Frasier has re-entered the building, for some reason…
By this point in 2023, we understand the mechanics of nostalgia-mining. You plant once-iconic characters back in an unchanged set that lives rent-free in the crevices of a generation’s brain, you pepper in some classic easter eggs that will make people point at the screen like that Leonardo DiCaprio meme and you bring in a carousel of iconic characters and guest stars, even just for a blink and you’ll miss it cameo. It’s a tried and tested formula, executed by everyone from the likes of That 70’s Show, Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City.
This is all because no one really cares about where their favourite characters ended up 20 or 30 years later, that sort of mental fanfic has already been pored over. No, it’s because we all ultimately seek comfort in familiarity without having to actually reckon with seeing people lug around mobile phones the size of reusable water bottles and current recycled fashion trends in their pupae stage, thus facing the mortifying ordeal of time slinking away.
Long story short, we know how to balance nostalgia so that it feels warm and not sad, comforting not unsettling like a bad tribute act. Well, we thought we did, until everything about the upcoming Frasier reboot reared its head. Existing somewhere in the ether for many years, the long-awaited(?) return to the life of Doctor Frasier Crane, played by Kelsey Grammer, is set to hit our small screens on 12 October via Paramount+. Ah, Frasier, we can hear you thinking, that delightfully pompous peek into the lives of an on-air radio therapist living the high life in Seattle. Niles! Martin! Roz! Daphne! All of our friends, back together again. Well, not really.
Frasier 2.0 is breaking all the rules of nostalgia bait. Firstly, the only core character from the series making their return is Frasier. John Mahoney, who played his father Martin, sadly passed away in 2018, David Hyde Pierce, who played Niles, has expressed no interest in returning, while the rest of the cast, padded out by the likes of Peri Gilpin and Jane Leeves, have remained shtum on whether they’ll pop in.
We’re also leaving Seattle, with Frasier moving back to Boston (where his character first appeared in Cheers) and getting absorbed into the life of his son, Freddy, which he shares with ex-wife Lilith (played by Bebe Neuwirth, who has been confirmed to guest star). Oh, Nicholas Lyndhurst is also in this series, because, sure.
In the first trailer for the reboot, we get a glimpse of Frasier in his new digs, setting up a swanky apartment that’s at odds with the rough-and-ready life of his son and cheesing over how preposterous it is that he’s drinking a beer in a bar instead of a merlot. From the off – this is a different show. Sure, Frasier is still Frasier, and Grammar is frustratingly charming as the snooty radio host, but this is officially a family drama now. It’s about a once-ladies-man reaching his twilight years and trying to fit into the mould of the cute old man who’s a bit out of touch. It’s the cookie-cutter formula of almost every sitcom you stumble on as it’s playing on syndication in the middle of the day that inexplicably has 18 seasons.
Honestly, it doesn’t look that bad, but it’s just a different show. We’re essentially picking up a character we know and love and dropping them in a brand-new environment. It’s prob ably best if we think of this less as a reboot and more as a spin-off. Or, in this case, a spin-off of a spin-off. Frasier was one of the OG spin-off success stories, creating a path that was emulated to similar acclaim by the likes of Better Call Saul and The Good Fight. However, it’s also a road followed to TV disaster by shows like Joey, the Friends spin-off no one needed, and Scrubs, which absorbed its new class of kooky doctors into the existing series. Despite IP reigning supreme, it seems like Grammar could have just fronted this show as a similar but different character.
We’re not saying Frasier is destined to be Joey, as the trailer does give us hope that, if we have to have this series, this could be the best way it’s done. Mixing a spin-off with a clutch at the nostalgia bag is a risky affair. That 90s Show only barely pulled it off earlier this year, but that’s because it knew to frontload its episodes with fan-favourite easter eggs that absolved any potential teething problems like a dummy dipped in whiskey.
Frasier is banking on Grammar doing all of the heavy lifting, placating our concerns with some soothing sentimentality while also making us care about something entirely new. He did it the first time around, so the assumption is probably that he can do it twice. Still, we can’t help but feel the blues a’callin on this one.
