While it was on the air, the sitcom Frasier was a phenomenon and broke all awards and audience records. It won no less than 37 Emmys, five of which were consecutive for Best Comedy Series. This record was only broken in 2016, with Game of Thrones. Frasier was a spin-off of another hit, the sitcom Cheers, and the dispute over which one was the best-divided fans. When it ‘returned’, still during the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2021, the new version of Frasier didn’t please so many people, but it guaranteed a second season, which arrived on the Paramount Plus platform a few months later than in the United States. I waited until Christmas to devour it.

A quick recap: Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) is a psychiatrist who used to live in Boston (at the time of Cheers), but who returns to his hometown, Seattle, to host a radio show. He had grown tired of his father, a retired police officer, Martin Crane (John Mahoney), and his brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce), who he competes with and irritates, also a psychiatrist. Upon arriving, due to health problems, Martin is forced to live with Frasier and their family life is full of twists and turns, all of them hilarious. At the radio station, KACL in Seattle, Frasier lives with a series of colleagues and listeners who are also funny, including the producer, Roz (Peri Gilpin), and the announcers, Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe (Dan Butler) and Gil Chesterton (Edward Hibbert), as well as the diabolical agent, Bebe Glazer (Harriet Sansom Harris).

In the reboot, Frasier returns to Boston to try to get closer to his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), now an adult and working as a firefighter (after dropping out of Harvard Medical School). It was the perfect opportunity to bring in some new faces, like Alan (Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst), Frasier’s old Oxford friend who has become a Harvard professor; the hilarious Olivia (Toks Olagundoye), Alan and Frasier’s boss in the university’s psychology department; Eve (Jess Salgueiro), Frasier and Freddy’s neighbor; and, in the absence of Niles and Daphne, her son, David (Anders Keith).

The first season, while I really enjoyed it, was a bit of a departure from Grammer’s comfort with the genre and character with his less experienced cast, even though the potential chemistry was there. Some old faces, like Roz, made cameos, and it looks like she’s back in the group for good, because she’s in several episodes of the second season, bringing with her the grown-up Alice (Greer Grammer). Another one that is here to stay is Frasier’s flirting, played by Patricia Heaton.

Frasier‘s main challenge is more than connecting a septuagenarian protagonist with a new audience: it is, more than 20 years later, to revive the studio sitcom genre, with its filmed theater cheers and quick and funny situations. Friends may be a hit among kids and keep the sitcom going, but it is nothing new, it is just a rerun. Frasier’s simplicity is a “love it or hate it” thing. I love it.

What was missing in the first season, the sense of identification with the characters and new dilemmas, which took a while to take off, is now resolved. There is a strength in the group that is essential in Frasier, the jokes roll both on those in front and those in the background of the scene and it is impossible not to laugh and feel good.

The biggest breakthrough of all was the initial weak link, Jack Cutmore-Scott, who made his jokes very clear, without letting us be fooled into thinking that they were improvised or authentic. He certainly made a lot of progress and now the relationship between Frasier and Freddy is believable, trying to reach the perfect marriage that was Niles and Frasier.

The two big “new” highlights are the characters Alan and Olivia. Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst is nothing short of brilliant, making us hate and love Alan, making us emotional and laugh with him, and giving us a perfect perspective on the friendship between Alan and Frasier. But, for me, the big star is Toks Olagundoye, with impeccable comic timing, bringing Olivia the fun that makes her necessary in a large number of sequences.

There are only 10 30-minute episodes, a quiet and inevitable marathon. There has been no talk of a third season yet, but I’m still rooting for it. And yes, I’m praying for at least some cameo from David Hyde-Pierce and Jane Leeves.

I want a long life for Frasier, it’s absurd that in the face of so many non-comedies strolling through the awards, content that is 1000% comedic is ignored. The joke is on us.

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