Frasier (1993) s04e03 – The Impossible Dream

The Impossible Dream ages surprisingly well. Or, actually, maybe it doesn’t because you can imagine the exact same story being done twenty-five years later….

The episode opens with Kelsey Grammer waking up in a seedy motel, discovering a tattoo on his arm and a lover in the shower. The lover turns out to be Edward Hibbert (the radio station’s food critic). Grammer wakes up screaming. On with the show.

The dream becomes recurring and the episode covers the various changes as Grammer tries to figure out what it’s all about. He enlists David Hyde Pierce’s help (after unintentionally revealing his dream paramour to an amused Peri Gilpin) and they research the episode.

I think season four is where “Frasier” figures out how good Grammer and Hyde Pierce are together in various situations. They’re good while being competitive, but they’re also good working together and spitballing a problem. Lots of good banter, lots of desperate attempts to explain the dream.

After nothing works, Grammer decides it’s time to just cut to the chase—maybe he’s gay. There’s some aged terminology and concepts, but here’s where the show does all right with it, especially when he starts talking to John Mahoney about it. Mahoney’s been involved in the antics to a lesser extent throughout—he and Jane Leeves get a hilarious bit where they try to freak out their fellow condo residents in the elevator—but once it gets serious for a sustained moment, Mahoney and Grammer show off their dramatic chops.

Hibbert gets a good scene in reality and a bunch of good ones in the dreams, but after the setup, he and the radio station cast (Gilpin and Dan Butler) are done and it’s all Grammer and family cast working through it.

It’s a hilarious episode for Grammer and Hyde Pierce—Rob Greenberg’s script is real funny—so it doesn’t matter too much about the cast not getting balanced attention.

The end punchline dream is excellent and the credits bit is good too. It’s a really good episode. And very nice it’s still funny twenty-six years on.

Frasier (1993) s04e02 – Love Bites Dog

The episode opens with Dan Butler—who’s a regular per the opening titles this episode (but not last; he wasn’t even in the previous episode)—on the phone breaking up cruelly with his latest romance. And, it turns out, her sister as well. It’s dated—at least I hope it’s dated—but, you know, it’s just Butler being Bulldog. I wonder if he was out at this time, which always made Bulldog seem less harmful and more absurdist, having an out gay guy play him. It was the nineties. If you were out and gay, you rarely got work.

Oh, wait. It hasn’t gotten much better, has it.

Anyway.

Suzanne Martin wrote the script, which is the rather funny tale of Roz (Peri Gilpin) trying to set up Kelsey Grammer on a blind date with her friend, Jennifer Campbell (who’s only in one scene but is good). But then Butler crashes it and starts arguing with female golf pro Campbell about golf being a real sport so they run off to fight it out at the links, leaving Grammer alone.

The episode’s already established it’s been a while since Grammer’s had female companionship—it’s a great recurring gag—so he mopes around until he has to step up and be a good male friend for Butler, which gives Grammer a wonderful chance to flex. And David Hyde Pierce a great reacting opportunity.

The episode’s a lot more balanced too—Hyde Pierce has got a subplot about him needing to advertise his psychiatry practice with unexpected snafus while Jane Leeves and John Mahoney go on an odyssey to find shoes. Most striking about their subplot is much of it taking place outside. Like on location exteriors. Can’t wait to see if they get out more this season.

It’s a really funny subplot though the punchline manages to date just as poorly as the opening with Butler.

Gilpin gets the least amount of time for the regular cast, but it’s balanced between her and Hyde Pierce—they have a great interchange as one exits so the other can enter—and the material she does get is a funny showcase.

Butler gets quite a bit to do, including showing some (comically) emotional range and he’s excellent. “Frasier” is already a full show but they seem—if Martin’s approach is an indicator—to be working harder on the balance between regular cast than they’ve previously done, especially for Leeves. She and Mahoney are so good together.

The handful of problems are problems but the episode makes a fine case for the addition of Butler as a regular.

Frasier (1993) s04e01 – The Two Mrs. Cranes

Joe Keenan for the win.

I missed the writing credit on this episode and put off finding out who wrote this marvelous script until now. Keenan starts the season out on a very high point, with an endless amount of always good one-liners as the regular cast gets to do a group showcase episode.

Jane Leeves’s ex-fiancé is in town to take her up on her promise to reconnect if they’re both single in five years time (which, for the normally continuity vague “Frasier,” actually does match with the previous season’s flashback reveals). She doesn’t have any interest and is planning on telling him to shove off, but loses her nerve when he arrives and casts David Hyde Pierce as her new husband.

The episode opens with Hyde Pierce over at Kelsey Grammer’s apartment, still separated from Maris, getting on Grammer’s nerves with his latest eccentricity, so when Leeves and Hyde Pierce inform the ex (Scott Atkinson in an outstanding performance as the straight man) it’s their apartment and Grammer is their martially troubled erstwhile lodger….

The show is layers upon layers of slightly acerbic character conflict, which then comes out in force once Leeves has some second thoughts about Atkinson but Peri Gilpin’s since come over and met him and is interested too.

Meanwhile John Mahoney gets maybe the most constantly funny part in the group subterfuge as he comes up with a very creative career history for himself, given Grammer and Hyde Pierce think—although he was an undercover cop—he won’t be able to think on his feet.

Throw in a subplot about Mahoney needing someone to take him to a reunion with his war buddies as a blackmail and leverage chip for people to pass back and forth and there are some stakes. So Keenan’s got the plot, he’s got the arcs, then he’s got the constant one-liners. Only Mahoney’s are “in universe” and ought to be as funny to his mortified sons and Leeves, otherwise they’re all these wonderful character moments.

I imagine four seasons in they were trying to figure out how they could possibly pick up any viewers not already watching the show but Keenan does a phenomenal job selling the characters, cast, and concept.

Excellent performances from the cast. Mahoney’s the winner, Leeves gets some great stuff, then probably Hyde Pierce (who manages to do his “being this stalker-y is somehow not creepy when Hyde Pierce does it” best). Grammer and Gilpin get the least to do but they’re still good, of course.

And then, again, Atkinson. It wouldn’t work without him.

“The Two Mrs. Cranes” is an exemplar “Frasier” for sure.

Frasier (1993) s03e24 – You Can Go Home Again

For the third season finale, “Frasier” goes with the wholesome flashback (with some bite) route. The script’s from Linda Morris and Vic Rauseo, which is appropriate for the flashback—although they’re executive producers, they haven’t had many script credits this season—but they wrote a bunch in the first and second seasons.

The episode opens establishing it’s the three year anniversary of “The Frasier Crane Show” on the radio—which had already happened in the first episode of the series—and Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin get each other gifts. She gets him a recording of the first episode of the radio show, which he goes home and puts on, kicking off the flashback.

Along the way to the tape deck, Grammer walks in on Jane Leeves on the phone with her mum in England, trying to get out of her annual visit home. They have a quick chat about how annoying family gets, then Grammer puts on the tape and the flashback begins.

It’s set about six months (or is it three) before the first episode of the show and if Grammer’s short hair is any indication, either they’re not worrying about hair style continuity or Frasier cut his hair after “Cheers” but grew it out in time for “Frasier: Season One.” We get the first meeting between Grammer and Gilpin, which has a lot of the biting humor before finding a rather nice resolution, then we check in on Grammer and the other Crane boys, David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney. They’re at an even more dysfunctional stage than when we meet them in the first episode, with Grammer still a beer drinker who finds Hyde Pierce a “weird little person” and Mahoney still living on his own.

There’s some good comedy for everyone, plus some rather solid gravitas for Mahoney and Grammer before the nice wholesome wrap-up. There are also some amusing “continuity-safe” moments like Hyde Pierce getting a whiff of Leeves’s perfume before ever meeting her, plus some bickering with Gilpin before they’re formally introduced, which happens onscreen.

It’s a good episode, with the initial Gilpin and Grammer stuff and Hyde Pierce in general being the flashback highlights. The stuff with Mahoney and Grammer is well-acted and decently affecting, but it’s not memorable or weighty. The good cheer in the resolution is a far better season send-off.

Also we get to hear the first caller ever on the radio show in the flashback–played by Sherry Lansing, chairman of Paramount Pictures at the time. It sort of makes sense (since “Frasier” is Paramount) but also doesn’t (she doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with television).

Frasier (1993) s03e23 – The Focus Group

The episode opens with a lengthy setup for the eventual A plot, getting most of the B plot out of the way in an early chunk. Both Daphne (Jane Leeves) and Niles (David Hyde Pierce) are upset; she’s mad at her boyfriend for ditching her on their anniversary weekend to go to Vegas (we learn John Mahoney really likes strip clubs so long as the strippers are lecturing about American history) and Hyde Pierce is mad because he got some foie gras on a Jackson Pollock and needs to pay to get it cleaned.

Their bad moods collide in a bickering session, which is fine but more amusing when they both apologize, only then we find out Hyde Pierce is rather excited by the whole thing. Presumably Leeves just goes off to sulk appropriately about the boyfriend while Hyde Pierce does a “walk and talk” with Kelsey Grammer about it. Presumably because we don’t establish she’s left the room.

The main plot is about the focus group for Grammer’s radio show, specifically how special guest star Tony Shalhoub (not playing his “Wings” character, despite “Frasier” and “Wings” being cousins) doesn’t like the show. Grammer starts obsessing over it, eventually wrangling Mahoney into questioning Shalhoub after the focus group and so on. It’s great stuff, the right mix of an infinitely capable guest star in Shalhoub and Grammer being able to be a complete ass. Plus really good use of exteriors and the chemistry between the regular cast, specifically Grammer, Mahoney, and Hyde Pierce.

There’s some decent stuff with Peri Gilpin during the focus group scene—she and Grammer aren’t supposed to be watching the discussion but for some reason get to watch the discussion (or maybe the focus group facilitator is just a liar)—though it gets a little weird at the end for the end credits thing. Sometimes realistic for the characters doesn’t mean it should make the cut. Especially when it’s really gross.

I suppose I should’ve prefaced mentioning Dan Butler shows up to give his take during the focus group too.

Excellent direction from Philip Charles MacKenzie, sometimes good, sometimes better script from Rob Greenberg, and great performances from Shalhoub and Grammer. Even with a few bumps, it’s an exemplar episode (thanks to Shalhoub).

Frasier (1993) s03e22 – Frasier Loves Roz

I wanted a Roz (Peri Gilpin) episode, and for my sins, they gave me one.

Frasier Loves Roz is not a bad episode. It’s a mediocre episode to be sure, but it’s not bad. It’s problematic because writer Suzanne Martin can’t decide whether or not to do easy body shaming jokes, or homophobic ones, or more broadly queer-phobic ones. Also it’s all about how Gilpin’s done sleeping around (so she can get married and have kids and never have to be a bridesmaid again); so now she’s going to settle down with a good bloke.

Unfortunately the bloke in question—a personality-free Michael Mitz—is actually a sex addict patient of David Hyde Pierce’s. Hyde Pierce tells Kelsey Grammer about it, but forbids Grammer to warn Gilpin because of patient-client privacy; therapist to therapist doesn’t matter also because they’re men and Gilpin’s not. Grammer feels weird about not being able to warn Gilpin as she gets more and more serious about Mitz. Gilpin can tell Grammer’s acting weird and doesn’t like Mitz, but doesn’t know why.

There are significant time leaps in the episode, which the title cards explain. Possibly awkwardly, possibly with charm, since I’m veering negative on the episode I’m going with the former. But eventually Jane Leeves tells Gilpin she overheard Grammer on the phone and he’s just jealous—he’s in love with Gilpin, which sets up some other complications and then combines with the original confusion in the conclusion.

Adequately.

Good performances from Gilpin and Grammer—and a really nice sequence for Hyde Pierce supporting Grammer—but the script’s really shallow. Got some jokes. But it’s shallow.

The only subplot involves Grammer and Hyde Pierce trying to convince John Mahoney to record him for future generations on a camcorder. It’s excellent stuff; the episode would’ve been a lot worse without it.

So while it’s nice Gilpin finally gets a plot to herself, it’s too bad it’s this one. Also it’d be nice to see Gilpin and Leeves pass a Bechdel… though their scene talking about the potential of Grammer crushing on Gilpin is hilarious.

Frasier (1993) s03e21 – Where There’s Smoke There’s Fired

It’s time for the seasonal Bebe (Harriet Sansom Harris) episode and it’s another fantastic one. I keep looking at Harris’ IMDb page because her never winning an Emmy for this part has got to be a mistake. She wasn’t even nominated, yet she’s so good.

But we don’t know right off Harris is going to figure in; the episode starts with David Hyde Pierce struggling to get a loan for a new antique footstool. He’s struggling to live without separated wife Maris’s money; it’s going to be the closest thing the episode gets to a main subplot—I guess if it’s the B plot, there’s a great, tiny C plot involving the other radio personalities at the station. Hyde Pierce is eventually going to join a warehouse club, which is leads to a really funny moment.

The main plot starts with Peri Gilpin arriving at the apartment—leading to some great banter between her and Hyde Pierce—to tell Kesley Grammer the scoop on the radio station’s new owner, a Texan named Big Willy (Richard Hamilton in a perfect little part). Grammer and Gilpin want to ingratiate themselves as much as possible because Hamilton’s all about syndicating shows. If only Grammer could get ahold of Harris, but she’s mysteriously unavailable.

Because she’s busy being engaged to Hamilton, which comes as a great punchline after they set up Hamilton wanting Grammer to cure his new fiancée of her smoking in three days time. Syndication hangs in the balance so how can Grammer refuse.

The second half of the episode is all of Grammer’s efforts to get Harris to give up the smokes over the three days; they’re sequestered at the apartment, so Harris gets to interact with the entire supporting cast (well, except Gilpin, unfortunately). But there’s great stuff for Harris and Jane Leeves, while John Mahoney sort of gets to solo his gags. They’re great, but they’re separate. Hyde Pierce meanwhile sort of bonds with fellow marry-upper Harris.

The episode—written by Joe Keenan, who wrote Harris’s last episode—spotlights her performance. She gets a show-stopper monologue about cigarettes, then an excellent physical comedy sequence (good direction from Philip Charles MacKenzie); it’s her episode. Though Grammer does get an eventual killer monologue of his own; it’s still not as good as Harris’s.

It’s an awesome episode. Harris is a wonder.

Just hope someone fixes her IMDb before next season’s Bebe episode.

Frasier (1993) s03e20 – Police Story

Police Story is a standout episode—and writer Sy Rosen’s sole “Frasier” credit—from the very start. It’s a moving car shot with Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin, where Gilpin’s getting ready in the back seat and getting Grammer to speed because they’ve got to get to her date on time. It’s a fantastic sequence and going to kick off season three regular director Philip Charles MacKenzie’s best-directed episode.

Grammer’s speeding gets him pulled over and Gilpin convinces him to turn on the celebrity to try to get out of trouble. Grammer’s hesitant until it turns out the cop is the fetching Jane Kaczmarek, who’s a fan of his show. Lucky for him.

Thanks to having an ex-cop for a dad (John Mahoney), Grammer’s able to find out Kaczmarek’s identity… but not in a stalker way, obviously, in that cute eighties and nineties romantic pursuit (stalker) way. It’s a cop bar so Mahoney tags along, only to discover Kaczmarek was a devoted student from Mahoney’s academy teaching days. And she’d love to go out on a date with him, which all happens when Grammer’s off getting drinks for the table.

It turns out to be a great episode for Mahoney and Grammer, albeit separately to some extent because Mahoney can’t really go to Grammer for advice. Instead he goes to other son David Hyde Pierce and gives Hyde Pierce a wonderful comedic subplot as he giddily anticipates Grammer’s inevitable humiliation. It doesn’t seem bad when Hyde Pierce does it.

Anyway. After the big twist with Kaczmarek going for the older model, then there’s another when Grammer finds out about it, and a finale third twist in the middle of twist the viewer’s in on but the characters aren’t. That last twist gives Grammer a bunch of good acting fodder and Grammer delivers. The second half of the episode—starting with a great scene between Grammer and Jane Leeves and her friends—is a spotlight on Grammer and he’s got a whole bunch to do.

Grammer’s excellent, Mahoney’s excellent, Kaczmarek’s a good guest, Gilpin’s stuff is outstanding (she gets to help close it up), MacKenzie’s direction, Rosen’s script. If Story is any indication, it’s too bad Rosen didn’t write more “Frasier.” The MacKenzie direction too is just superb.

Frasier (1993) s03e19 – Crane vs. Crane

At first it seems like Crane vs. Crane is going to be a Martin (John Mahoney) versus his snobby sons episode, as it opens with David Hyde Pierce going on about how he’s going to be on Court TV testifying in a competency hearing for an old lumber baron (Donald O’Connor) whose son is trying to take his money away from him. Hyde Pierce is joking about O’Connor’s diminished capacities, which upsets Mahoney. Kelsey Grammer sides with Hyde Pierce.

Right up until he gets hired to evaluate O’Connor himself—Grammer initially disagrees but then thinks he should do it in order to make sure Hyde Pierce isn’t making any mistakes. At O’Connor’s mansion, he finds an eccentric philanthropist who likes having fun and Grammer becomes more and more convinced little brother Hyde Pierce has got it wrong. Grammer just doesn’t want him to embarrass himself.

Fast forward to the court room—the episode’s got a rather good couple special locations in—O’Connor’s mansion play-land and the court set. Now it’s time for the show down; Hyde Pierce is ready (and ready for the cameras) and Grammer’s ready to tear him down. It’s just a question of who’s going to go first.

There are a lot of good jokes this episode—starting right away with a combination Eddie and Wagner (the composer) joke; there’s a particularly good Hyde Pierce speaking German lyrics moment. The way David Lloyd’s script nimbly segues between the subplots in the bickering with Mahoney, Grammer, and Hyde Pierce at the opening primes the episode. It’s a very good script from Lloyd.

Because in addition to the joke jokes with Grammer learning how to be playful or the amazing courtroom sequence, there are also these very earnest, raw, tender scenes for Hyde Pierce and Grammer as Hyde Pierce has to confront his jealousy over Grammer’s notoriety and how it’s affecting Hyde Pierce’s professional conduction. Usually it’s just subtext for a laugh, here everyone wants to examine it under fluorescents. It’s an impressive change of tone on it too, with Hyde Pierce giving the better performance but Grammer doing quite well too. There’s a tonal shift in how the episode addresses that aspect of the plot and that character conflict. It really works out.

There’s also a tiny subplot for Peri Gilpin about her fixing up the calls Grammer gets wrong on the show, which is a wonderful detail even if it’s a throwaway in this episode.

Frasier (1993) s03e18 – Chess Pains

Chess Pains is Rob Greenberg’s first solo script credit—and Gordon Hunt’s first episode directing—but it feels like a familiar (good familiar) “Frasier” mix, albeit right down to Peri Gilpin getting a filler subplot. Gilpin’s getting her hair cut and has nothing to talk to her stylist about; it’s just there to give Kelsey Grammer something to do outside the apartment—they’re at the coffee shop—and it’s still got its laughs, albeit fairly easy ones.

There’s also the David Hyde Pierce subplot, which is as outstanding as the Gilpin one is mundane; lonely separated Hyde Pierce—encouraged by Jane Leeves—gets a dog and it’s the closest thing to having his infamous wife, Maris, on screen for an episode we’ve gotten to date. It provides some excellent conversation fodder for Grammer, Leeves, and John Mahoney, and some great laughs for Hyde Pierce, who’s doing all dialogue humor, nothing physical.

The episode will give all the physical to Grammer, who’s got a son and father episode with Mahoney. Grammer’s just bought a fancy new antique chess set and—after initially being so obnoxious no one wants to play with him—talks Mahoney into a game. It’s a sitcom so of course ex-cop, beer out of a can drinker Mahoney beats the pants of Harvard-educated snob Grammer. Soon Grammer’s obsessed with beating Mahoney but completely unable to defeat him.

The episode gives both Grammer and Mahoney a chance to go to extremes, with Grammer getting to do a whole physical comedy arc as he becomes more and more obsessed and Mahoney gets more and more exasperated with the behavior. When they finally give up the good sportsmanship, there’s just this fantastic trash talk going back and forth. It’s fantastic.

There’s a nice, wholesome finale and a good postscript during the end credits; outside Gilpin’s nothing doing subplot, it’s an excellent solo premiere for Greenberg.

Also—Leeves gets some really good material; not a lot of really good material, but she’s got at least two great laughs.