Famed television director James Burrow shared how show creators will keep the spirit of Martin Crane alive in the Frasier revival series.
Late last year, Kelsey Grammer promised Frasier fans that the revival series would honor John Mahoney’s legacy. Mahoney, who portrayed the Crane family patriarch through the original series’ entire 11-season run, passed away in 2018 following a battle with cancer. Famed television director and Cheers co-creator James Burrows, who directed multiple episodes of the original Frasier and directed two episodes of the revival, spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how the series will pay tribute to the late actor.
Paramount+’s Frasier picks up shortly after Martin (Mahoney) has passed. After accepting that his family life suffered while his professional life soared, Frasier decides he wants to spend more time with his son, Freddy (portrayed by Jack Cutmore-Scott). Freddy, now in his 30s, is a Boston firefighter– a profession closer to Martin’s occupation as a police officer than Frasier’s work as a psychiatrist.
“There’s a lot of Martin in Freddy. [Co-creators] Joe [Cristalli] and Chris [Harris] specifically wanted Frasier to deal with his son… because the relationship with Kelsey and Mahoney was wonderful. So they tried to tap into that, and I think they succeeded,” Burrows said.
Burrows also revealed there’s a special moment in the pilot episode dedicated to Mahoney:
“It’s a wonderful scene at the end of the show. It’s about two-and-a-half, three minutes without any laughs. You’ve got to be brave to do that.”
There’s also a nod to the late actor by way of a local bar, which creators named Mahoney’s. Burrows joked that he preferred the name Cheers but “they didn’t want that for some reason.” That doesn’t mean there won’t be any mention of the famous Boston bar where Dr. Frasier Crane was introduced in 1984. According to Burrows, Cheers is mentioned in the pilot episode, which means a lot to him:
“It’s the one line in the pilot that I begged [Cristalli and Harris] not to lose. It’s tender to my heart, but also, it’s a way of acknowledging the birth of the character — and they were sweet enough to leave that line in.”
Dr. Frasier Crane Twenty Years Later
When we next see Frasier, he will be a slightly changed man. Revival series co-creator Harris, in an interview before the WGA strike, shared how the last twenty years have shaped the beloved psychiatrist:
“We want to present someone who is familiar to the audience, but also has had a life for 20 years in the time since we’ve seen him. Talking with Kelsey [Grammer] about it, this is a man who is a little looser than he used to be, a little more comfortable. He’s done well, he’s had some success, and the pilot is about realizing that one part of his life where he might not have been as successful as he thought he was and what that means to him going forward.”
The upcoming series stars Grammer, Cutmore-Scott, Jess Salguiero as Eve, Freddy’s friend, Anders Keith as David, Niles and Daphne’s son, Nicholas Lyndhurst as Alan Cornwall, Frasier’s old friend and a Harvard professor, and Toks Olagundoye as Olivia, the chair of Harvard’s psych department. Bebe Neuwirth and Peri Gilpin will reprise their roles as Dr. Lilith Sternin and Roz Doyle, respectively, in guest appearances.
