Frasier (1993) s07e18 – Hot Pursuit

Hot Pursuit is the second of two season seven “Frasier” episodes credited to writer Charlie Hauck. Considering the job he got on this one, it’s understandable he wouldn’t be back. It doesn’t seem fair to give a new writer an episode about Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin wondering if maybe they ought to just get it over with and jump the shark and sleep together. It’s not a bad idea for an episode. It’s executed poorly here, but it’s not necessarily a bad idea. It’s just too basic, which is a surprise since the other half of the episode is a subtle delight.

The episode opens with Grammer returning from a week in Boston to visit son Freddy and, consequently, ex-wife Lilith. And, consequently, her late twenties stud boyfriend. No cameos, just exposition and some mid-life crisis facial hair for Grammer. He’s only home for a scene before Gilpin shows up at the door to pick him up for their broadcasting conference. While they rush out, Saul Rubinek—Jane Leeves’s fiancé, only in the episode for this one scene—tries to hire John Mahoney to do some light surveillance. Mahoney’s enthusiastic, but David Hyde Pierce makes him promise not to do it.

Oh, in addition to the Rubinek bit, Hyde Pierce is around long enough for he and Grammer to make fun of Gilpin being jealous of blondes. It’s a nasty bit for everyone; it’s intentionally bad for Gilpin, but it also makes all three regular male cast members come off like assholes when they tease her about it. It’ll be back later. It’s Chekhov’s reductive female character trait.

Half the episode will be Hyde Pierce and Mahoney doing a bonding arc, while the other half is a single-set comedy of offscreen errors to get Grammer and Gilpin alone together and having big singles sads. They also talk about how long they’ve been working together—seven seasons, sorry, years—and how it makes them one another’s most successful opposite-sex partnership.

If the writing were great, if it were some kind of very special episode (maybe Gilpin directing, at least Grammer), there might be something there. Instead, it’s an awkward kicking of the show’s tires, trying to decide how desperate they are to gin up a new twist. Except, of course, they were one of the last nineties sitcoms not to have made a similar move, which… just makes it seem more desperate.

The resolution is okay but not good.

The Hyde Pierce and Mahoney arc, however, is sublime. It’s heartfelt, funny, and incredibly well-acted. Grammer and Gilpin try in their arc, but there’s nothing to work with. Sure, they’ve been playing these characters for seven years, but Grammer’s been hung up about Lilith’s never seen new boyfriend for twelve minutes, while Gilpin’s been jealous of blondes her whole life for eleven. It’s nowhere near enough ado about nothing.

Sigh.

Frasier (1993) s07e16 – Something About Dr. Mary

I’m not sure where to start with this episode. Jay Kogen’s got the writing credit, and he’s had his name on some good episodes in the past. But why they ever thought they ought to do an episode like Dr. Mary. Dr. Mary is played by Kim Coles, a Black woman (and possibly the first significant Black guest star since the first season), who is filling in for show producer Peri Gilpin while Gilpin has her apartment painted. Guilty white liberal Frasier (played by anti-liberal Kelsey Grammer) met Coles while doing an outreach program for job training.

After initially being shy about getting on the air with Grammer, Coles quickly dominates the show but changing the format. Instead of stuffed shirt Grammer, it’s hip, sassy Black lady Coles—who adopts the “Doctor” moniker because it sounds good, which is one of Grammer’s last straws. Dad John Mahoney just thinks Grammer’s avoiding talking to her about her performance because she’s Black, while brother David Hyde Pierce points out he once had a Black friend. As though someone in the writer’s room decided the lily-white cringe wasn’t cringe enough… Grammer then points out rich Black people aren’t really Black people.

The episode also includes an ableist subplot to distract from questioning whether Hyde Pierce, Mahoney, and Grammer are really the ones to be talking about race. Grammer and Gilpin making fun of a colleague with a speech impediment.

The episode employs various devices to show how Coles’s becoming more popular—apparently, the radio station is taking out advertisements mid-broadcast—to the point, it threatens Gilpin’s return. Station manager Tom McGowan loves Coles because she makes the show more popular and, for a radio show, better. Grammer never considers the possibility radio professional McGowan might be correct. Gilpin’s the only one with a vested interest in staying, and she’s happy to move on if the money’s right.

The episode’s subplot has Hyde Pierce taking up kickboxing, bumping into Jane Leeves, and then cooking for her and Mahoney because she’s milking the injury (at Mahoney’s insistence). It’s fine. At least Mahoney’s not saying “massa” during it (spoiler, he does in the other plot). And there’s some good physical comedy for Hyde Pierce.

Grammer’s got a broken part, as does Coles, who will eventually have to forgive Grammer for being too scared to talk to her like a person because she’s Black (and a woman). But both of them have good moments.

Something About Dr. Mary, besides the title, doesn’t so much not age well as reveal how white creatives had (read: have) such ingrained misogynoir, they can turn it into an entire sitcom episode but never acknowledge its existence.

Oof.

Frasier (1993) s07e13 – They’re Playing Our Song

I’m feeling a little like the boy who cried wolf, on the lookout for “Frasier”’s inevitable, impending fall; the show’s two episodes away from the “mythology” two-parter, and those two episodes have been excellent. This one’s all about Kelsey Grammer going overboard while composing a theme song for his show. Station manager Tom McGowan wants something simple, a catchy jingle. So, of course, Grammer’s got a full orchestra, choir, and David Hyde Pierce on hand to perform some spoken word. All on Sunday overtime.

It’s mostly a Grammer episode. There’s some ensemble work in the build-up, with Hyde Pierce helping Grammer with the initial composition, dad John Mahoney offering a much better idea and being ignored, and then Jane Leeves finally going after the icky old chair with a super-powered vacuum. Peri Gilpin gets to hang around at the beginning since it’s a radio episode. Eventually, she’s just in the audience, too; everyone’s there to watch whatever Grammer’s going to do.

There’s a lot of good banter—the script credit goes to David Lloyd, who’s had his name on numerous great “Frasier” episodes—and the finale even brings it around to Mahoney and Grammer having a father and son moment. Mahoney, Leeves, and Gilpin all get a little in their audience portion of the episode. Gilpin’s latest boyfriend is an unemployed musician, Leeves knows Mahoney’s song is good, and Mahoney’s confused about the free donuts. Then Hyde Pierce gets a lot of material, but it’s all in reaction to Grammer and his magnum opus writing. There are lots of smaller guest parts (the orchestra members) who only interact with Grammer, usually with excellent banter.

It’s also nice for McGowan to get a little more than usual. He sticks around for most of the plot this episode, whereas he usually gets a scene and then disappears.

David Lee does a fine job directing. It’s just a really good episode. If I’d been watching it at the time, I’d have thought they had their impending big changes all figured out. Little would I have known….

Frasier (1993) s07e04 – Everyone’s a Critic

It’s as though “Frasier” heard me across time and made some immediate adjustments—it’s another radio station episode, but unlike last episode, it features a bunch of scenes for Kelsey Grammer and Peri Gilpin at work. It’s also got regular station guest cast (Edward Hibbert), and then station manager Tom McGowan’s practically a regular.

There are some caveats, of course, but for the episode overall, not the station stuff.

Or if there are station-related caveats, they’re part of the bigger caveat, which is guest star Katie Finneran. Finneran plays the station owner’s daughter, a ditzy, dull rich girl testing out Mom’s properties to decide her future career.

The episode introduces Finneran as the B-plot but then brings her back up to the A-plot. It’s good plotting—Joe Keenan gets the script credit, which is full of laughs—but it’s entirely based on everyone thinking Finneran is terrible. While she’s tedious and annoying, so’s everyone else at the station in one way or another, at least the radio personalities. It’s McGowan’s bit—he’s managing all these Seattle talk radio prima donnas–but Finneran’s a bridge too far, apparently.

The opening has Grammer foisting Finneran off on Gilpin (who doesn’t know she’s a bore yet), then going home to find out David Hyde Pierce has gotten a job as a culture critic. The episode has many Grammer and Hyde Pierce rivalry hallmarks, but the Finneran subplot takes some of the space from them, so the episode doesn’t feel rote. It just feels awkwardly mean and a little misogynist. Would everyone give Finneran the same kind of shit if she were a wealthy, dippy son?

Also, since Finneran’s never mean-spirited or even as snooty as Grammer or Hyde Pierce, the hostility is off-putting. Finnegan’s character isn’t tiring in her scenes as much as everyone’s reaction to her, like when Jane Leeves sits and glowers at her. Though Grammer’s sucking up to her at that point, so Leeves is also glowering at Grammer. That sequence, which has six seasons of history—Leeves regularly seeing Grammer playing sycophant to some rich jackass or another—is the most inaccessible I think “Frasier”’s ever been. Outside “Cheers” references.

Leeves is great at glowering, don’t get me wrong, and it’s an appropriate response, but it requires a lot of show knowledge.

There’s some good material for John Mahoney, who gets the C-plot about Eddie the dog hunting down a kid’s missing hamster, as well as reacting to Hyde Pierce and Grammer’s competitive bickering. Maybe it’d be more of a rivalry episode if Hyde Pierce were in it more, but the episode doesn’t follow him at all.

There’s also a weird continuity gaffe where Mahoney and maybe Hyde Pierce both know Finneran without ever having met her (onscreen). Perhaps something got cut. It’s okay—and even amusing—but glaring.

It’s a funny, well-acted episode—Hyde Pierce in particular—and it’s nice they know they need to mix up the standards a hundred plus episodes in… but it’d have been nice if they could do it without being jerks. I kept expecting director Pamela Fryman to right the ship but nope.

Frasier (1993) s07e03 – Radio Wars

It’s another new-to-“Frasier” writer credit this episode: welcome, Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil. I just realized the title, Radio Wars, might be a nod to the annual Bar Wars episodes of “Cheers.” There’s not much warring, though, mostly just Kelsey Grammer getting pranked.

The episode begins with Grammer asleep in bed, a phone call waking him. The Academy of Radio Psychiatrists (or some such organization) is calling to ask why he hasn’t gotten back to them about the statue they’re making in his honor. It starts as an award; they add the statue when the show cuts from Grammer to the radio station, where the new comedy guys are pranking him.

Bryan Callen and John Ennis play the pranksters. They’re both fine but entirely incidental. The script keeps pretending Peri Gilpin’s got her eye on Callen but never even puts them near each other in a scene. Their scenes are just setups for Grammer’s great reactions when he figures out the prank.

Grammer emerges from his room, humiliated and outraged, only to discover both Jane Leeves and John Mahoney think it’s hilarious. Apparently, they were listening to the radio at six in the morning for this new radio show.

David Hyde Pierce will figure into some of the later antics, occasionally laughing at Grammer’s credulity, but he’s generally more sympathetic to Grammer’s plight. Especially once Mahoney tells Grammer he’s partially inviting the bullying, which leads to a fantastic sequence where they talk about Grammer and Hyde Pierce pretending to be John Steed from “The Avengers” as kids.

It also leads to a great joke for Hyde Pierce regarding Leeves; this episode’s less chaste about Hyde Pierce’s attraction than the season’s been so far. They at least allow the joke. And the script’s full of good “Frasier” jokes; it’s an enthusiastic script, really flexing the cast. There aren’t any subplots, but everyone gets a little something to do, with Hyde Pierce and Leeves getting the least. Since it’s a work plot, Gilpin gets more than usual, though it’s all bits, no story.

Tom McGowan shows up for a couple scenes as the station boss, which distracts from no one else at the station putting in an appearance. The episode also glides over Grammer and Gilpin not having any scenes during the radio show; everything happens off-screen, but the script knows how to use the constraints for good setups.

It’s a good episode, with some excellent laughs; it’s a little “by the numbers,” but not too much. It’s a solid first showing for Johnson and Marcil, with strong performances from the cast. It’s a bit of a Grammer showcase, but everyone gets at least two good spotlights.

Frasier (1993) s06e20 – Dr. Nora

There’s a lot of hilarious stuff in this episode and some great performances from the regular cast, especially the guests, but wow, it does not age well. Christine Baranski guest stars as a Dr. Laura analog who calls women sinners and sluts, with a set of conservative values people like John Mahoney have been missing. The episode—script credit to Joe Keenan—assumes everyone watching the show will be white, secular, and at least middle class; they’ve got no horse in the race, but they’re supposed to still know Baranski’s, too much.

Of course, in two decades since this episode, we’ve learned this kind of radio personality will enable racism, homophobia, misogyny, and a whole host of other things. The episode doesn’t just age poorly in making light of something too serious to joke about; there’s also the stuff where Kelsey Grammer’s fighting against it. I’m sure he’s ashamed to have ever allowed himself to stand up to hateful MAGA values. Plus, having Mahoney like Baranski shitting on single mothers makes him two-faced when it comes to Peri Gilpin.

The show addresses Gilpin being a single mom and Baranski spitting in the face of them, but as long as the ratings are good, station manager Tom McGowan can’t do anything about it. So basically, it’s just an episode about enabling white Christian nationalism and making it into a gag.

It’s a good gag. Baranski’s excellent. Her sense of comic timing is exceptional and kind of shows up Grammer.

The only subplots have David Hyde Pierce trying to grow a mustache to impress Jane Leeves and Leeves having mother issues spurred by Baranski’s radio show. Both are funny—and the Leeves mother thing at least gives her an excuse, as opposed to Mahoney, who’s just an asshole.

There’s a surprise guest star at the end—with a perfect bit of casting as reference too—and the screwball finale is consistently hilarious as they’re able to keep it going and going.

Good acting from Gilpin, who never really gets to complete her arc (because she’s a hot-headed woman and yelling is unbecoming a lady), and Grammer. Also, McGowan’s excellent in his scene. Lots of great timing. Katy Garretson directs (her first time on the show).

The show pissed off Dr. Laura enough Paramount took it out of rotation after the original airing, which was a cowardly move. But the episode’s such a weird platforming of shitty people and their ideas… it may have unintentionally been the right one.