Frasier (1993) s02e11 – Seat of Power

Steven Levitan wrote this episode. Levitan’s one of the few sitcom people whose names I recognize. I didn’t realize he’d done “Frasier.” Turns out this is his first of four episodes. Recognizing the writer (though not remembering he hadn’t contributed a script to credit level before Seat), I paid the writing a lot of attention. Even when there are distractions like trying to identify the celebrity caller (it’s Macaulay Culkin, it’d be concerning if anyone could recognize him in 1994 when it aired) and then a somewhat funny Roz (Peri Gilpin) scene. It’s Gilpin’s only scene in the episode; it’s memorable enough, I guess.

And it does bury the proverbial lede. It’s going to be a Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce episode and it’s going to involve Hyde Pierce confronting his childhood bully. I’m not sure if the Crane boys going to public school was always canon (it almost seems like it wouldn’t be), but it’s definitely what the episode goes with. The episode’s theme—Levitan gives it a theme—is about the Crane boys trying to feel more manly even if they are snobs with European cars. After John Mahoney heckles Grammer for not being able to fix his own toilet, Grammer and Hyde Pierce give it the Crane Brothers go.

So we get this hilarious scene of Grammer and Hyde Pierce trying to do home repairs—including the first look at the apartment’s gigantic master bathroom (because they need pacing room)—but it’s just a bit on the way to the main event. The plumber turns out to be John C. McGinley, who bullied Hyde Pierce in elementary school.

Hyde Pierce goes through a very physical, very funny meltdown while Grammer tries to contain him. Hijinks and complications and hilarity ensue. It’s a great episode. Nice developments for Grammer, Mahoney, and Jane Leeves throughout. Hyde Pierce gets a bunch of spotlight moments, which the rest of the cast shares. They’re really good together (it’s an apartment-based episode so everyone’s around).

James Burrows’s direction is good. It’s always good. Sometimes you can just tell it’s one of his episodes though, based on the pacing of the actors.

It’s another good exemplar episode.

Frasier (1993) s02e09 – Adventures in Paradise (2)

I wonder how this episode would play in one sitting. Even just marathoning it (as opposed to cutting out the recap at the beginning of this second part, which Kelsey Grammer performs quite well). Because writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs still have an odd structure. They had an odd structure last episode, as they built to the reveal of Bebe Neuwirth also on vacation in Bora Bora to interrupt Grammer’s romantic getaway with new girlfriend JoBeth Williams.

The cliffhanger resolve introduces Neuwirth and Williams then Grammer and Neuwirth’s fellow, James Morrison. They make dinner plans to resolve some of the oddness of them being next door neighbors on their respective sex vacations.

We don’t get to see the dinner, just to see how Grammer’s going to obsess about it and make some really poor decisions. Those poor decisions start to ruin the trip and end with Williams not talking to Grammer. Can he fix the new relationship or is Neuwirth’s proximity going to screw things up?

Meanwhile, David Hyde Pierce has gotten Jane Leeves and John Mahoney to attend the ballet with him, where ever unseen wife Maris has a role.

There’s good quick material for Hyde Pierce, Leeves, and Mahoney, including some great punchlines, and Levine and Isaacs give Peri Gilpin a great bit, but it’s all about Neuwirth, Grammer, and Williams.

The episode gives Grammer some very broad physical comedy to do and he’s fantastic, it gives Neuwirth this detached dramatic and she’s fantastic. Williams is fine, but never gets anywhere near the material she’d need to make as much of an impression as Neuwirth or Grammer.

Just the expressions Neuwirth makes while listening to Grammer blather on, you wish director James Burrows had just focused on her instead of cutting to Grammer, no matter how funny he got.

Celebrity voice guest star this episode is Kevin Bacon, who doesn’t get a lot but does get to play into Gilpin’s very funny bit.

And the ending is perfect too. It’s a big swing episode and it’s a hit.

Frasier (1993) s02e08 – Adventures in Paradise (1)

Remember when we didn’t see TV show episodes all the time? What were they called—electronic programming guides (thanks, Google). So watching Adventures in Paradise: Part 1 in fall 1994, you weren’t wondering why it was called part one. The episode’s got a somewhat strange pacing as writers Ken Levine and David Isaacs have to introduce guest star JoBeth Williams in a significant supporting part in just one episode.

So none of the regular supporting cast gets a lot to do. David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney bond over cigar smoking in a very small subplot. Peri Gilpin is entirely there for supporting Kelsey Grammer’s arc, which has him starting to date Williams after seeing her in a magazine feature on Seattle’s best and brightest.

Grammer and Hyde Pierce’s low-key coveting of the associated prestige provides a handful of really good jokes. The episode’s full of them. Even without a lot to do, the entire cast (save maybe Gilpin) gets some really funny jokes. Jane Leeves has an amazing few minutes and Hyde Pierce goes on a particularly good Maris rant this episode.

Even stranger, the first big set piece doesn’t involve any of the regulars or even Williams. She and Grammer are out on their date and there’s a blowup between the restaurant owner (Pierre Epstein) and his daughter (Jessica Pennington). It’s absolutely hilarious, but it’s got nothing to do with the story. Except giving Grammer a great opportunity to “I’m Listening” in public.

Then the episode skips ahead a couple weeks and Williams and Grammer make an impromptu decision to run off together for a week and take things to the next stage. There’s some “Frasier fretting,” which also allows for some more on the cigar bonding subplot, but then it’s off to Bora Bora and the surprise cliffhanger.

Everyone’s really good, even when they barely get anything to do, and Williams is a nice match for Grammer. And the cliffhanger is rather hilarious.

It’s a really good episode, especially considering it’s just a setup for the next one.

Frasier (1993) s02e07 – The Candidate

I missed the writing credit on this episode and I’m glad I did. Seeing it’s Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano is icing. Candidate’s the team’s first script this season (they did a bunch last season) and it’s great. It’s also a bit risqué for a network sitcom as far as politics goes, especially since—I’m not sure it was widely known at the time—star Kelsey Grammer’s a conservative and Frasier Crane is very much not. Yes, Grammer and brother David Hyde Pierce are liberal, intellectual smooth talkers but the show’s very careful to show they’re not on the wrong side of the issues.

Grammer just ends up endorsing the wrong guy, because the guy—guest star Boyd Gaines, who’s so perfectly straight-faced for it—believes he was abducted by aliens, which Grammer finds out while recording a television commercial supporting him.

The only reason Grammer wants to throw his celebrity weight into the ring is because dad John Mahoney does a TV spot for the Republican candidate. The additional joke of the conservative being played by Sydney Pollack (albeit telephonically) reminds what a thin rope shows had to walk just to do this kind of episode at all.

Of course, even with Grammer’s confounded television spot, nothing can compare to Mahoney’s, which has him showing off the scar on the back of his thigh, trousers down; it becomes a great running joke.

Luck Hari is back as the coffee shop barista who suffers through some of Grammer’s White liberal guilt (as it relates to appropriate places to support coffee grounds from); she hasn’t been around since last season finale, when she was the protagonist. It’s a good scene.

Some great Dan Butler, some great Peri Gilpin—including her telling Grammer to knock off the slut-shaming—it’s just a really good episode.

About halfway through I started sustained laughing and didn’t stop until the end. Nice James Burrows direction too.

Frasier (1993) s02e05 – Duke’s, We Hardly Knew Ye

Linda Morris and Vic Rauseo write this one, making it the first episode of the season to have season writers back (credited anyway), and they go in for the laughs from the start. We get Peri Gilpin on a chocolate hunt—leading to a fantastic rant about Raisinets—before David Hyde Pierce shows up to the studio to talk to Kelsey Grammer about an investment in a development company, but with Gilpin and Hyde Pierce banter. It’s constantly funny, like Morris and Rauseo had been stockpiling a bunch of good lines. Appropriately, a little later on, John Mahoney gets Jane Leeves with a British royalty-related zinger and even says he’d been saving it.

So all very funny.

Leeves has this subplot—which doesn’t age particularly well when you think about it for more than eight seconds—about going on a third date with a boyfriend and Grammer and Mahoney giving her knowing looks. Only she doesn’t know what they’re talking about because she wasn’t raised on American sitcoms in the eighties and nineties.

It’s funny—and Leeves—is good, but it’s kind of weird to hear in 2020.

The main plot has Mahoney finally inviting Grammer and Hyde Pierce to his favorite bar, where Mahoney’s never invited anyone, making Grammer and Hyde Pierce feel very honored. Turns out it’s because the bar’s closing. Because it’s being torn down. By Grammer and Hyde Pierce’s development company.

There’s a nice bit of family drama for Grammer and Mahoney eventually, but before that stage, there’s time for some more Gilpin and Hyde Pierce jabbing at each other (clearly Morris and Rauseo like that chemistry), and the episode’s got a fine close.

The episode’s a great showcase for the cast—it plays to all individual strengths (particularly the Mahoney and Grammer dynamic)—and probably an excellent “Frasier” sampler. The third date stuff aside.

Frasier (1993) s02e04 – Flour Child

I missed the Christopher Lloyd credit during the opening titles—James Burrows directing is no surprise—so I got to watch the episode without any writerly expectations. It feels somewhat like a first season episode, back when the show was establishing its take on structure. Here, we get a big setup to the episode from Peri Gilpin (I was right, her being mad at him calling her a slut is forgotten) giving Kelsey Grammer his itinerary because he’s helpless. He’s got a card to sign for a sick guy, then out to dinner with dad John Mahoney and brother David Hyde Pierce.

It certainly seems like an awkward dinner out with Mahoney setup, but it turns out to be this hilarious scene with Grammer, Mahoney, and Hyde Pierce having to deliver cabbie Charlayne Woodard’s baby. Lots of great lines—and perfect performances from Woodard, Mahoney, and Hyde Pierce (Grammer staying out of the way because the actors on “Frasier” never try to upstage).

But the episode isn’t about the delivery, which apparently involves Hyde Pierce bravely running up the block to get hot water from a restaurant; it’s about Hyde Pierce wanting a baby of his own and carrying around a sack of flour to get the feel for it.

The episode does a beautiful job letting Hyde Pierce be bumblingly terrible with the “baby,” while also being entirely sympathetic. Mahoney thinks the whole thing’s stupid, which has some validity, but Hyde Pierce manages to so earnest. It’s still comedy though, with the teleplay the thing and Hyde Pierce’s almost touching performance just in service of the episode overall. There’s really good acting on “Frasier,” with a mix of styles, all working out.

Jane Leeves and Gilpin are support—Gilpin for a Grammer subplot involving the get well card and Leeves as additional laughs around the apartment. And Leeves gets them. She’s got a scene bantering with herself (voicing character Daphne arguing with her mother) and it’s absolutely fantastic.

It’s a rather good episode. Burrows keeps just the right pace.

Frasier (1993) s02e01 – Slow Tango in South Seattle

“Frasier” went out on a high point and returns for its new season strong and assured—with a new writer to the series, Martin Weiss, and James Burrows’s ably directing as always. After a quick phone call to the show from James Spader, we get to the main plot. Or we get introduced to the main plot. It’s fall 1994 and Bridges of Madison County was selling like hot cakes and “Frasier” introduces an analogue, Slow Tango in South Seattle. Roz (Peri Gilpin) is so taken with the book she’s reading it during the show, which pisses off Kelsey Grammer.

Especially after he starts reading it—in that perfect Grammer voice—and mocks it. Only then he realizes he knows the author, played by a pre-J. Peterman John O'Hurley (how weird must it be to see O’Hurley during his soap career post-Seinfeld). O’Hurley was a drinking buddy at Cheers, though not on “Cheers” itself, and stole the story of Grammer losing his virginity (to his piano teacher at age seventeen) for the novel.

We don’t find out about the story stealing until a little bit later into the episode, after it’s established Jane Leeves is reading the book too. After everyone finds out–John Mahoney and David Hyde Pierce fight with each other to get at Leeves’s copy—Grammer’s able to confront O’Hurley, who’s at the station doing a reading for a book show, only to discover he’s not getting the closure he needs.

The only way to get that closure—according to Hyde Pierce, who’s truly phenomenal in this episode, going above and beyond with his material—is to apologize to the piano teacher. After all, seventeen year-old Frasier skipped out on her—which leads to Leeves smacking him occasionally for being a shitty man and it’s hilarious.

The episode’s beautifully paced—Weiss gets in time with the family, time with the radio station (great scene for Dan Butler too), and then the resolution at the piano teacher’s house, presumably somewhere in South Seattle.

The conclusion, involving guest stars Constance Towers and Myra Carter, is absolutely hilarious and I can’t spoil.

Great dialogue, particularly for Mahoney and Gilpin. Grammer’s really good mixing the funny with the heart. Hyde Pierce’s physical performance is so good.

Very strong start for season two; also, turns out Weiss never wrote another “Frasier,” which is a shame because Slow Tango could definitely use A Thousand Seattle Streets for Niles.

Frasier (1993) s01e24 – My Coffee with Niles

My Coffee with Niles is a concept episode victory lap for the first season, scripted by two of the three creators (David Angell and Peter Casey), with James Burrows directing, set entirely in the coffee shop where Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Niles (David Hyde Pierce) regularly meet to have coffee together. The difference—besides the entire episode taking place at the shop and “Frasier” finally showing the patio seating—is they aren’t checking in on a plot, resolving a plot, or starting a plot, there is no plot.

Other than Hyde Pierce asking Grammer, a year after moving to Seattle, if he’s happy and the two trying to find a place to sit on a particularly busy afternoon.

The regular cast checks in—Peri Gilpin’s there to meet a date, which doesn’t go well and gives Grammer the chance to confide in Hyde Pierce he’s had the stray fantasy involving Gilpin but they work together and Grammer’s professional.

Wasn’t Diane his patient on “Cheers”?

Then dad John Mahoney and Jane Leeves stop by, which kicks up some dust as Mahoney’s in a bad mood and it’s pissing off Leeves and Grammer. It all blows up in the episode but it’s not even a subplot really. It’s just an update on the status of the relationship.

There’s a little bit of talk about Leeves as far as Hyde Pierce’s feels are concerned. Hyde Pierce is really good in that part. It’s Grammer’s episode overall and he does well, but Hyde Pierce’s performance is better. It’s a stagy episode and he does well with stagy.

The unsung hero of the episode is Luck Hari, as the unnamed waitress who spends the entire runtime trying to get Grammer a cup of coffee he won’t complain about.

“Frasier” has a great first season and Coffee is an outstanding conclusion of it. There’s nothing new, except the format—and Hyde Pierce remembering Gilpin exists—but it shows how much the show can stretch and still excel.

Finally, there is some cringe related to Hyde Pierce and Grammer joking about Hyde Pierce’s Niles being gay—and who’d get to tell Mahoney because he’d be so upset with it. At the time of the episode, Hyde Pierce was stuck in the closet; he’d never have gotten the part if he’d been out.

Hell, he probably wouldn’t get it today, would he?

But the episode itself is a big win.

Frasier (1993) s01e23 – Frasier Crane’s Day Off

The episode’s another superlative one—Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano’s script is exceptional, with a bunch of great detail (everyone in the cast has something going on this episode, all of it somewhat related to Kelsey Grammer coming down with a man cold)—but it’s also got the distinction of having the weirdest set of celebrity callers.

There’s football quarterback Steve Young, there’s “Doonesbury” cartoonist Garry Trudeau, there’s Timmy Hilfiger, there’s Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, there’s Mary Tyler Moore—there’s Patty Hearst! None of the calls get much special emphasis, because it’s all about who’s taking those calls. Grammer gets to talk to Young in the opening, but pretty quick he’s on his way to getting too sick to work and then it’s all about who’s filling in on the show for him.

First up is food critic Gil Chesterton (Edward Hibbert), who’s trying to get Grammer and Peri Gilpin’s primo afternoon time slot and solving callers’ problems thanks to his keen restaurant sense. So Gilpin tries to get Grammer to come back to work, which almost works, but the man cold is too strong….

Leading to Grammer begging David Hyde Pierce to do it. Turns out Hyde Pierce isn’t just going to be a natural at it, he’s going to crowd please in a way Grammer doesn’t. The stuff with Hyde Pierce on the radio is phenomenal. The script’s great but Hyde Pierce takes it to a whole new level, baking in all the long-term jealousy over Grammer’s popularity and so on. Hyde Pierce manages to be even better at the successful Niles on the radio stuff than he does at the awkward Niles on the studio stuff and the awkward stuff is amazing.

No blaming mother today, he starts the episode, “I’m a Jungian not a Freudian.” So funny.

Meanwhile Grammer’s driving Jane Leeves nuts as she’s stuck taking care of him through the man cold. John Mahoney mostly hangs out to tell Grammer how he should call in but Grammer reminds him Mahoney raised the boys to never call in to work. If you can stand, you can work.

Mahoney’s since changed his tune but it’s baked into Grammer at this point.

So much going on and all of it so good. I won’t even get into the self-prescribed medicines, which cause hallucinations. As great as Hyde Pierce and Leeves get in the episode, it’s all about man cold suffering Grammer. It’s such a good performance.

Awesome sick makeup on him too.

Day Off is a spectacularly funny half hour of television.

Frasier (1993) s01e22 – Author, Author

It’s another great episode. As in, great example of what a multicam sitcom can do. What’s particularly interesting is Author, Author is the first episode credited to writers Don Seigel (not to be confused with Don Siegel, insert Dirty Harry reference here) and Jerry Perzigian. James Burrows directs, which is great, as the episode requires a great deal of sure-footed nimble moves. See, it’s the first Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) episode. They try to write a book together. It does not go well.

But it doesn’t go well in multiple stages, starting right off with Grammer not really wanting to do it but getting talked into it because Hyde Pierce is facing a deadline and publisher Mako (who has an absolutely fantastic time in the small part) doesn’t want to take no for an answer. Especially not after finding out Hyde Pierce’s brother is the Frasier Crane from the radio.

The brothers take a while to find the creative process—the book is going to be two eminent psychiatrists writing about the psychology of siblings—partially because they think they’re going to have a goldmine in anecdotes from dad John Mahoney, but then he ends up not being able to get past the little details. Lots of good one-liners in the scene with them. Jane Leeves is noticeably absent in that scene, though she shows up after the last commercial break for a good final punchline. Seigel and Perzigian also have a small scene for Peri Gilpin, who’s not happy to be part of Plan B, which involves Hyde Pierce sitting in on the radio show and taking notes as the brothers mine the callers for sibling anecdotes. The stuff with Hyde Pierce on the radio is great.

And nothing compared to Plan C, where the brothers lock themselves in a hotel room (a la the Gershwin Brothers) and try to work on the book.

Great dialogue, great performances from Hyde Pierce and Grammer (with Grammer getting into the physical comedy this time too).

It’s absolutely hilarious throughout, then a nice, wholesome but not too wholesome resolve. And another one of those great layered delay “Frasier” jokes. They’re not Chekhov’s guns, they’re Eddie’s muffins.