The Fabulous Dorseys (1947, Alfred E. Green)

The best scene in The Fabulous Dorseys is the jam session with Art Tatum. It’s the only time in the movie about jazz there are Black people, and it’s the only time the movie really lets The Fabulous Dorseys be fabulous. The film’s a biopic about band leaders brothers Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, who play themselves, and their professional disagreements and rivalries. The Tatum scene stands out because it’s them playing, but it’s also them artistically engaged with their craft. And director Green gets to actually film musicians playing their instruments. There are some big band performances (including one where one of the orchestra members can’t remember to stop looking straight into the camera), which are fine and good, but there’s no energy to them.

Everyone’s got energy for that Tatum scene. It’s the realist Dorseys ever seems to get, even though the film’s constantly bumping up against reality thanks to its stars playing themselves, albeit decades older than they ought to be. Plus, neither of them are good actors. Tommy’s better than Jimmy, but Jimmy looks low-key terrified the entire time like he wants nothing more than the scene to be over. Considering the central drama is about Tommy showboating, it kind of works.

But the Dorseys aren’t really the protagonists of The Fabulous Dorseys. Most of the time, the movie’s about Janet Blair, their childhood friend (albeit fifteen years their junior when they’re playing adults) who acts as surrogate sister and parent. Blair’s eventually got to pick between the brothers and her love interest, William Lundigan. Only then, when the movie breaks up Blair and Lundigan over her loyalty to the Dorseys, it brings back the parents and pushes Blair into the background until the third act.

Sara Allgood and Arthur Shields play the parents in the opening flashback and the present. The present taking place over twenty-ish years, though the timeline’s very loose. There’s no Great Depression in The Fabulous Dorseys timeline, which must’ve been nice.

Allgood narrates the movie, with all her narration accompanying cursive text on the screen. It’s an unsuccessful device, but I guess you don’t need establishing shots as much when you can just use the text. The film starts in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, where Shields is a miner who also teaches music. He’s got his two sons learning trombone and saxophone because they’re the rarest instruments, and it’ll be easier for them to get jobs. Uncredited Bobby Warde and Buz Buckley play Jimmy and Tommy, respectively, with Ann Carter playing the young version of Blair. Also uncredited. That lack of credit is rather unfair since the kids run the ninety-minute movie for at least ten minutes.

The flashback establishes Tommy is a jackass who showboats, the brothers fight, the women (Allgood and Carter) have to monitor them, and Shields smacks them around. Initially, the film’s anti-hitting kids, but later on, when they’re adults, and Tommy’s still a showboating jackass, everyone wishes Shields could just beat some sense into them.

For the flashback sequence, Allgood holds the whole thing together. She’s got a nothing part and plays support to lesser actors (not just the kids, but also Shields, who’s only sympathetic thanks to Allgood), but she’s a trooper. And the production values are fine, and Green’s direction is decent.

Once they’re adults, Blair’s going to get that “holding it together” position. In fact, her keeping the brothers together is most of the second act. For a biopic starring the subjects, The Fabulous Dorseys does everything it can to avoid being about Tommy and Jimmy, instead focusing on Blair and her love life.

When Blair first meets Lundigan, the band needs a new piano player. Lundigan’s the local silent movie accompanist, and his skill at composing on the spot impresses everyone. It’s a good scene, especially since Lundigan’s not really playing the piano, but Blair’s got to be thrilled with his playing. Green does a good job directing around it; the silent movie sequence is one of the film’s standouts.

The movie will lose track of Lundigan’s musical abilities, and ambitions as he and Blair get lovey-dovey. Only she can’t give up on the Dorseys and Lundigan’s not having it. Lundigan’s not good, but he’s likable at the start. So when he becomes a dick about whether Blair should consider herself part of the Dorseys, it’s hard to miss him.

The film will employ a couple contrivances and a couple deus ex machinas to resolve the story—again, the busywork seems to be covering for Jimmy and Tommy not being able to act—and it’s occasionally a little mawkish but never craven. Dorseys feels sincere enough, which is crucial because it’s more about sick parents than creative independence. And even if Tommy was comfortable with the film making him out to be a jackass every single time, he wasn’t willing to do a reconciliation scene with Jimmy where he admits it.

Blair’s reasonably good. She’s usually better than the scenes, and her singing numbers work out. Even if she’s way too young to be mothering the brothers.

There are some funny supporting performances, too—Dave Willock and James Flavin being the standouts.

The Fabulous Dorseys isn’t exactly fabulous, but it’s an entirely acceptable outing; it’s not an advertisement for the brothers outside their musical abilities. And while it’s not an innovative movie musical, Green does a good job showcasing the numbers.

Hotel Splendide (2000, Terence Gross)

Hotel Splendide is based on a novel by Marie Redonnet. She doesn’t get any credit in the film, director Gross instead taking the full writing credit. Guess the WGA is good, actually.

The film having a novel source explains a few things, principally why Hugh O’Conor is narrating the movie. O’Conor’s ostensibly an aquaphobic staying at the titular hotel, a sanitarium set up on a remote island. I say ostensibly aquaphobic because the film implies, time and again, O’Conor’s really there for something else, and everyone’s been lying to him about his fear of water. There’s even the implication the hotel staff intentionally gave him aquaphobia to take his mind off his real problem, which—based on O’Conor’s character otherwise being entirely devoted to peeping on sexual congresses and playing solitaire with nudie cards—seems to have been him being a sexually frustrated serial killer.

Doesn’t matter because O’Conor disappears in the second act when the film finally gets around to letting Daniel Craig have some agency, only to bring O’Conor back to screw up the finish.

And it’s impressive Splendide’s gotten to a point where O’Conor can drag it back down. The film rallies big time when it really shouldn’t be, including turning Stephen Tompkinson into a dangerous villain when he’s previously just been a simpering mama’s boy without a mama. The mother ran the hotel, dying a year before the present action kicked off. Toni Collette has returned from the outside world, having left five years before when the mother disapproved of her and Craig’s love affair.

Someone—not Craig, who starts the film enraged at Collette for abandoning him—wrote Collette to beckon her back. Her arrival will ruin Tompkinson’s control over the hotel, which is killing off its residents and not getting any new ones since no one who’s been off the island still thinks eating nothing but eel and seaweed stew to constipate yourself and require daily enemas is a good idea anymore. Or at least, one would hope. Splendide requires a bunch of suspension of disbelief, like how the family running the hotel—who’ve presumably never lived anywhere else—have such good vocabularies or how they get power (they get gas by converting residents’ shit into methane to fuel the hotel forever, with the furnace being an angry stand-in for the departed mom), or why they seem to have new clothes. Maybe the novel explains it. Or perhaps the novel’s good enough it doesn’t have to explain it. Or perhaps the novel just avoids it like the movie.

The film starts with director Gross overestimating how charming quirky can be, especially since the quirkiness is laden with ableism, misogyny, and… icky. O’Conor’s icky without being dangerous, while Tompkinson is odious and potentially dangerous (though when the dangerous comes out, Gross makes it ableist to further villainize him, which is a lot). But the person who has it worst—other than maybe actually physically abused kitchen staff Toby Jones—is the sister, Katrin Cartlidge.

Tompkinson manages the hotel, Craig runs the kitchen, Cartlidge handles the physical therapy whether she likes it or not, and retired since his widowing dad Peter Vaughan just hanging around. The film presents Vaughan as a sympathetic old dodderer, too weak to stand up to the dead wife, but then has all these terrible details about him as he perpetuates a bunch of abuse. Gross seems entirely unaware because it involves women, and they aren’t really characters in Hotel Splendide, like when top-billed Collette essentially becomes Craig’s accessory for the second act.

At times, both Collette and Craig are quite good. Unfortunately, usually not in their scenes together. If they aren’t bickering about Collette literally not wanting to be abused by Craig’s family, Collette’s just silent when Craig does things. The third act doesn’t completely whiff their relationship development, but it comes pretty close. Then the denouement makes them irrelevant. It’s very messy.

Besides Collette and Craig, there are good performances from Cartlidge, Joerg Stadler, and Helen McCrory. Everyone else is fine, save Tompkinson and O’Conor, who are both terrible, though it’s unclear how much is Tompkinson’s fault and not just Gross’s script or directing. O’Conor’s, unfortunately, a charisma vacuum, with or without Gross.

Technically, Splendide hasn’t got much going for it. Gross’s direction of actors is slightly better than his composition, which wouldn’t matter if it were better because Gyula Pados’s photography is terrible. Though not as bad as Michael Ellis’s editing or, especially, Mark Tschanz’s music. The film relies on Tschanz’s score more than anything else, and, even with O’Conor’s annoying narrator, better music probably would’ve saved the day.

For a while, it seems like Splendide will end up being a mildly compelling oddity for Collette, Craig, and Cartlidge. Sadly, it doesn’t. Though it doesn’t fail Collette or Craig anywhere near as much as Cartlidge. It fails her something fierce.

Halloween Kills (2021, David Gordon Green)

Halloween Kills is a fascinating sequel. It’s a terrible movie—though probably better than the previous one just because there’s so much less Jamie Lee Curtis, so you’re not watching her embarrass herself the entire time (though she’s got some really embarrassing moments). But given it’s the ninth Halloween sequel and the second remake of Halloween II… a lot is going on in what the filmmakers do and don’t do. And if you’ve suffered through the other twelve movies or whatever… as a viewer, you too can see the creative choices in context.

So fascinating.

And terrible.

It’s so bad. At least the first forty-five minutes are a gory, cruel, humor-drained riff on a fan service sequel. Then, after establishing Will Patton didn’t die last time and then flashing back to the original Halloween and doing a non-Halloween II sequel in flashback—how they missed a Curtis in the hospital joke is beyond me, but I’m not sure I’d feel good if I felt simpatico with Kills’s makers—the movie brings back supporting cast from the first movie. Not Halloween H40 first movie—we’ve established everyone’s back already—but Halloween 1978 first movie. Nurse Nancy Stephens is back, plus little kid grown up Kyle Richards. Anthony Michael Hall appears as the other little kid grown up, as does Robert Longstreet, but Longstreet’s so indistinct it seems like a retcon. Because Halloween movies need retcons in 2021.

Charles Cyphers is also back, but later in the movie and entirely coincidentally—fatefully? Also returning are Michael Smallwood and Carmela McNeal as the disposable Black couple. They were in the last movie but apparently not memorably enough. And Dylan Arnold as Andi Matichak’s boyfriend (and Longstreet’s son). This Halloween is the one where we get the Elm Street parents going after Freddy, basically. Though not emphasizing the teenagers in danger because… well, why do teenagers when you can do stunt cameos and then little kids. Though the little kids in danger stuff turns out to be a Season of the Witch: Halloween 3 reference, which is kind of the only thing actually cool in the movie. Like, they do a solid job working it in.

Oh, and there’s also some good gore animatronics. Kills’s Michael Myers is cruel and gross, basically doing anatomy experiments, and there are occasionally good gore animatronics. The rest of the time, it’s just gross for gross’s sake, but they do an actual fine job at least twice.

Some of John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel A. Davies’s score is good. Mainly in the first forty-five when it’s the not-funny spoof of itself. During those moments, it seems like making a good Halloween escaped director Gordon Green and his co-writers, Scott Teems and Danny McBride, with them knowingly avoiding past tropes only for it to fail.

It’ll turn out Gordon Green, Teems, and McBride have some big ideas to work out in the second half of the movie, so no, it was just them killing time before their “unjust, lawless mob” plotline, which isn’t the movie but also is the movie. It’s this movie; it’s just this movie is actually only set up for the next movie. Not doing a “Michael Myers Will Return in HALLOWEEN ENDS” is actually the filmmakers’ worst move, and they don’t make a single good one. They just don’t let the film acknowledge itself because they’re pretending it’s serious. And we get to see how Gordon Green does serious with Halloween, and it stinks. It’s embarrassing and silly, and you can tell they tried real hard.

Anyway.

Lots of bad and middling performances. Judy Greer looks really underwhelmed her sequel option got picked up. Curtis and Patton, who bond in their own Halloween II pseudo-remake, are bad. Hall’s not good, but it’s also a lousy part. The supporting cast ranges. Occasionally there will be some effective slasher sequences, possibly thanks to Timothy Alverson.

It’s hard to tell if anything’s good about Kills, production-wise, because Gordon Green makes an absurd choice every thirty seconds, and it distracts, but Alverson’s editing seems good, actually. Whereas Michael Simmonds’s photography is just not incompetent. Also not sure about Richard A. Wright’s production design. Is it terrible, or is it bad at making South Carolina look like Illinois, or is it referencing the Rob Zombie redneck Halloween remakes? Or is it all three?

Again, it’s a fascinating sequel.

Shitty movie, though. Just an utterly shitty movie.

Frasier (1993) s06e14 – Three Valentines

Kelsey Grammer’s garbage politics were well-known when “Frasier” aired, which always made rooting for the show awkward. But Three Valentines, the fifth episode of the series he directed, is so good I thought about how it was too bad he never broke into movies. Though he’d just have made right-wing crap.

This episode is a divine showcase of the show’s main cast (except Peri Gilpin, who’s around and good but not showcased), starting with David Hyde Pierce doing a lengthy slapstick sequence. He’s getting ready for a society Valentine’s Day date with the president of his wine club and notices his pants aren’t quite well-ironed enough. The only dialogue in the scene is Hyde Pierce setting the stage for the audience (on a phone call to his wine guy) and then the occasional witty remark to Eddie the dog, who watches the silly human unintentionally wreak havoc. What’s great about the scene is Hyde Pierce, obviously, and how he, Grammer, and the script pace out the ordeal. It starts with Hyde Pierce doing one kind of a physical bit, then moves on to another, then moves on to another, then another, then rewind to the second, then skips ahead. It’s exquisite work from all involved.

Then it’s time for Grammer’s Valentines, which has him out on a maybe date, maybe business dinner with new colleague Virginia Madsen. The scene opens with Grammer calling Gilpin to talk about whether or not it’s an actual date. He’ll call Gilpin back throughout—it’s nice to see cell phones used to such good effect—to get feedback on the latest development. Grammer’s sequence eventually gives him some good physical humor, but nothing like Hyde Pierce’s masterclass in it. Instead, it’s mostly comedy of errors dialogue stuff and an enjoyable guest turn from Madsen. Rob Hanning gets the script credit on this episode; it’s an excellent script.

The third and final date is John Mahoney and Jane Leeves on a non-romantic evening. The Hyde Pierce segment was all physical gags; the Grammer one was physical and dialogue; theirs is all dialogue. Leeves gets bummed she doesn’t have any romance in her life, while Mahoney is upset everyone thinks he’s too old to be her fella. The latter’s a lot more problematic when you think about it than when you watch it… actually, so’s the former, given her relationship status is defining her. Even great, it’s still a nineties sitcom episode.

Lots of good acting from Leeves and Mahoney, emphasizing their abilities at immediate tone changes. It’s a lovely finish to the episode.

Three Valentines is obviously an exemplar “Frasier,” but it’s also an exemplar of the sitcom format. Grammer, as director, does a great job. The cast is all excellent. And Hyde Pierce’s physical comedy sequence is glorious.

Frasier (1993) s06e10 – Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz

The first time Kelsey Grammer directed a “Frasier” episode, he barely appeared onscreen. Subsequently, he started including himself more, and with this episode, he’s got himself front and center. He gives David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney some outstanding showcases—better than he ever gives himself—but he’s got the A plot from the start.

The episode begins establishing it’s a Christmas episode with Grammer and Peri Gilpin shopping for last-minute gifts. It’s a nice department store scene, lots of activity, some good smiles, and then a great introduction to guest star Carole Shelley. She saves Grammer from a social faux pas and gets her single daughter a date with a doctor out of it. The daughter ends up being Amy Brenneman, so it works out.

Brenneman’s appearance is interesting for a few reasons. First, she’s trying out comedy from drama and adapts her timing well. Second, she ends up being support to Shelley. Third, Grammer isn’t hostile towards her. The last time there was a big-name love interest guest star (Teri Hatcher), Grammer was visibly distressed. This time he’s far more gracious, and the proto-couple are charming together.

Especially when it turns out the A plot is Grammer and family hiding their Christianity from Shelley, who assumed he was Jewish. Problematically, Mahoney wants to hang up an electronic Rudolph wreath, and Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves are running around planning a musical Christmas pageant. Thanks to the pacing and the script—credited to Jay Kogen—the episode dances around being screwball and builds to an emotional conclusion. A funny, moving close, but very much a heartfelt Christmas episode.

Shelley’s fantastic. She and Brenneman toggle between moods immediately, which is part of the story, but it’s also very impressive to watch Shelley do it. Primarily since punchlines are entirely based on her read of a situation.

The subplot with Leeves and Hyde Pierce is excellent too, leveraging their chemistry and Hyde Pierce’s physical comedy abilities. Grammer’s other episodes had a big focus on Leeves and Hyde Pierce, and this one lets them find a good rapport as well, just in C plot territory. Turns out Mahoney and the Christmas decorating that wasn’t is the B plot and a perfect one.

“Frasier”’s always done satisfying Christmas episodes, but I’m not sure there’s ever been one as funny as this one. Of course, the stakes are low—Grammer and Gilpin are back at work, and there are no visiting family guest stars—but the lack of drama just lets them have more fun.

Plus, the credits postscript is Eddie being seasonally adorable.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021, Josh Greenbaum)

I’m hesitant to describe Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar as an absurdist comedy because the “absurdities” always land perfectly. For example, the opening titles have paperboy Reyn Doi singing along to the entirety of Guilty (Barbara Streisand and The Bee Gees) and then getting into a tree elevator. By the time Doi gets to the tree elevator (which takes him to a James Bond villain lair), thanks to the song, Barb and Star has already made clear anything is possible.

The film intros the villains—Kristen Wiig, who has a form of albinism (with a silly name), and her henchmen, Roi and Jamie Dornan. Roi is her (kidnapped) adopted son, and Dornan is her hopeless devotee; he’ll do anything if she’ll just make their romance official. The villain setup comes before we even meet Barb and Star, Annie Mumolo, and (also) Wigg; they also wrote and co-produced the film, so one would assume they’d know how to script themselves. They do, of course, but as the writers, Mumolo and Wigg give all the parts–even the bit parts–apt showcases. There are a bunch of solid comedy cameos, like Wendi McLendon-Covey, Patrick Bristow, Vanessa Bauer, Phyllis Smith, and Michael Hitchcock. There are a couple more well-executed cameos throughout, even when the performances aren’t great because the joke’s in the delivery, the performer identity a bonus. The latter gets a smile, the former gets the laugh.

Mumolo and Wiig—I’m going to call villain Wiig villain Wiig whenever she comes up; otherwise, it’s regular Wiig—are a couple small-town gals who find themselves in a situation where they’ve got the disposable income to go on a resort vacation. They head off to Vista Del Mar, a vacation paradise tucked away on the Floridian coast, obviously not realizing villain Wiig’s plan to release killer mosquitos is nearing execution. Dornan’s on-site to get everything set, which will also require a second bad guy, an actually absurd Damon Wayans Jr. (he’s the only example of dragging a joke until it’s funny, but thanks to a master-of-disguise bit, it works out well). But after villain Wiig blows him off on their not-yet-official boyfriend and girlfriend phone call, he gets wasted with tourists Mumolo and Wiig.

Both Mumolo and Wiig sort of fall for Dornan, who’s not used to having women actually return his affections (whether romantic or platonic), and Barb and Star becomes a combination buddy picture, Bond spoof, romantic comedy, and self-empowerment journey. With the occasional musical number and a lot of sight gags. Mumolo and Wigg—as writers—have incredible timing with the humor and then act it accordingly, director Greenbaum either getting out of their way or giving them the support when needed. Steve Welch’s editing is the technical superstar. Whether it’s one of the musical numbers or a lengthy comedy set-piece, Welch’s cutting is flawless. The timing of it all—the writing, the acting, the editing—plus the perfect soundtrack, it’s superb.

And one of the reasons calling it absurdist seems reductive. Barb and Star is never reductive; it’s always going for the next joke or punchline, leveraging the somewhat folksy, not uncynical positivity of its protagonists. It’s an excellent comedy and an excellent showcase for Mumolo and Wigg as actors, writers, and producers.

Best performance is Mumolo. Just the way the love triangle and character development arcs shake out. Wiig’s also got two parts, and there are stretches where it seems one is getting more emphasis than the other. Dornan’s hilarious and good. Not like “see his Fifty Shades movies” good, but good. Doi’s great. He’s missed when he’s not around, but whenever he shows up, it always pays off, which tracks.

Barb and Star always pays off.

Frasier (1993) s05e20 – First Date

First Date is a sequel episode to Moon Dance, the season three episode where Niles (David Hyde Pierce) lucks into a perfect date with Daphne (Jane Leeves), full of high romance but still entirely safe for the then married character. I mean. From network and pop cultural norm viewpoints. The Maris thing is misogynist.

Anyway.

It’s Kelsey Grammar directing again (I think Moon Dance was his first episode as director too), with Rob Hanning getting the script credit. If Hanning stood out for anything, I’ve forgotten—once again regretting not keeping track of the writers; he does a solid job here. The setup isn’t great, with Grammar trying to avoid people talking about a torrid TV miniseries’s conclusion, and the initial stuff with Hyde Pierce talking about asking Leeves out is stodgy. Grammar, as an actor, is worst in that section, which is weirder since he directed the episode. It’s like he can’t figure out a reaction so tries not to do one.

But there’s a good immediate twist, then another twist—people hearing the wrong things from other rooms and so on—and it quickly becomes a comedy of errors, but one with Hyde Pierce and Leeves running the episode. And then all of a sudden Grammar’s directing kicks in and it’s just wonderful. The way Grammar finds the comedy chemistry—both Leeves and Hyde Pierce can do physical and dialogue humor. The show’s been syncing them up—possibly intentionally—this entire season and it’s got a great pay-off here.

Even if the ending resolution is wanting.

Though the credits sequence with Grammar and Eddie the dog is pretty funny.

Oh, and John Mahoney. Mahoney gets some of the first act weirdness but is able to get out of it quicker than Grammar with his stuff. The original Moon Dance had something like eight years credited; Date has one, but it really doesn’t seem like the same person wrote the opening and the finish.

Good guest spot from Caroline Aaron.

It’s a rocky win but it’s a win.

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e20 – Devotion

It’s an almost entirely middling episode with a great as always guest star performance from Joanna Gleason—she’s married to family values congressman, Jim Haynie, who’s schtupping Godly campaign worker Gina Philips—and they’re getting death threats because Haynie wasn’t pro-gun enough with the Republican party’s white supremacist base. The episode opens with David Caruso on a politics talk show opposite Haynie, who just rambles about the culture war, before we find out Caruso’s only on the show because he’s dating host Susanna Thompson.

The episode’s B plot is Thompson getting a job offer in Los Angeles and having to figure it out with Caruso whether or not they can keep going. They’ve only been dating a few weeks (at most) but it’s ostensible character development for Caruso so the show’s going to pretend Thompson might stick around. Who knows, maybe they’re floating second season possibilities by the network (though at this point “Hayes” was in summer burn-off so they were probably already not renewed). It’s hard not to see Thompson as a stand-in for Helen Slater, a similarly blonde, similarly upwardly mobile girlfriend Caruso had a while back. Maybe if she’d stuck around the story would have some heft to it. With Thompson, it’s fine, but it’s obviously filler.

The A plot is almost entirely Caruso and Rebecca Rigg, with Ruben Santiago-Hudson out of commission due to a foot injury—he at least shows up for a couple scenes throughout, whereas Peter Outerbridge and Hillary Danner are as forgotten as Caruso’s extended family. It’s such a weird show; they aimed low, they aimed high, they aimed desperate, and it turns out their best goal was just being middling. Get good guest stars, do a reasonably engaging investigation procedural (it’s inexplicable why Caruso and company—i.e. Caruso and Rigg, though Jodi Long gets a bunch to do presumably because it wasn’t in her guest star contract to shoot pilots or get to run away after the show didn’t get renewed). Both Rigg and Caruso have acting moments where you remember the show used to be better, used to require better acting moments. Not anymore.

As “Michael Hayes” heads towards its sunset, it’s nice it isn’t going out on its low point (there’s still time of course) but it’d almost be better if it had. Reminding of all its potential—and its occasional successes—doesn’t do it any good.

Frasier (1993) s04e20 – Daphne Hates Sherry

There’s some truly great stuff this episode—Kelsey Grammer directs and continues his extremely gentle look at the potential chemistry between David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves (he directed the previous Moon Dance episode, which was the first time the show really acknowledged the potential)—but there’s also some very messy stuff.

The messy stuff starts, with Marsha Mason moving in on Leeves’s space in the apartment. Mason’s John Mahoney’s girlfriend, who’s taken to sleeping over, and discouraging Mahoney from eating healthy and exercising; Leeves—being his physical therapist—has an investment in Mahoney doing both those things. In fact, it’s her only investment. The episode entirely skirts around the intrusion at the professional level, then ups the ante with Mason giving out Leeves’s phone number to the various barflies she knows who are looking to score.

So, you would think part of the episode would include Grammer and Mahoney—as Leeves’s employers—addressing the inappropriateness of Mason essentially promising her acquaintances physical favors from their employee, but they don’t. Instead, everyone’s able to get over it once Grammer comes in to solve the problems because he’s the only one who can do it. He’s been too busy to solve the problems because he’s sick (not to mention directing the episode), leaving Leeves with no alternative than to seek refuge at Hyde Pierce’s, where they get really close to horizontal. See, there’s a heat wave to complicate matters, especially since Hyde Pierce only has a single fan and no air-conditioning because fancy buildings don’t have AC.

The stuff with Hyde Pierce and Leeves bonding and flirting is phenomenal, with wonderful acting from both of them.

The stuff with Leeves and Mason fighting while Mahoney grins or takes no responsibility for the situation—much less a side—is annoying. It’s admirable how well Mason’s able to sway from being likable to not, but when taken as a whole, her character is exceptionally problematic through this episode.

Most of the episode takes place at the apartments, Grammer’s and Hyde Pierce’s, with a short scene at the radio station to establish Grammer’s illness, continued status as a desperate single man (Peri Gilpin tries to get him to go to a singles party), and give Gilpin and Dan Butler a scene in the episode. The rest of the time it’s Mason picking on Leeves, Leeves and Hyde Pierce in a Tennessee Williams spoof, and Grammer occasionally popping in to complain about people bothering him while he’s sick.

There’s some really good writing—script credit to Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano—and even a great punchline for Hyde Pierce in the otherwise pat conclusion, but the episode’s way too willing to empty the pool on characters’ proverbial depths. Leeves’s agency drains and Mason gets through without ever having to confront the idea of her intruding on privacy, even though it’s painfully obvious she’s been doing it. Despite the wonderful scenes between Hyde Pierce and Leeves (it’s such good directing from Grammer too), Leeves doesn’t need a shoulder to cry on, she needs the HR department. The episode also doesn’t do Mahoney any favors, reducing him to support for Mason.

It’s got to be one of the most uneven “Frasier” so far.

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e08 – Death and Taxes

It’s the first episode without either show “developer” Paul Haggis or show co-creator John Romano getting at least a co-writing credit so I thought “Michael Hayes” must be on solider ground. If they’re going to trust credited writers Richard Kletter and Gardner Stern, it must be because it’s safe. Or Haggis and Romano just didn’t want this turd on their official WGA filmographies.

About the only thing the episode does right is Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Santiago-Hudson usually gets a crap part in Romano-credited episodes, this episode he’s fine. So it’s not hard to write Santiago-Hudson, the other folks apparently just really can’t do it. Because Kletter and Stern being able to do it… it ends up being the only thing they can do. If Death and Taxes isn’t the worst episode so far, it’s bad enough it’s making me forget any lower.

It’s a nineties Russian mob episode, with David Caruso trying to get earnest gas station owner George Tasudis to flip on bad guy Shaun Taub; there’s a vaguely interesting description of the gas scam Taub’s running and the episode would’ve played much better if it’d just been them trying to beat him with taxes or whatever. Instead, it’s thirty-five minutes of energetic water treading until the plot’s finally to a point where Caruso can convince Tasudis. What’s hilarious about the episode—which gets on a high horse with the differences between what the U.S. government can do to protect people versus the Russian government—is how badly Kletter and Stern work through that equation. It’s actually impressive how poorly the episode executes its conclusion—with a Russian music themed juxtapose, along with Caruso running around with a gun. I really thought we’d left the “U.S. Attorney packs heat” behind in the pilot, but I imagine—outside Hillary Danner, Peter Outerbridge, and Rebecca Rigg appearing—this episode looks a lot like what Romano had in mind before whoever with an eye on quality and competence brought in Haggis.

Outerbridge gets like three scenes and at least there isn’t a vague implication he’s working against Caruso because Caruso’s not a WASP, Danner gets maybe two scenes… Rigg also gets two, but only gets to speak in one of them. Otherwise she’s just there because they need a familiar face. It’s an abject waste of the regular cast. Though, then again, given how well the episode does with David Cubitt and Mary B. Ward, maybe less is better. It’s the inevitable episode where ex-con Cubitt gets brought back into crime because he can’t cover his debt to the loan shark–something the show’s been forecasting since it started—and also Cubitt confronting Caruso and Ward about the affair he imagines they’re having. Except the writing’s really bad and the episode’s already established Caruso and Ward have negative romantic chemistry; after this episode it’s impossible to imagine Ward having chemistry with anyone—she’s actually worse than Cubitt, which is an achievement of sorts. It’s such a bad subplot. And then for the main plot to go worse….

There are lots of one-liners for Caruso, which are both tiresome and inappropriate (at one point he forgets how many victims they’ve got and it’s not a number he ought to be forgetting because it’s a very low number), but it’s more of a “good actor in a bad show” situation than anything else. Alex Graves’s direction is a little more ambitious than it needs to be, especially when he’s so bad with the performances.

It’s a stinker. If it were episode two or three, it might be a jumping off point. It’s such bad writing. Just… such bad writing.

Theodore Bikel pops up for a couple scenes as a Russian mob specialist working for the FBI (he accepts his salary in paid dinners); he’s fine. Crap part, but he’s fine.

Last thing—and another whack at Kletter and Stern—Taub’s crime boss name is “The Little Turk,” presumably so they don’t have to keep saying Russian names, but there’s also something kind of bigoty about it. Like every time they use it they’re getting away with something. Not to mention at the time of the episode, less than 95,000 Turkish people lived in Russia? Maybe the episode’s just before Hollywood was comfortable with blond haired, blue-eyed Russians being the villains.

Whatever; it stinks. Kletter and Stern are bad at their job.