< Can a rebooted 'Frasier' still scramble our eggs?

LINDA HOLMES, HOST:

Frasier Crane is back. After nine seasons on "Cheers" and 11 more on the spinoff "Frasier," the snobby psychiatrist joins the long list of characters rebooted for the streaming age. Surrounded by a new supporting cast, Dr. Crane is back in Boston with a new set of challenges. But what made the original series so watchable, and how does the new series stack up? I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about "Frasier," old and new, on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

HOMES: Joining me today is one of the hosts of NPR's All Things Considered and the Consider This podcast, Juana Summers. Welcome, Juana.

JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: Hi, Linda.

HOMES: And also with us is Andrew Limbong. He's the host of NPR's Book Of The Day podcast and a reporter for the Culture Desk. Andrew.

ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Hey, baby. I hear the blues a-calling.

(LAUGHTER)

LIMBONG: Let's do it. Let's go. Let's go. It's game time.

HOMES: All right, it is game time. So Frasier Crane is played by Kelsey Grammer. The character was introduced during the third season of "Cheers" back in nineteen eighty - gulp - four. As the obviously losing side of a love triangle with Sam and Diane, Frasier stuck around, though, for the rest of the series. After "Cheers" ended, Frasier got his own spinoff in 1993, in which he lived in Seattle. That show ran for 11 seasons and still holds the record for the most Emmy awards ever won by a comedy series. We'll talk about the "Frasier" reboot in a little bit, but first, we wanted to spend some time on the original series. We were talking before we started recording about the fact that I am always really surprised by who turns out to be a "Frasier" person, or, as Andrew put it, a "Frasier"-head. Andrew, tell me about your "Frasier"-head status.

LIMBONG: OK, so I've been a fan since high school, which would have been - I think I was in high school from, like, '04 to '07. So somewhere in that year range, I started watching it because I was - like, I grew up a "Friends" watcher and a "Friends" fan.

HOMES: Right.

LIMBONG: You know, I, like, modeled my personality after Chandler and all that.

HOMES: Sure.

LIMBONG: And then I became kind of more, like, pretentious. And I was in my Latin class, you know?

SUMMERS: Right.

LIMBONG: I was reading these books, and I was like, oh.

SUMMERS: Of course you were.

LIMBONG: Yeah. I know, right? And I was like, oh, I think I'm kind of, like, better than these other kids. You know what I mean? And I started watching "Frasier" because I thought that that was, like, a smarter, like, sitcom to watch. I think it was on, like, We on syndication, if I'm not mistaken. But...

HOMES: I think it was. I think it's been in a lot of places. Yeah.

LIMBONG: Yeah, yeah. And so I was just, like, mainlining "Frasier" all night. I realized it was just as dumb as "Friends" was, but it was a little sharper and a little more - I really enjoyed the sort of, like, farcical stuff, like the door slamming and, like, going in and out of hallways - like, that sort of aspect of the humor.

HOMES: Yes. Me too.

LIMBONG: It was also kind of meaner than other sitcoms around, like, especially like Niles and Roz, like, going at it. I was like, do these people, like, actually not like each other? I don't know what's going on here.

HOMES: It's a fine line.

LIMBONG: Yeah. You know, I've seen, like, all of it. It's become my go-to if I'm hungover on a Sunday morning. I, like, throw on "Frasier" if I can't go to sleep. There's actually - I think a couple years ago, I did this piece about being bored. And it started with, I'm bored. And there's tape of me, like, watching "Frasier" while I try to go to sleep. So that's how hard of a "Frasier"-head am.

HOMES: All right, Juana, how about you? What is your "Frasier" situation?

SUMMERS: Oh, my gosh. So first of all, I should say, like Andrew, most nights I actually go to sleep to "Frasier" still. It's, like, that perfect comfort TV that reminds me of my childhood where you kind of know every single word to the plot so you don't have to concentrate super-carefully. But it's always on my TV. But I think for me, it all started - I was a little younger than Andrew when I started watching it. My grandmother, who has since died, loved "Frasier" when I was younger. And then as I was getting older, I didn't watch a lot of other sitcoms at the time. I did not really watch "Friends" or any of the other ones or "Seinfeld" that was around kind of in the same era.

But I really love the fact that "Frasier" seemed to kind of have this insider-outsider dynamic that really appealed to me as kind of a misfit, confused kid who didn't know what their place was in anything. And I loved the fact that the show is genuinely funny. It's not funny like I'm going to spit my drink out while I'm watching it funny. But I thought that the humor was refreshing and just, like, very wholesome. And I always really enjoyed it about that. And then carrying it over into my adulthood, especially when we started being in the pandemic, I'd seen all of "Frasier," but I'd never watched "Cheers." And so then one of my first pandemic tasks, when I could no longer go to all the bars that I loved, was to pretend like I was in one and watch "Cheers" from start to finish.

HOMES: Absolutely. I think I'm the one person in this conversation who is old enough that I - it's not just that I watched "Frasier" from the beginning when it was on. I watched "Cheers" from the beginning when it was on. And I wasn't sure - when they first announced that the spinoff character was going to be Frasier, I was kind of like, aww (ph).

SUMMERS: Yeah.

HOMES: I don't know if I want to watch a whole show about Frasier because to me, Frasier was a counterbalance to this kind of bar dude atmosphere at Cheers. So it didn't necessarily seem like it would be a good thing to me to go follow him without that environment. But when you get there, you had his father, Martin, played by the wonderful, great John Mahoney, who has since passed away, and Niles, played by David Hyde Pierce, who I didn't know at that time.

And they set up this new dynamic where, you know, his father, Martin, who was a former police officer who had been injured and needed help - and that's why Frazier moved in with his father. It was a genuinely kind of moving story of why they were living together and why these people, who were very different from each other, wound up living together. And somehow they created a dynamic where different people, whether it was Niles or Martin or Roz, played by Peri Gilpin, who was his - because he was a radio host, and she was his producer. We love a radio producer.

SUMMERS: Love producers.

HOMES: Those people could all kind of cut him down, even though he could also cut other people down. And I thought there was a very good balance of - like, sometimes he was the buffoon, and sometimes he was the very smart and clever kind of commenter on other people's behavior. It is a funny show. Do I laugh hysterically? No. But those are all people who have - all the people we've already talked about and Jane Leeves, who played Daphne, who is Martin's nurse, who was a live-in nurse and became Niles' love interest eventually - all of these people also really have a way with a line delivery. Some of the jokes are good jokes, but they become great jokes because of the way that they are delivered. This was kind of a time when, you know, NBC had a lot of these really solid sitcoms. And I really liked it, even though I will admit there was a point where I was like, how many disastrous parties can these people throw and attend, right?

LIMBONG: Yeah. So I've never actually seen "Cheers." I've never seen an episode of "Cheers." Was Frasier essentially, like, the Niles of "Cheers"? And, like, was he, like, a breakout star, or was he just, like, No. 4, you know? Like...

HOMES: Well...

LIMBONG: Where was he in that mix?

HOMES: They brought him in in the third season. Diane had had a breakdown of sorts, which, on this show, was hilarious, I guess. She had gone off and spent time in this kind of place where she was, you know, getting over her breakdown. And Frasier had been her doctor. And then it also turned out that now he was her boyfriend - also treated as less problematic than it would clearly be now. So he came on as Diane's boyfriend, and it was very much that he was the opposite of Sam. Sam was this, you know, baseball player and, like, regular guy. And Frasier was this kind of fussy academic. But at the same time, he was really funny. And they went in an interesting direction by kind of making the guys at the bar grow to like him, and he grew to like them. And I think they just liked Kelsey Grammer, and so they kept the character, even though I can't imagine they originally planned for him to stay around for eight more seasons.

SUMMERS: And, Linda, I think it goes back to something you were saying earlier about the fact that so many of the characters in "Frasier," but I would also say this applies to Kelsey Grammer portraying Frasier in "Cheers." It's really about that delivery. I mean, he has this incredible sense of presence. He's this very physical actor who owns the fact that he's playing this stuffy, pretentious, over-the-top, kind of lovingly sneered at, wealthy, full-of-himself guy. And it really works for him. I feel like there are so many other people who could have picked up that character. It wouldn't have felt fun to watch. He would have been easy to poke fun at in a less loving way. It wouldn't have come across as well.

But I think the fact - I don't know. As a lover of "Cheers," I could have seen a Norm and Cliff spinoff, who were kind of, like, the barfly guys who are always make - cracking jokes and sitting at the end with the big mugs of beer. You could have easily seen that as the spinoff, but that's not what happened. And I think a lot of it is to the credit of Kelsey Grammer's just really impressive acting skills and ways that he elevates this character that could not be lovable in the hands of a different actor.

HOMES: Yeah, I agree. And I think it's surprising to me how touching "Frasier" can be at times.

LIMBONG: Yeah.

HOMES: That show, when they're dealing with this clearly difficult but loving relationship he has with his dad because they haven't ever really been able to relate to each other - but here they are, where his dad needs him. And he feels that he needs to take care of his father - but also this kind of relationship that he has with Niles where they've always kind of been both very competitive with each other but also very much kind of the only person who has ever understood each other in a way because they're both these kind of pretentious dorks.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FRASIER")

DAVID HYDE PIERCE: (As Niles Crane) I don't know. Dad's so set in his ways.

KELSEY GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) Well, we all are at some point in our lives. Remember when you used to think that the "1812 Overture" was a great piece of classical music?

PIERCE: (As Niles Crane) Was I ever that young?

(LAUGHTER)

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) No, you and I have to broaden Dad's horizons, show him the world that he's only read about in TV Guide.

HOMES: But they get such joy out of, you know, talking about wine and music and the opera. And they really are tightly connected in that way. And I often found that show kind-hearted in a certain way, even though I agree that it also could be much more cutting, as Andrew was mentioning, than other sitcoms of the time.

LIMBONG: Yeah. You know, there's this episode of "Frasier" - you know the one where Frasier throws a Halloween party and they all go as their heroes? And then so Roz goes as Wonder Woman, I believe, and then Daphne goes as Elton John. Niles goes as his dad.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FRASIER")

PIERCE: (As Niles Crane) Somebody get me a beer.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHN MAHONEY: (As Martin Crane) Frasier said to come as your hero, not as the handsomest man in the world.

(LAUGHTER)

LIMBONG: You know, he's in character as his dad. But then he gets, like, too drunk and is like, I've never been proud of my boys, you know? And the character does that. And it's such a crushing moment to watch John Mahoney, you know, see how, like, his sons see him. And then he gets really mad, and he storms off. And it's just this, like, really intimate moment of, like, dads don't get along with their sons, you know? And it was like - and I remember being like, my dad was, like, literally a boxer. And I'm an English major. And I don't know if he understands my William Faulkner papers and (vocalizing).

HOMES: (Laughter).

LIMBONG: Yeah. I just think about that core relationship that is the beating heart of that show so often, you know?

SUMMERS: Well, it's interesting, too, because that dynamic between father and son also does so much to interrogate the inherent privilege in the show. And, like, as someone who's watched so many of these episodes over the years, I sometimes step back and find it fascinating that I love the show as much as I do because it's so deeply unrelatable to my own personal experiences. It is these two very wealthy, older, white men. I am none of those things, and this world that they inhabit and value contrasts with a lot of my values.

And yet you have their father, who was injured in the line of duty, is a working-class man who's trying to figure out how there's so much space and dissonance between himself and his sons and the material things that they value versus the core things that they value. And I think that's one of the things that's made the show actually really interesting to watch and then to rewatch and to figure out kind of why it works for me and why some parts of it don't.

HOMES: Yeah. I think it's such a good blend, too, of those really, as we're saying, like, there is like a deep relationship at the core of this - of "Frasier," the original "Frasier." And yet also, as Andrew mentioned, it can be so silly and farcical. And there's sort of a well-known sequence that they did just with music, with no dialogue, where Niles is kind of getting ready for a date or a party or something. And he's ironing, and then he burns whatever he's ironing, and he sets something on fire, and then disaster upon disaster. It is a really wonderful little physical comedy set piece, and I think they all proved to be very adept at silly comedy and then also kind of really grounded character comedy, which I think is what I loved about it so much.

LIMBONG: Yeah. It's definitely like in the school of "Mr. Bean" - right? - in that sort of way.

HOMES: Yeah. Certainly that part was. Well, in the new episodes, Frasier has moved back to Boston to teach at Harvard, but the rest of the original supporting cast is not on hand for this one. Instead, we get Frasier's grown son, Freddy, played by Jack Cutmore-Scott, and Niles and Daphne's son, played by Anders Keith. There's also Freddie's friend Eve, played by Jess Salgueiro. Nicholas Lyndhurst plays Frasier's old friend Alan, who is kind of this professor who doesn't care about being a professor. He just has tenure, so now he's lazy. And Toks Olagundoye plays their Harvard colleague, Olivia.

The new "Frasier" series is streaming now on Paramount+. Juana, what did you think of these new episodes?

SUMMERS: So there was a lot that I liked, but there was also a lot that I could set aside. I think, for me, when I was setting out to watch this, the biggest thing I tried to do is to try to own immediately that it would not be the original series, and it probably not be as good as the original series. I would not love it as much, and that's OK. And that is very clearly where I sit. You know, initially from the first episode, just seeing Kelsey Grammer back on the screen as Frasier just kind of hit an emotional touchstone for me in a way that I frankly was not anticipating to be as strong.

There are parts of the new series that are a little contrived for me. There are some plot lines that you start to foil out with regards to Frasier and his son Freddy and Freddy's roommate, that I think feel a little predictable. And I think I could probably already sketch out the rest of the season for you and tell you where it's going to go. But I think it still has some of that loving, teasing humor that made the original series so good. Particularly between Frasier and Alan, the Harvard professor, very much is reminiscent to me of the Frasier and Niles dynamic, which I really loved.

And I think that my favorite thing about the episodes that we've seen so far is the way, early on in the first episode, the way that they acknowledge Martin's death, which is very recent for the characters. I thought was very loving and very touching and really spoke to the emotional core of the original series and how much Martin meant to the series and to the franchise in a way that I just thought was incredibly well done. I definitely teared up more than a little bit.

HOMES: Yeah, I get that. Andrew, what did you think?

LIMBONG: OK. I was lowkey relieved. I don't know why I convinced myself of this, that like, Frasier was going to take this, like, radio show and become like a right-wing YouTube podcaster, you know? Just like one of these (laughter), like, dudes.

HOMES: Oh, God.

LIMBONG: So it was relief that it wasn't that, right? I don't know, there's all these, like, store-brand replacements for the people that don't show up, right? Like, Niles' a son as his replacement definitely gives off more of like a Sheldon vibe than, like, a Niles vibe.

HOMES: Yes.

LIMBONG: Like, the worst parts of Daphne, right?

HOMES: And certainly is not a challenge to Frasier.

LIMBONG: Yeah. Like, the best part of Niles is that he can, you know, show Frasier up and all that. And the thing I was also mostly missing, I thought there would at least be one intricately plotted, like, farce-y (ph) sort of episode. We get a hint of that in the pilot. There's one scene when they're trying to hide the baby and Freddy, like, pushes the carriage, like, behind while Frasier's bending down or something like that. That shot just, like, recalled so much like the ski lodge episode of "Frasier" to me. And I was hoping for more of that. But instead we kind of just, like, have a sitcom, you know.

HOMES: Yeah. They do go - in the last episode of the ones that we saw - we saw five - they kind of go into that fancy party idea. 'Cause, to me, the signature episode of "Frasier" is like big, fancy event where they want to make a good impression and something terrible happens, right? That was familiar to me, and I did like that one better. I felt like these episodes got a little better as they went along. I didn't think the later ones were quite as clunky as the pilot. But I did not like these. And I felt like he's not the character that he was, but he's also not quite a new character. And there are a bunch of things that just don't feel true to this character for me. It does not feel true to me that his best friend would be a professor who just blows off being a professor. Because Frasier has always been so serious about academia...

SUMMERS: Right.

HOMES: ...And it means so much to him, and he takes it so seriously. But the bigger issue is they have a really weird relationship with the fact that Frasier has come back to Boston. I wish he had just gone, like, to New York or something like that. Because when they put him back in Boston, but he doesn't see the people that he knew in Boston, at least in these episodes. He doesn't talk about wanting to see them. There are a couple of different bits here where the joke is that Frasier has no understanding of either A, Boston sports or, B, the way Boston people are about Boston sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FRASIER")

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) And this is?

(LAUGHTER)

JACK CUTMORE-SCOTT: (As Freddy Crane) Oh yeah, it's dirt from Fenway - World Series 2013.

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) What a delightfully peculiar little square.

(LAUGHTER)

CUTMORE-SCOTT: (As Freddy Crane) You're not so bad yourself.

(LAUGHTER)

HOMES: It's not that I expect them not to retcon anything. It's the idea of the character was that as he spent time with these guys in this Boston bar, it changed him a little bit. He became kind of more accepting of them and more flexible. And so when they go back and they act like he has never been around a bar before, it just rankles for me. But I want to know how you guys felt about the relationship between him and Freddy because what happens in the first episode, in an echo of the first episode of "Frasier," Frasier and Freddy wind up living together. But to me, like, it's not clear that there's a reason for that to happen. I feel like eventually, down the road, they start to complicate their relationship a little bit.

SUMMERS: Right.

HOMES: But at the beginning it just seemed - I mean, Juana, you said contrived. This is kind of the contrived bit for me.

SUMMERS: Yes, absolutely. I mean, the thing that I think was confusing for me about the relationship between Frasier and Freddy is, at least in these five episodes, I don't really come to understand the reason for their estrangement.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FRASIER")

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) Freddy. Surprise.

CUTMORE-SCOTT: (As Freddy Crane) Dad. You're at my door...

(LAUGHTER)

CUTMORE-SCOTT: (As Freddy Crane) ...Unannounced.

(LAUGHTER)

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) Oh, there's a shorter way to say that. Surprise.

(LAUGHTER)

SUMMERS: So it's like we're supposed to believe this tension, but all of the elements that I would need as a viewer to make the tension feel believable just don't exist in this universe.

HOMES: Exactly.

SUMMERS: That's what makes it really tough. And it seems to me, you know, Freddy is a firefighter who has dropped out of university and is very much kind of in the mold of Martin. So I see what they're going for here. I see that they want to create this proximity for the relationship that existed between Frasier and Martin in the original "Frasier." But without some additional tension and backstory and understanding, it just really doesn't work for me. I don't understand why Freddy seems to feel some mistrust and distrust of this relationship yet at the same time accepts his father's offer to move across the hall and to move in with him. It doesn't hold up for me in a way that's very confusing and, frankly, a little frustrating.

LIMBONG: And, you know, it's actually kind of disappointing because the implication was that after all this time, Frasier was a bad father or at least an absent one, right? You know, say what you will about Frasier in the OG series. You know, pompous, horniest dude alive, you know, just like - you know? But he was, like, a good father, right? He was, like, jumping over hoops to get, like, gifts, you know, for Freddy, like, kind of playing along with whatever sort of phase, like, Freddie was in his life. They just kind of, like, be like, none of that ever happened. And he was kind of like a scummy guy, you know, this whole time.

HOMES: And I think one of the things I really liked about the original "Frasier" was that it was so laser-focused on close, emotional, complicated bonds among men, which is not necessarily something that television has always been super great at, right? I don't understand the reason for the estrangement. They eventually try to sort of explain it somewhat, and that was something I - that I liked about the new series. But I think especially early on, it's like they're not just estranged. They're, like, really estranged. Like, Freddy has treated Frasier as totally absent and gone from his life.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FRASIER")

CUTMORE-SCOTT: (As Freddy Crane) I'm never going to be the person that you wanted me to be, and you're never going to understand why I don't want to be that person. We just - we have different values.

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) Boy, that much is certain.

CUTMORE-SCOTT: (As Freddy Crane) What's that supposed to mean?

GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) You missed your grandfather's funeral.

HOMES: He didn't go to Martin's funeral. That's, like, a really profound estrangement. And I feel like you have to explain that better than, they're just different. And his dad's, like, kind of an academic, and he dropped out of school. So they're completely absent from each other's lives now? And I think you're right. They don't really get to those interesting, complicated relationship stuff that was underlying the first series.

LIMBONG: Also, how rich is Frasier supposed to be?

HOMES: Yeah.

LIMBONG: I don't know what, like, Boston real estate's supposed to be like, but...

HOMES: Yeah.

LIMBONG: ...You know, (laughter) it's like - I was like, wait. I don't know if the numbers on this deal are working out. Like, how much is - like, could Dr. Phil pull this off? I don't know.

HOMES: Yeah. And I don't really understand - You know, there's kind of eventually an implication that Frasier's career - you know, he went from being a radio host to being a TV host, and everything got a little goofy. And as as Andrew said, there's a sort of a parallel to Dr. Phil. But, like, I wasn't sure I really bought that Frasier would become that much of a charlatan either. There's just a lot here that just seems inconsistent with the Frasier that we knew. And on a character level, I did care about that.

SUMMERS: Well, and that's, like, the Harvard thing, too, right? Initially, when he's approached with an offer to teach at Harvard, he says something like, oh, no, I can't go because I've got to fly to Paris tomorrow. And if you know anything about the original Frasier Crane, who loves the elite, who loves class, who is obsessed with status and Harvard, that is never a thing that Frasier would have said. So some of the ways in which they've morphed and shaped his character to be this person who, on the one hand, cares deeply about being a serious academic man, but on the other hand, these things don't matter to him. And he's now schlepping around in his jeans. Like, it's just incongruous.

LIMBONG: Bro, why is Frasier wearing jeans? I don't know. I know that's a stupid point to hit on, but, like, jeans and those sneakers that he's wearing - I'm like, what's going on?

SUMMERS: It drove me nuts.

HOMES: The dress sneakers seem like a breaking of the character. And I agree that it's not just that he is suddenly less obsessed with status. What they haven't recreated is that balance that I talked about with the first show, where, sometimes, you're the buffoon. Sometimes, you're the cutting critic and the kind of audience surrogate. There's nobody really here on this show who can sort of cut Frasier down to size when he is being pretentious. Freddy a little bit does, but it's not funny enough. And I feel like it's out of balance for that reason.

SUMMERS: Yes.

HOMES: Well, we want to know what you think about "Frasier," old and new. Find us at facebook.com/pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Juana Summers, Andrew Limbong, thank you so much for being here. This was really fun.

LIMBONG: Thank you.

SUMMERS: Thanks for having me.

HOMES: Well, we want to take a moment to thank our POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR+ subscribers. We appreciate you so much for showing your support of NPR. If you haven't signed up yet and you want to show your support and you'd like to listen to this show without any sponsor breaks, head over to npr.org/happyhour. Or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima and Thomas Lu and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all tomorrow.

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