Frasier Review: The Beloved Psychiatrist Returns With an Uneven but Promising New Season
Frasier's return isn't great, but it's good...and gets better as it goes.
Frasier Crane is back – and back in Boston! – and it's…not bad. Frasier returns, with new episodes hitting Paramount+ later this month, and the season (series?) premiere hitting CBS not long after. In it, Kelsey Grammer reprises his role as Frasier Crane, a part he originated on Cheers in 1984. After nine seasons on Cheers and another 11 on Frasier, Grammer retired the role, but has been vocal for years about his desire to revisit the character.
In the new series, Frasier moves back to Boston, having retired from the TV series that he was ready to launch at the end of his self-titled series almost 20 years ago. Here, we once again see Frasier as a wealthy, pompous, somewhat out-of-touch character who finds himself bumping up against the working-class values of a family member. This time, that family member is his son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), a firefighter in Boston, rather than his father.
There are some fun callbacks to old episodes of Frasier and Cheers, and some tributes to both John Mahoney, who played Frasier's father Martin; and David Hyde-Pierce, who played his brother, Niles, in the original show.
The show's strongest suit is its nostalgia, but that's also potentially its downfall. The series feels every bit like a sitcom from the '90s, in both good and bad ways. Yeah, it's nice to see a more traditional sitcom, filmed in front of a live audience, but at times, it also yields a lot of déjà vu. You might be surprised how many times you can see the setup and payoff for jokes coming a mile away, because the show is dealing in old tropes. They're executed well, so it's hard to argue that it's inherently a bad thing, but some audience members will likely feel like the show is a little bit too frozen in time for their taste.
The new show does not venture too far from its source material; in Frasier 2023, Frasier's workplace dynamic centers on awkward interactions with his students (like the callers from the original), a pretentious sidekick a la Niles (Alan Cornwall, Frasier's college buddy played by Nicholas Lyndhurst), a clever, acid-tongued woman who is effectively Frasier's boss (Olivia, played by Toks Olagundoye, our Roz stand-in). Frasier's celebrity, and his internal struggles between loving the attention and hating the ways he has to compromise for it, play a key role in an episode; his inability to communicate with his working-class family member (here, Freddy) dominates another. And at home, that working-class dynamic with Freddy is often contrasted with David's idiosyncratic and "proper" personality.
Another drawback is…well, there's no easy way of saying it, David Crane. David, played by Anders Keith, feels less like a fully realized character of his own and more like somebody trying to do an impersonation of David Hyde Pierce's Niles, but only Niles at his most neurotic, silly, and often annoying. In the first five episodes, which ComicBook.com was able to review, there were remarkably few laughs to come from the character of David, and the funniest bit involving the character over those five episodes was a recurring bit in which Frasier kept telling him, basically, to sit down and shut up.
Trying to have Frasier and David be a "pair" who are offset by Freddy is part of why the David character doesn't work: Frasier does not actually feel like he has anything more in common with David than he does with Freddy. Yes, David worships at the altar of Frasier (something his father never did), but Frasier does not reciprocate his adoration. It's a hiccup in the three-man comedy troupe that makes too many of the scenes with David fall flat. The series starts a bit slow, but it builds, getting smarter, funnier, and more earnest over the course of the first five episodes. The pilot (titled "The Good Father," an inversion of "The Good Son," the title of the original Frasier pilot) sees Frasier return to Boston, but he doesn't go to Cheers (in those first five episodes, he never does, or even considers it). Instead, the audience meets the whole supporting cast – as does Frasier, who really only knew David, Freddy, and Alan before the series begins. It takes some time to set up, and that eats into the comedy. In those first two episodes, you mostly have to live on scraps in the form of jokes about how rich and famous and out-of-touch Frasier is, which presents its own issue.
In the third episode, as Frasier begins his new career at Harvard, something clicks: Freddy should be the main character. His zingers land, not in the cruel way that Carla's did on Cheers, but in the way Martin's did on Frasier. Freddy loves Frasier, but can't help but try to puncture a bit of the old man's pomposity. His one-liners feel like the joke that should be happening right now. While we see Frasier struggling with his day job, and exploring the deepening relationship between him, Alan, and Olivia, we get only glimpses of Freddy and his best friend/roommate Eve (The Boys's Jess Salgueiro). That feels like a misstep, since Salgueiro steals every scene she's in.
The series improves as it goes, so it's certainly possible that by the end of the 10-episode season, it will be in top form, and find the balance between all these characters and stories that make it feel fresh but familiar. It isn't quite there yet in the first half, but Grammer remains great in the role, Frasier remains true to himself, and there are at least as many hits as there are misses both in terms of individual gags and full episodes.
The best moments are actually not the comedy, but the pathos. Frasier's relationship with Freddy, his relationship with Alan, and the dynamic between Freddy and Eve are all terrific. Olivia and Alan are both fairly one-note characters, but when they're together, they're funnier than when they're playing their one note. Watching Olivia antagonize Freddy, and watching him be largely unfazed by it, recalls some of the best barbs traded back and forth between Roz and Niles in the old days.
Frasier should appeal to longtime fans of the character, but it's anybody's guess whether it will attract new (especially young) viewers. The Murphy Brown revival had a similar dynamic: it felt like it slipped right back into its old grooves. Unfortunately for Murphy Brown, that turned out to be a liability rather than a benefit, and the show was quickly cancelled. On the other hand, Night Court has done the same thing, and earned a second season. The TV marketplace is volatile and unpredictable right now, but having 20 years of history and one of the most beloved characters in TV history on your side is likely the best insurance policy you can ask for.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Frasier premieres on Paramount+ on October 12th and on CBS on October 17th.
