'Frasier' Reboot Forgets That Frasier Was The Show's Least Interesting Character
Good news for fans of ‘90s sitcoms and songs about plastering scrambled eggs across your face for some goddamn reason; the Frasier reboot is officially happening, thanks to a series order from Paramount+. Kelsey Grammer will reprise the role he’s best known for: Dr. Frasier Crane (the role he’s second-best known for, of course, being Darius Grouch the Third from Money Plane).
But according to reports, none of the cast members from the original show will be series regulars in the reboot, although some could, hypothetically, make “guest appearances.” Which … sucks? The best part of Frasier was, arguably, not Frasier Crane himself (who, let’s be honest, was a giant creep) but the larger cast of quirky characters. Sure, we all enjoyed Frasier’s loveable pomposity, but it was the way he interacted with his unhealthily-competitive brother, his new agey housekeeper/physical therapist, and his crusty, old-fashioned father – although we could have done without the relentless slut-shaming of his producer, to be honest.
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It’s hard to overstate the degree to which Frasier was an ensemble show, not just a star vehicle for Grammer – like, David Hyde Pierce won four Emmys for playing Niles (nominated a total of 11 times), and arguably one of the very best episodes of the series barely featured Frasier Crane at all; season three’s “Moondance” relegated the show’s lead character to a background player because Grammer was busy directing the episode.
Which isn’t to say that the new show won’t come up with new characters for Frasier Crane to humorously bellow at – but if the only thing making this a Frasier reboot is the presence of Kelsey Grammer, what separates it from the myriad of other recent Grammer-starring sitcoms that were uniformly rejected by society as a whole?
And if the reboot is a hit, we can almost certainly expect Paramount to expand the Frasier-verse with shows like Detective Marty Crane Investigates and/or Chesterton: The Origin of Frasier’s Co-Worker Gil.
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