Stream On: Revisiting the ‘Frasier’ reboot
Now that I’ve watched both seasons, I can report that 'Frasier' 2023 is just as smart and funny as 'Frasier' 1993.
In October of last year I wrote a little about the new Frasier, after watching the pilot. I was noncommittal but hopeful, as I loved the original show so much. But now that I’ve watched both seasons (and a second season was a good sign of longevity) I can report that Frasier 2023 is just as smart and funny as Frasier 1993.
/Streaming /😎60%😌78% /Trailer /2023 /TV14
To be immersed in the original Frasier was to be familiar with extremely sharp writing, beautiful sets, and a brilliant cast. And, true to the character of Frasier himself, wherever he went—there he’d be. Frasier, after moving to Chicago at the end of the 1993 series, now has moved back to Boston, and surrounded himself again with luxury. (He became a national TV star and made a lot of money in Chicago.)
The show’s new writers, Chris Harris, Joe Cristali, Stephen Lloyd (Modern Family), Bob Daily (The Wonder Years), et alia, have stepped up with very tight, economical, smart, and very funny writing, as good as the 1993 scripts.
The sets are good, especially Frasier’s apartment, which carries notes of his Seattle pad; also Harvard, where he has occasional work and two brilliant costars, Toks Olagundoye as Olivia Finch, a professor and head of the Psychology department at Harvard, a cheerfully ambitious neurotic; and Nicholas Lyndhurst as Alan Cornwall, Frasier’s old friend, a lazy dipsomaniac psychology professor from West Sussex, England.
Closer to home, Frasier’s son Freddie (Jack Cutmore-Scott) is a fireman who lives with him (but Frasier owns the building); and the widow Eve (Jess Salgueiro) of Freddie’s best friend, a fireman who succumbed at work, lives in the apartment across the hall: she’s a bartender who is now so close to Freddie that Frasier thinks they should be “together.”
David Hyde Pierce had declined to return as Frasier’s brother Niles, saying he didn't think there was much left for Niles to do, but Anders Keith plays his son David, a Harvard student. Keith successfully channels Pierce’s neurotic Niles, and is mostly a comic foil as an aide to the tipsy Professor Cornwall.
And the writing is absolutely up to par, too. There’s a lot going on, so that episodes seem longer than 25 minutes, which is a very good thing. This monologue from Alan, merely the introduction to a scene, is almost worth an episode in itself:
“Yeah. I just had the strangest encounter. I was down in Quincy after our school conference today when this wild-haired man about my age stopped me out of the blue and said, ‘Alan Cornwall?’ Well, of course, I'm thrown. How does a complete stranger in a town I rarely visit happen to know my full name? So, I ask him, ‘Do we know each other?’ and he says, ‘Yes. You're in psychology.’ Well, now, of course, I'm sure he knows me. What other explanation could there be?”
Frasier, eyeing Alan: “I'm sure none that you could see.”
“Well, he asked if I recognized him. I'm at a loss, so I venture the greatest of guesses and I said, ‘Are you my childhood friend Roger Peale's younger brother Eric?’ He said, ‘Yes. Ah. That's me.’ I could hardly believe it.”
“And yet, somehow, you did believe it.”
“Yeah. (chuckles) So we reminisced for a bit. Uh, I teased him for completely losing his English accent.”
“He didn't need money, by any chance, did he?”
“He did. His limo was late, he needed cab fare, so just I gave him all the cash I had, and he gave me the biggest hug, and I... Where did I put my wallet?”
(Alan is wearing a conference name tag with his name and department on it. His phone rings)
“Oh. My credit-card company.”
Sources include TV Shows Transcripts.
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.