For a man who has become the spokesperson for the finer things in life and is a stickler for etiquette, Dr. Frasier Crane is a guest who doesn't know when he's outstayed his welcome.
Sad as I am to say goodbye to a show that has been a constant factor in my life for the past 11 years, I'm ready to send Frasier into permanent retirement in the over-and-over-again land of syndication. The final episode (No. 264) of the show with a record number of Emmys (31) airs May 13 -- less than two weeks from today, and more than three years too late.
Don't get me wrong, I still believe that during the sitcom's peak years -- roughly the first seven seasons, from 1993 to 2000 -- Frasier set the standard for excellence in writing, performance and direction. Back then, each episode had three clearly defined sets: KACL, the radio station where Frasier (Kelsey Grammer, who originated the character on Cheers) worked as host of a call-in show, the apartment at the Elliott Bay Towers and the regular hangout, Cafe Nervosa.
Against these locations, the doctor, his family and his co-workers dazzled us with their wit, consumed enough lattes to drown a small country and allowed us to feel better about our less-affluent but also less-neurotic and happier selves. Although we occasionally got glimpses of the mansion Niles Crane shared with his mysterious wife Maris, the character played by David Hyde Pierce might as well have lived with his brother Frasier, their father Martin (John Mahoney), his physical therapist Daphne (Jane Leeves) and Eddie the dog in the blond-wood palace in the sky that Frasier calls home.
Watching episodes of the first season on DVD just a few weeks ago, I was struck by how "adult," for lack of a better word, Frasier is. While references to high art, from opera to paintings to theatre, are used to exemplify the elitist tastes of the brothers Crane, they are also introduced intelligently and without overexplanation. The show assumes an audience that can recognize an obscure opera reference and yet see the comic potential in it.
The writers of the early seasons mined the possibilities of laughing at and with its cast. It is a comment on the dumbing-down of today's network sitcoms that Frasier episodes from the 1990s already constitute part of TV's golden intellectual age. It remains the only sitcom I can think of where its scripts can be enjoyed as good, dramatic reads -- hardly surprising in a show where most of the cast come from the theatre world and where scene structures follow theatrical, rather than sitcom, models. Imagine reading transcripts of Friends, or even the sublime Seinfeld, and you'll get what you I mean.
With intellect came refinement. Before the term metrosexual even entered the English language, Frasier and his brother typified it. The most ambiguously gay couple since Batman and Robin, Frasier's and Niles's tastes veered toward the stereotypically gay while their sexual orientation remained decidedly straight. Looking back at a classic episode such as The Matchmaker from Season Two -- where a new boss at the radio station assumes that Frasier and Niles are gay during a dinner party meant to set him up with Daphne -- it's clear that Frasier has taken the plot device of mistaken identity to its sexual-orientation limits.
But as any fan of the show will tell you, Frasier "jumped the shark" the moment Niles and Daphne got together at the end of Season Seven in May of 2000. It's a curious juncture because neither one is the titular character, yet Niles's secret love for Daphne has always been the real emotional through-line of the show. Again, the thwarted romance allowed Frasier's creators to explore two seemingly contradictory social tropes: Niles can remain the social, sherry-swilling snob that he is while falling in love with a member of the working class (albeit an English immigrant), thus affirming and breaking the class codes of a nation built on egalitarian ideals.
But why has love eluded Frasier? To put the question differently, why has Frasier's unhappy love life given us so much pleasure for 11 seasons? For one thing, it allowed Grammer a chance to share on-screen romances with a who's who of actresses (JoBeth Williams, Amy Brenneman, et al.), emphasizing the many moments of courtship, conquest and breakup with each -- the excitement of new love and the familiarity of its eventual course.
I also think we like to see Frasier tormented a little bit: a doctor with an Ivy League education, powerful mind, impeccable tastes and a good, kind heart would only be too insufferable if he were also happily in love. If Frasier's affair with the Chicago-bound Charlotte in the last few episodes comes to a happy end, as I suspect it will in the series finale, the rest of their life will have to take place off screen. We love Frasier, but we're just not ready to see TV's favourite neurotic in love. About time he found happiness; time for us to say goodbye.
The Frasier finale airs May 13 on NBC and Global