‘Frasier’ Review: A Sitcom Revival That Knows How to Play the Hits

“Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved Earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.” Almost 20 years ago, in Frasier’s series finale, Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) quoted those words from a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson to close out his final radio broadcast. With Grammer’s return to his beloved role, it’s a pleasure to find that while much has been taken from Frasier, including its iconic Seattle setting and most of its supporting cast, the series can still deliver a distinct brand of wry humor.

That’s largely thanks to Frasier himself, a role that still fits Grammer like a glove. All of the old mannerisms are still there: the sly smirk with which he tosses droll one-liners, the petted lip when someone sends one back, the furious glare when confronted with a crime against fashion or furnishing. And when the series becomes more reflective—like when Frasier talks about the passing of his father in a moment that also plays as tribute to the late actor John Mahoney—he can still cap 20-odd minutes of zany sitcom antics with a moment that rings true and sincere.

The new season finds Frasier returning to Boston and his alma mater, Harvard, to begin the next chapter in his life with a set of new friends—and a very old one, in the case of his longtime chum and Harvard psychology professor Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst), whose apathetic British wit harmonizes beautifully with Frasier’s own sardonic style. Through this old connection, he’s soon introduced to the psychology department’s vivacious head, Olivia (Toks Olagundoye), and she convinces him to take a teaching position at the university.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2u-eQgx5XY

When he’s not giving lectures or knocking back drinks with Alan and Olivia at the faculty bar, Frasier subsequently spends his time trying to reconnect with his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), who now works as a firefighter after cutting his own studies at Harvard short, much to his father’s chagrin. Where Frasier used to get his chops busted by his salt-of-the-earth father, Freddy is now the uniformed everyman who keeps his father’s ego in check. Similarly, Niles and Daphne’s son, David (Anders Keith), essentially serves as a carbon copy of his father. But while Cutmore-Scott injects a modern, mildly bro-ish energy to the series, Keith is left doing an impersonation of a character who turns out to be just as inimitable as he seemed.

Much like Grammer when he’s singing his famous “Tossed Salad and Scrambled Eggs” over the closing credits, Frasier knows how to play the hits. The first few episodes of the new season see the series dusting off classic conceits from its heyday. During the first episode (titled “The Good Father,” a neat callback to the original pilot, “The Good Son”) Frasier’s arrival in Boston quickly turns into a dinner party which quickly turns into a farce. In “First Class,” Frasier takes his first lecture and frets about being viewed as an entertainer rather than a real psychologist. And in “The Founder’s Society,” he, Olivia, and Alan begin a coordinated effort to gain entry into the titular club, only to immediately turn on each other when it turns out two spots are available.

These similarities root Frasier in the familiarity of sitcoms, but they also serve to make the places where the revival falls short that much more obvious. The writing simply isn’t on the same level as the original series. It wasn’t just the references to Greek epics and German operas that made Frasier such a sophisticated piece of situational comedy—it was the way in which every single joke had been polished into its smoothest, smartest form.

The revival relies on the same style of witty puns and double entendres as the original series, but the journey from setup to punchline is often clunkier. Even the fact that the new episodes are five to 10 minutes longer belies the fact that nothing here is quite as tight as in the original. But while Frasier isn’t the show that it was back in 1993, no show could be expected to be. It’s smart and consistently amusing—that which it is, it is.