have actually had some funny moments.
It’s not a reboot, it’s a sequel.
So will Sam or Woody show up?
When I watch the reboot, I have the uncanny feeling that I’m watching the sitcom part of Kevin Can F**k Himself.I don’t believe that’s a compliment.
No. As in ”Oh, HELL NO.” None of my time, none of my money, will be wasted on this Trumpy bootlicker.