Killer of Sheep (1978, Charles Burnett)

Killer of Sheep is a series of vignettes, usually connected with a sequence at the slaughterhouse (though not always slaughter, but sometimes, so be ready), always connected with a piece of music. Sometimes the music recalls a previous scene or musical selection, creating a narrative echo between the sequences. And even though Sheep is incredibly lyrical in its structure, somewhere in the second half—as enough time has progressed—more traditional plot lines have formed.

Mainly because lead Henry G. Sanders has started hanging out with Eugene Cherry and Cherry really wants to get a car running. Except Cherry’s terrible at bigger-picture car stuff. He can install an engine block but is hazy when it comes to gravity, leading to a couple harrowing sequences.

And then Kaycee Moore has a definite subplot; she plays Sanders’s wife, who’s feeling his depressive episodes in all sorts of ways. Sheep is about being Black working class in the early seventies, with L.A. in some kind of a transition (the neighborhood kids play in unfinished buildings, constructions or destructions), and writer, director, editor, and cinematographer Burnett knows there’s a lot there for a Black woman. But Sheep doesn’t explore it, just how Moore (and the other Black women) experience being around the men.

The setting and time period mean there’s no way Sanders can call what he’s experiencing depression, but he does know there’s nothing he can do about it. He and Moore have somewhat recently moved to the city with their two kids. Jack Drummond plays the tween son, Angela Burnett’s his little sister.

At the open, it seems like Drummond will be the more significant kid. Burnett juxtaposes Sanders’s story with scenes of the neighborhood kids at play. Mostly the boys, though the girls get a memorable scene, so it seems natural Drummond’s going to be the more important. He’s ingesting a lot of toxic masculinity, both out playing and (passively) from dad Sanders, and he’s started bullying sister Burnett.

But since he’s always out of the house and Burnett’s too young to go out on her own—we eventually see she does have friends, but they come over with their mothers—she’s much more present for Sanders and Moore’s unhappy moments together, but also their time apart. Moore and Burnett have a gentle mother-and-daughter arc; lots of lovely moments.

While Moore and Cherry have plot lines and identifiable arcs, Sanders sort of doesn’t. Yes, he’s the main character, yes, it’s about his work contributing to his depression, but if Sanders’s character knows how to verbalize any of those feelings, he doesn’t on screen. And what we do see on screen suggests he doesn’t. Again, he’s trapped in a depression, knowing there’s no way out. Even when he gets exceptionally asterisked job offers—one’s to be a cabana boy for the liquor store lady, the other’s to be wheelman on a hit—we don’t get his reaction. The liquor store scene ends emphasizing the awkwardness and awfulness of the situation (the owner only cashes checks for the Black men she’s got the hots for, i.e., Sanders), and Moore’s the one who shuts down the wheelman conversation.

With his male friends, Sanders can find a comfort he can’t with Moore, which even the kids recognize (though Drummond’s acting out from go). Moore’s trying everything she can with Sanders, but he just doesn’t talk to her. There are some devastating scenes for the two of them. While Sanders gives the film’s best performance, Moore gives the most essential. Sheep simply wouldn’t work without her anxious but muted energy. She’s primed in anticipation, but Sanders is utterly resigned. Burnett mixes the contrary tones beautifully.

Burnett’s most impressive work on the film—well, technically, it’s producer because he made the film—but creatively, it’s his direction and editing. His photography’s excellent, and the writing’s strong, especially for a mostly amateur cast. But the direction is where he’s superlative, whether with the actors (again, the editing and writing working in unison) or with his composition; Sheep’s always phenomenal. The way Burnett bakes looming danger into a film without any violence (against people, anyway) is something else.

And it relates back to the character relationships. There’s a lot of turmoil between Sanders and Drummond, Sanders and Moore, and Moore and Drummond. Their interactions are sometimes foreboding, especially given Drummond’s seeming lack of, well, sense. Things aren’t going right for the family in Sheep, but only Drummond is actively threatening to make them worse. It’s rending.

Thanks to the montage device, Burnett’s able to end Sheep whenever and goes out not so much on a surprise, but still abruptly. The third act’s got a nebulous start time until the film’s end when events become a little clearer. It’s bleak but not fatalistic. There’s always a lot of hope, even as Sanders is drowning in hopelessness.

Sheep’s an exceptional film.

Summer Days, Summer Nights (2018, Edward Burns)

Summer Days, Summer Nights never really has any “grabber” moments. It’s got a couple big misses, one I’ve got a lot to say about, the other would technically be a spoiler. If it weren’t also a total cop-out. The movie looks the cop-out in the eye and blinks, with writer, director, and costar Burns deciding to acknowledge the big miss he’s committing to making.

Directing-wise, Burns does a fabulous job with Summer Days. The film takes place over Summer 1982 in resort-town Long Island. It’s on a budget, so Burns figures out all these great ways to showcase what he’s got to budget to include. There’s a big block party set-piece, and it’s beautifully done. Shame it comes at the end of the first act, and Burns never tries anything else anywhere near as complex or ambitious with the rest of the picture.

It’s also where the soundtrack—with one exception, the movie’s got a great soundtrack—intentionally reminds of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Summer Nights shows its hand a little much. Burns is doing an eighties teenager movie without any gratuitous sex or racism. There’s non-gratuitous sex, of course. But no racism of any kind. There aren’t any Black people. Lindsey Morgan and Anthony Ramos are Latinx. They’re it for people of color.

There’s also no class privilege stuff, which is weird because it’s part of the setup.

But Burns also isn’t doing a revisionist eighties teen sex comedy. Every female character in the movie proves her worth by having a boyfriend. Summer Days doesn’t just not pass Bechdel; it doesn’t even entertain the possibility it may. There’s even a terrible insert scene where Rita Volk cries to mom Susan Misner about how a boy likes her, and she likes him too, and it’s just not fair for some reason. Burns’s script is a series of romantic dramedy tropes. They never succeed, but sometimes the cast is likable enough, or the filmmaking’s solid enough; it doesn’t matter.

Other times it matters. Especially with Volk’s arc.

The film’s split between three couples. First, there’s protagonist Pico Alexander, playing the son of Burns’s character. They’re working-class, but Alexander only hangs out with the rich kids. When Summer starts, he’s planning on going to college to become a Wall Street tycoon, even though everyone tells him to be a writer. The writing thing isn’t important. It’s Burns’s biggest backstory cop-out. Right away, rich girl girlfriend Carly Brooke dumps him, and he soon finds summer romance with slightly older woman Morgan.

Morgan tells him it’s just going to be a fling. We don’t find out anything about her backstory until the second half of the movie, despite her being the strongest female character.

There’s just no time with the other arcs.

Like Ramos and Caitlin Stasey. They were high school sweethearts, and she broke his heart. Fast forward seven years, she’s back in town. Now, neither Ramos nor Stasey have any personality outside this backstory, so they’ve got couple friends, Zoe Levin and Jon Rudnitsky, to keep their story busy. Levin and Rudnitsky are sort of Summer Days’s unsung heroes, right up until the third act when Burns forgets they were around. But Ramos and Stasey’s plot is a “will they or won’t they” one.

Then again, so’s Volk’s arc with Amadeus Serafini. Serafini is Alexander’s cousin and staying with him and Burns for the summer. Burns sets Serafini up with a job at Misner’s dock, where daughter Volk also works. Volk’s sad her rich boy boyfriend left her for the summer, and Serafini’s got the hots for her because… she’s a girl, and he’s a boy. There’s no other story to them.

Until we get to Serafini’s live music performance, which is kind of a surfer dude Bruce Springsteen song, only it’s a creepy, controlling stalker song about how Volk needs to get with Serafini, or her life is meaningless. He sings it to her in public. It’s a lot. Like, there’s a concept for a relationship there, but the movie does nothing with it. Instead, it’s just Serafini mooning soulfully at Volk about why she should love him back.

Burns does seem to think the eighties setting and the decidedly strong production values are enough to get him a pass on all the lazy, shallow writing, but he is incorrect. They are not enough, mainly since his enthusiasm—directing-wise—for the eighties setting lessens after the first act and is immaterial by the third, except the occasional payphone.

And the third act’s so dramatically inert, strong production values aren’t going to help.

Best performances are Rudnitsky, Ramos, Stasey, and Levin. They kind of come in a bundle. Alexander and Morgan aren’t exactly good, but they’re very likable. They’re the most fun couple, thanks to that likability. Serafini and Volk are the worst. When he’s doing soulful surfer dude, Serafini almost makes it. When he’s weird creeper coworker, not so much. Volk’s got the worst part in the movie, and it’s kind of impressive she’s never terrible. She doesn’t have enough of a part to be bad; it’s a dreadful role.

It’s pretty clear by the second act Burns doesn’t actually have anywhere to go with Summer Days, Summer Nights. But he knows how to get an hour and forty minutes out of that inertia. Unfortunately, ever-competent and often exquisite filmmaking isn’t enough to make the third act palatable.

Even with lower and lower expectations, Summer Days, Summer Nights disappoints. It’s too bad. It looks phenomenal—William Rexer’s photography, Timothy J. Feeley’s editing, Stephen Beatrice’s production design, and Rosemary Lepre Forman’s costume design. They all do great work, as does Burns as far as directing.

Shame Burns didn’t make the script worth the production or even actors.

Frasier (1993) s05e19 – Frasier Gotta Have It

“Frasier” has always walked a really fine line with David Hyde Pierce’s crush on Jane Leeves, never letting it get too creepy—usually keeping Kelsey Grammer around to rein him in or just to have Hyde Pierce and Leeves to have a sincere moment to eschew the romantic—but the joke in the end tag of this episode is Hyde Pierce is going to spy on Leeves while she sunbathes.

On par for writer Rob Greenberg, who either always goes for the cheap and creepy or just doesn’t ever do anything so I remember he doesn’t.

It’s an ick finish, particularly because it decidedly does not let Hyde Pierce back out of it or qualify it. He’s just going to spy on his brother’s employee, taking advantage not just of that situation but also Leeves’s canon regard for Hyde Pierce as a friend. Not all heroes wear capes.

The rest of the episode is about Grammer having a purely sexual relationship with guest star Lisa Edelstein, who’s playing a hipster artist. She’s also vegan but the term wasn’t in popular enough use for them to say vegan. Or Greenberg was too busy writing sexual predator jokes to look it up. The episode opens with Grammer telling Hyde Pierce about it and Hyde Pierce commenting on the unlikelihood of Grammer forming a substantial relationship with Edelstein because of their age difference.

Edelstein’s like eleven years younger than Grammer. Their window is sitcom regular, which the episode seems to appreciate later on when they keep bringing the differences up a notch. There’s some funny stuff, but it’s just okay. Similarly, Edelstein’s just okay. A lot of it is the part—everyone who interacts with her character comments on her flakiness, even before Greenberg’s got to keep upping the ante with her eccentricities. Would a better script help? Definitely. Could Edelstein succeed with a better script? Unclear.

Dan Butler (not appearing in the episode) directs and does an all right job. He does a lot better with the regular cast than with Edelstein and Grammer’s subplot, particularly with Peri Gilpin’s scene in the family apartment where everyone’s talking about their most extreme sex experiences (Hyde Pierce’s got a solid “when in Niagara Falls”-type tale, though it ties into the sexual predator stuff so sorry, no).

It’s got some decent laughs and Grammer’s clearly proud of his barrel chest—he spends the last scene with his shirt off—so go on, I guess. But it’s a tepid episode. And then it’s a very gross one.

Simon of the Desert (1965, Luis Buñuel)

Simon of the Desert opens with the title character, played by Claudio Brook, getting a new pillar after six years on his first(?) one. He’s a priest doing penance (just general penance) and living his life in prayer atop a pillar, eating nothing but lettuce, drinking nothing but water, and a local rich guy appreciates Brook curing him of something so he gets Brook a new pillar.

Apparently the Devil (Silvia Pinal) agrees Brook’s resolve seems to be cracking—while he takes the new pillar, he doesn’t take a big blessing because he doesn’t deserve it and he also doesn’t give his ailing mother, played by Hortensia Santoveña, much comfort when she begs him for it; so Pinal starts showing up to tempt Brook away from his pillar, initially as a salacious school girl.

Desert is set in fourth century Syria, making Pinal’s school girl getup rather anachronistic but director Buñuel treats it just as mundanely as some of the miracles Brook is able to perform and it works. Especially as Pinal’s further disguises are a little less outrageous. At least as far as Brook is going to perceive them.

Most of Simon, which runs forty-five minutes (apparently intended to be in an anthology but there was no anthology), is Brook interacting with someone. Sometimes it’s Pinal, sometimes it’s other priests—never is it Santoveña, who has set up camp in view of the pillar and is always looking for some sign of regard from her son, which gets less and less probable as the runtime progresses. Buñuel has a couple really nice juxtaposed moments between Brook and Santoveña and we get some character development on it for Brook, but only until Pinal really starts trying hard to tempt him down.

Brook’s time alone on the pillar is mostly spent in prayer to a silent God; Pinal’s the only one who seems to be listening. There’s a little bit of voice over to get some of the character development done for Brook, but mostly it works into the dialogue between him and the supporting cast. Really good script from Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, especially when it comes to working in some echoed lines and how they play out in different contexts.

Buñuel’s direction is excellent—Gabriel Figueroa’s black and white photography is a lot flashier, even with the limited setting, just enabling the shot composition. And Carlos Savage’s editing is good too. The timing on the reaction shots between Brook and the people below is outstanding, especially when there’s some great shot at the end of it. There’s one big reveal sequence in particular where Buñuel, Figueroa, and Savage nail it so much the eventual—much larger scale—resolution can’t really compare, technically-speaking (while being a narrative win).

Simon of the Desert is an excellent forty-five minutes.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972, Luis Buñuel)

Buñuel arranges The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie as a series of vignettes. Occasionally there will be a surreal bridging device—the cast walking in search of a meal on a highway in the country—sometimes it will turn out to be a dream, sometimes it will be another layer (a narrated flashback, a dream-in-a-dream), sometimes it will be more traditionally epical. Mostly in the first act.

The film opens with four people getting to a dinner party, only they’re a day early so they have to go out. But then it turns out fate’s against them having dinner that night. They’ll try again.

The initial dinner guests are Fernando Rey, playing the ambassador from the South American republic Miranda, Paul Frankeur as his friend, Delphine Seyrig as Frankeur’s wife, and Bulle Ogier as Seyrig’s sister. They go out to dinner with Stéphane Audran, who was expecting them for dinner the next night. Because it’ll turn out her husband, Jean-Pierre Cassel, is kind of flakey. Though everyone in Charm is flakey at one time or another, though only a few with any malice behind it.

In the first act we also learn Rey, Frankeur, and Cassel are coke traffickers. Rey brings it in via his ambassador bag—diplomatic immunity—selling to Frankeur and Cassel. The wives don’t appear to know anything about it. There’s a bunch of funny dialogue about ambassadors as smugglers. Charm is often very obviously, intentionally funny. Buñuel will occasionally break out the jokes–especially when introducing Julien Bertheau as the local bishop who moonlights as Audran and Cassel’s new gardener. Bertheau even becomes one of the dinner-seekers—tagging along to various events before his subplot goes its own way.

Because Charm’s also got a some very strong narrative arcs. The second act, after the film introduces the layering device (starting with a great narrated flashback from Christian Baltauss), slowly becomes about centering the narrative focus on Rey. He’s always kind of the lead—he’s sleeping with someone he shouldn’t be and he’s also a cocaine smuggler so he’s on edge; also there are revolutionaries from Miranda in Paris trying to assassinate him—but the process of making him protagonist and directing the narrative, even passively—takes Buñuel a while.

Every one of the dream sequence reveals in the film is a surprise. Even as the events become more absurd—eventually there’s a ghost and it makes perfect sense because ghosts are real in Charm—Buñuel never lessens the intensity of the scene. The drama is always very real. So we gradually come to understand Rey’s self-conscious about being a South American diplomat with these bourgeoisie white French people. There’s never a clarifying scene about whether or not he should be—Buñuel always leaves the judgment of the characters up to the audience; especially when it’s part of the story. Charm’s narrative distance and how Buñuel adjusts it throughout is stunning.

All the acting is excellent. Rey gets the biggest part, obviously, then probably Audran—who gets one more scene without her significant other than any of the other women—then actually Bertheau as the priest. Bertheau’s arc is one of the film’s standout successes. Because Buñuel introduces Bertheau as another angle giving insight into the main cast; he’s an observer too, one who’s socially acceptable to have out to dinner, unlike Milena Vutokic as Audran and Cassel’s maid; Vutokic gets a lot to do (and even gets one of the last big jokes) but she’s all reaction to the cast, she’s got nothing of her own, which ends up being part of the joke.

Ogier and Seyrig both get a couple really good spotlight scenes. Cassel’s always support, but getting more to do than Frankeur, which is kind of funny because from the introduction it seems like Frankeur’s going to be a scene-stealer, which raises a question about whether or not Charm is unpredictable. I mean. Ghosts exist so anything’s on the table, which affects plot anticipation.

Because even though all the dream reveals are surprises, they’re never “gotchas.” Discreet Charm is never about being fantastical; the film’s incredibly grounded. Otherwise a bunch of the jokes wouldn’t work and Buñuel makes sure they work. There’s one about Americans where it’s edited to wait for the laughs. Excellent editing throughout from Hélène Plemiannikov.

The other technicals are similarly strong. Edmond Richard’s photography is a lot less flashy than Plemiannikov’s editing, Pierre Guffroy’s production design, or Jacqueline Guyot’s costumes, but Charm’s photography is appropriately clinical in its presentation. The film never feels stagy, but it does have long scenes in single locations. There’s a personality to the photography’s lack of personality, especially as Buñuel even trades on how reliably the photography showcases the sets. It’s all wonderfully intentional.

While The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie sometimes takes darker turns, it’s always genial and well-mannered, which is just the perfect tone.

Charm’s a rare, strange delight.

Frasier (1993) s04e12 – Death and the Dog

Death and the Dog does a couple things I think are new to “Frasier” and immediately seem like series standards. The first is using the radio show as an episode-long bookend device. The episode opens with Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin bored on a sunny Seattle day and getting a single caller—Patty Duke (not playing Patty Duke, obviously)—and Grammer regales her, the listening audience, and the viewer with a moral tale to help her with her depression problem. I’m pretty sure the episode’s never used a call for bookending before. It’s an obvious device—and it even plays fairly obviously, with occasional interruptions from Gilpin as Grammer divulges too much about her personal life—but all plays well thanks to an excellent Suzanne Martin credited script.

The other new but familiar part of the episode is the entire regular cast—sans Dan Butler, who’s not in this episode and hasn’t been around for a while and must only be included in the regular cast titles when he appears–sitting around the apartment for a lengthy group conversation. James Burrows’s direction is really good on it, but it’s the actors and Martin’s script. See, Eddie the dog has been depressed and the pet psychiatrist Mahoney calls thinks he’s mirroring depression. So everyone talks about what’s got them depressed. It’s a phenomenal talking heads scene, bouncing between the five participants, exquisitely timed and acted.

Zeljko Ivanek guest stars as the pet shrink, who Grammer and Hyde Pierce mercilessly tease (turns out justifiably but it’s no less mean-spirited). Ivanek’s awesome. He’s got this very droll take on the character, which contrasts with Grammer and Hyde Pierce doing their gleeful snob thing. It’s a great scene.

We also get to see Hyde Pierce’s dog again—who hasn’t appeared since last season—as he brings her over to cheer up Eddie while Grammer cautions Mahoney not to point out the obvious similarities between the dog and Maris, Hyde Pierce’s never seen, infamous (and estranged) wife. It’s a quick, but thoughtful and effective set piece. Martin’s script has a number of such set pieces, including the cast discussing how they’d imagine Eddie the dog as a person, in addition to some great recurring bits. Jane Leeves gets the best recurring dialogue, while Gilpin gets this amazing subplot about dating gynecologist Tom Lagleder (against her better judgment).

It’s an excellent episode. The way it showcases the cast’s ability to play off one another (thanks to Martin and Burrows as well obviously) is spectacular. Not to mention how it’s able to get away with the pedestrian framing device thanks to everything else excelling so much.

Great end credits joke too.

Frasier (1993) s04e10 – Liar! Liar!

It’s a Seabees episode, but only sort of and only at the beginning (the Seabees are the annual radio awards on “Frasier” and there’s always an episode). Always with conditions, however, as the episode opens in the apartment at Kelsey Grammer’s Seabees after party, where the regular cast is doing their best to get the extras out so the story can start. The only winner at the awards was Dan Butler, who annoys everyone with his bragging, and there’s a great sequence with Peri Gilpin getting him out of the apartment under false pretenses. The episode’s going to be about lying, specifically the consequences of it. Though there’s going to be a lot of privilege in play and how sometimes that privilege can get you out of consequences.

Seriously, white men avoiding responsibility for their actions in an amusing way is basically the most standard sitcom trope.

Turns out when they were kids, Grammer and David Hyde Pierce pulled the fire alarm at their prep school and dad John Mahoney defended them as not being liars. They were, in fact, liars. And utterly indifferent to their lie getting another kid expelled. The other kid bullied them—even being established as the primary culprit in Hyde Pierce’s infamous, previously established flag-pole hanging—so Hyde Pierce feels no guilt while Grammer just has to know how the kid’s life went.

Turns out it did not pass go and went straight to jail , which is where Grammer goes to meet the grown-up kid, now an intimidating adult played by Saul Stein. Thanks to Grammer’s prodding, Stein’s able to identify the most salient point in his juvenile delinquency as it relates to long term effects—back when he was kicked out of a prep school where he could’ve gotten out of his working class situation and excelled as a productive white collar member of society. Grammer feels bad he’s given Stein so much self-awareness, so he sets out to right Stein’s rocky relationship with his wife, Carlene Watkins.

Little does Grammer know Watkins is a sex addict who needs the danger and nothing’s more dangerous than Stein potentially killing her partners during coitus.

As they do, complications ensue, and manage to get Grammer to the finish without actually having to learn any real lessons or to make writers Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano—who write a very funny script (one caveat in a moment)—figure out if there’s a moral. Given Mahoney’s the moral authority in the episode, some kind of resolution with him would help but he’s out. After his initial outrage, he instead joins the Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves subplot, which has Hyde Pierce hurting his back (adjusting his Mercedes’s seat) and Leeves applying an icy then very hot liniment to make him feel better. Mahoney hates the stuff, Hyde Pierce has to appear tough. Lots and lots of great physical comedy from Hyde Pierce and decent material for Leeves and Mahoney, but it definitely doesn’t do anything for Mahoney’s pseudo-arc.

The aforementioned iffy bit is a “too early to actually be hurtfully transphobic” joke but it’s iffy because it’s also slightly misogynist in addition to be mired in toxic masculinity. It’s a way easier joke than Ranberg and Flett-Giordano’s other easy jokes in the episode and they seem to realize it’s a dead-end because it too doesn’t get the natural resolution. Though the natural resolution would’ve definitely been hurtfully transphobic?

It’s a solid episode, with a lot of potential—Watkins and Stein are excellent guest stars (look, two in the same episode again)—but the end is a definite cop out.

Also, the question of why does Frasier Crane have a lighter is possibly more profound than why does God need a starship.

Frasier (1993) s04e09 – Dad Loves Sherry, the Boys Just Whine

It’s a pretty good episode, even if most of the laughs are cheap and mean. The cheap starts right away, with Peri Gilpin getting her one scene in the episode opposite David Hyde Pierce. She’s celebrating and the punchline’s gross funny. And Hyde Pierce’s reactions to it are great. But then the episode’s done with her because it’s going to be too full, starting with returning guest star Jane Kaczmarek, who’s having coffee with Kelsey Grammer during the Gilpin and Hyde Pierce bit.

Kaczmarek was the cop who Grammer liked but she liked his ex-cop dad more; apparently she and John Mahoney have been happily—albeit unmentionably—dating since the end of last season. Only now she’s breaking it off and telling Grammer because… well, to set up the joke where Grammer tells Mahoney before Kaczmarek has a chance. Mahoney has an unexpected reaction to the bad news because he really wanted to dump her to date Marsha Mason, his bartender at—wait, is it at the bar where Mahoney met Kaczmarek. I can’t keep the bar names straight. I think it was McGinty’s—yep, it’s McGinty’s. So, um, there’s a whole other layer to the already iffy episode.

Mahoney introduces Hyde Pierce, Grammer, and Jane Leeves to Mason on his birthday; they’re all going out together. Only Mason is too “brass and flamboyant” for Grammer and Hyde Pierce so they’re miserable. Plus she makes them drink cheap champagne.

The rest of the episode is about Grammer and Hyde Pierce trying to decide whether or not to tell Mahoney they don’t like Mason, while Mahoney’s thrilled with his new romance. Once it all finally comes out, there’s a big argument scene—with the best acting easily from Mahoney, as he’s the only one where there’s any reality to the character; Grammer and Hyde Pierce are playing petulant caricatures, albeit with some appropriate details, but they’re being cruel and mean. The resolution isn’t about them being dickheads, it’s about how Mahoney’s a dickhead too—comparisons of Mason to Grammer and Hyde Pierce’s spouses—and it’s a very strange finish.

Though given the highpoint is either Gilpin with the grody celebration topic, Grammer not letting an upset Leeves have too good a whine, or some banter about Hyde Pierce’s imaginary protege—actually, wait, Grammer teasing Hyde Pierce for wetting the bed as a kid is probably a good forecast of the episode’s empathy.

There are some amusing moments—Keenan’s script is better micro than macro—and Mason’s a lot of fun, but it’s awkward to turn all your male regular cast into jerks because you can’t find better laughs.

Frasier (1993) s03e16 – Look Before You Leap

Look Before You Leap is one of those exemplar “Frasier” episodes. It’s just the regular cast, it’s just the regular sets, and it’s perfect situation comedy.

The episode starts with Kelsey Grammer taking Eddie the dog for a walk, which should’ve forecasted everything being off since Grammer abhorring the dog is one of the show staples. It’s February 29th—a leap year—and Grammer starts encouraging everyone to take a “leap,” which leads to disastrous results for nearly everyone involved. Once the episode—with a great script credited to Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano—establishes things aren’t going to go well for anyone, it becomes a waiting game to see how the disasters are going to unfold.

Grammer gets the idea from dad John Mahoney talking about his friend having a big sixteenth birthday party (which leads to Mahoney doing an outstanding impression of Jane Leeves’s Daphne character, giving some wonderful insight into the characters’ relationship between their scenes). Whether it’s flying to Montana for the party, Leeves getting her hair cut, or Peri Gilpin using the radio show to try to find a missed connection from her morning commute, Grammer can’t stop encouraging people to be bold with the extra day.

Except brother David Hyde Pierce, who gets an unexpected request for a booty call from estranged, ever offscreen wife Maris, and Grammer spends the episode telling him not to do it. Hyde Pierce doing uncontrollably horny is probably the funniest thing in the episode; they use the device sparingly because it’s just so good. Great physical comedy from Hyde Pierce. And also great banter for he and Grammer; Ranberg and Flett-Giordano find a perfect balance between talking heads, sight gags, and so on. Gilpin gets a similar mix of styles, including a nice bit during the PBS telethon finale, where Grammer is going to make his own “leap” in his choice of song.

There’s a great punchline at the finish, then another great one during the end credits.

I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed the studio audiences’ laughs delaying the actors so much before. After at least two particularly excellent jokes, Hyde Pierce and Grammer visibly have to wait for things to calm down enough so they’re not talking about the still laughing audience.

Eventually good direction from James Burrows? It’s weird, but it’s like he takes a second to wake up in the first act. He’s initially lethargic, then has this too rapid swoosh of a camera movement and is good afterwards.

It’s a great episode. Excellent performances all around, particularly Hyde Pierce.

Frasier (1993) s03e14 – The Show Where Diane Comes Back

Shelley Long is a very good guest star for “Frasier.” She irritates John Mahoney in a particular way he’s never been irritated before and it leads to some great expressions from him and some great one-liners too. Long’s also really good with David Hyde Pierce; they’re both snobs but he wants to be more of a snob so he’s on the defensive.

Long’s visiting because she has a new play coming out in Seattle and she’s there to work on the production. She comes to see Kelsey Grammer at the radio, prompting him to race across town for an emergency therapy session with Hyde Pierce. It’s an absolutely fantastic scene between the two, with writer Christopher Lloyd getting in what’s going to be a great recurring bit about Hyde Pierce’s notepad. See, Long left Grammer at the alter—“Cheers” season three season finale—and there’s unresolved hurt, which Grammer’s never told Long about. Presumably they didn’t talk about it during seasons four and five of “Cheers,” even offscreen.

So ignoring Hyde Pierce’s advise to confront Long and talk to her about the pain she’s caused,Grammer decides he’s going to show up Long—out snob her, out wealth her—and invites her over to the apartment. There we find out she got to meet Mahoney and Hyde Pierce back in the “Cheers” days, which leads to a good Maris joke.

Eventually, we get to see Long’s play, which suggests she has a very different recollection of “Cheers” seasons four and five than Grammer—it’s a very funny scene, but probably lost on anyone not versed in their “Cheers”—and they work toward some sincere human understanding. With some good laughs.

Really good direction from James Burrows—his first episode this season—and excellent performances from Grammer, Long, and Mahoney. And Lloyd’s script’s real good too, all the way through.