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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Frasier was on my backlog of stuff to watch. It's nice when my backlog clears itself like this.
Original Frasier is still one of the all time amazing shows. And that is almost entirely because of the "supporting cast" of David Hyde Pearce, John Mahoney, Jane Leeves, and Peri Gilpin. It is 100% still worth watching and it is even clear what episodes/seasons they were working around Grammer being coked out of his mind or otherwise problematic.
Its not quite Person of Interest's (paraphrasing only because I can't look up the specific wording right now) "he is like a dog that pissed everywhere and wouldn't stop talking about hitler" mess, but Grammer also generally seems more like a dumbass Bush-era Republican as opposed to a full alt-right lunatic. He is a piece of shit who has condoned a LOT of hate, but is also "a product of his time" as it were.
As for new Frasier? I am a lot less interested in watching that. Mostly because, as so many of us point out, "They did a Frasier spinoff starring the worst character"*
But OG Frasier? The show increasingly became focused around Niles (which makes sense since Niles was a lot closer to what Cheers-era Frasier actually was) and David Hyde Pearce put on multiple master classes as he and the writers somehow managed to perfectly capture "the adult millennial" years before we even existed. And so many of the interactions with Martin (Mahoney) hit so much harder as you have lived a lot longer and had to acknowledge the failings of others. Daphne and Roz were often stuck in comic relief mode, but Leeves and Gilpin still kick ass when they are given a chance to shine. And, piece of shit that he is, Grammer can pull off an epic monologue to close out an emotional arc and leave you on the verge of tears, right before you burst into laughter at the punchline.
*: Also, it very much bothers me that Freddy became Martin. Maybe they go into it more, but his childhood very much established him as the offspring of Frasier and Lilith. And while it makes sense that he would rebel against his overbearing parents to be like his fun and "man of the people" Grandfather, it is completely unearned. Maybe the back half of the season does that but... I still think that having one of Niles's children (maybe a daughter) as the Martin role would be a lot more fitting. Niles dealing with a Firefighter child is comedic gold and Niles and Daphne are much more likely to "let their kids be who they are". And it would play on The Moon Genes fears of the last few episodes.
I would have given the benefit of the doubt until the Roseanne part. My condolences to the good people whose creative work will go unseen.
flushing sounds
We're still in his time. I don't think we should excuse people by saying they're a product of their time until they've been dead for a while.
Its not excusing so much as acknowledging the different tiers of asshattery.
If you want to go full zero tolerance: more power to you. But you also are going to more or less have nothing to watch
This is amazing, gonna use it
I don’t know that I’d list Frazier as one of the all time amazing shows. That’s something I’d reserve for shows like Schitt’s Creek, Good Place, and The Wire. A show like MASH. All in the Family, which surfaced so much of what was happening in society at the time. The Jeffersons.
I’d rank Frasier closer to something like Friends or Dharma and Greg. Definitely below Seinfeld or 30 Rock. It was funny. It had good writers and the characters exhibited a chemistry that made the show work as a show, but beyond that it was pretty ephemeral. That’s just my opinion.
A lot of it is the idea of "seinfeld isn't funny". Seinfeld was fairly revolutionary at the time because of how it approached humor, pacing, and even character "design". It is just that it also influenced almost every single show that came after season 3 or 4 so a lot of people who didn't "grow up with it" won't really "appreciate it". But that also manifests it as being the kind of show that "ages well". Its why TBS still shows Seinfled reruns to this day and people still go for a re-watch.
And Frasier is very much in that same category. Character arcs were very much ahead of their time and the nuance that Niles, Martin, and even Frasier were allowed to have still stands up today (and puts the reboot to shame). Its "cheating", but there is a reason that Cheers, which was arguably the most popular sitcom on television during its run, is now mostly viewed as the show Frasier spun out of. Its the kind of writing and pacing that largely could be on TV today... because it was so influential.
Friends is the odd one out. And I think, ignoring all of the "Wow everyone was horrible" and "Ross is a psychopath" memes: It very much defined what shows like How I Met Your Mother would become. I don't think it holds up anywhere near as well as Frasier, but that is also because Frasier largely ended a year after their shit season and had the payoff of Niles and Daphne's child. Friends... continued for another five or six with the main thread being "Oh, I guess we are doing a will they or won't they with Ross and Rachel again?"
Like, you reference The Good Place which I also put as one of the all time greats. And that, as well as Parks and Rec before it, very much benefited from shows like Frasier that show you can truly do the multi-season emotional arcs in a sitcom where you alternatingly laugh and cry. And Chidi has a LOT of Crane DNA in him as he is simultaneously mocked for being a "hoity toity, barely functioning, intellectual" while also having so much of the show's emotional and narrative weight put on his shoulders. We laugh as he has a nervous breakdown over having the future of everything put on him but we are also right there with him and rooting for him to find The Answer. He is a goober but, bah gawd, he is OUR goober and if he needs to make a big vat of chili to function then let's go to the mother fucking store.
Sometimes you have shows like Veronica Mars. It was SPECTACULAR for what it was but... not a lot of people are going to be arguing for newbies to really watch it. But it also laid a lot of the groundwork for shows like iZombie which... look, I love that show but I am also not going to really be encouraging people to watch it at this point. Whereas Jessica Jones has a LOT of the same DNA and... Season 1 of that is spectacular and holds up.
Whereas something like MASH is arguably the genesis of a lot of "very special episodes" that everyone hates. But it very much popularized the idea of "the sad clown" dealing with horrible stress and strain (which would be the basis of shows like ER and even House) as well as a willingness to "poke fun at" some truly important contemporary issues even while giving them the respect they deserve. Which was obviously important in the 70s (hmmm) but is also a direct ancestor of shows like Boston Legal and Brooklyn 99 (and even The Good Place) that aren't afraid to acknowledge things like systemic racism while also making us laugh because... the alternative is to just shut down. And while I don't hear as many people say "you should watch MASH in 2023", its best episodes are still held up as masterpieces.
And while I think All in the Family needs a lot more credit than it deserves, it was very much more of "a very special episode" rather than blending. And The Jeffersons (and the first season or so of Family Matters) is similarly incredibly influential but suffers from being "a black show". Whereas something like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air found a way to get that to a wider audience who won't clutch their pearls if they see Tyler Perry on screen.
This is expert level TV reviewing, thanks for the insights.
Schitts Creek?? Surprised to see it next to those other names. I mean it was great, but The Good Place and The Wire were on a whole different level IMO
I'd rank it above Seinfeld and way above Dharma and Greg, but I'm curious what made it stand out so much for you
Schitt’s Creek was a pretty big deal in the LGBT community. It was among the first shows that portrayed LGBT people and relationships in a purely positive light.
The Levy’s main concept for the show was to show a town that was without prejudice - an aspirational perspective to make more palpable what it could be like if there wasn’t strong undercurrents of ideologies like racism and homophobia.
A frequent criticism of the portrayal of black Americans in American media is that there’s frequently a negative narrative that shares the storyline. While it’s important to surface those uncomfortable aspects of our culture, it doesn’t have to be everywhere. It’s the same with the LGBT community.
As a queer person who has been politically involved since the days of ACT UP, I’m very aware of how our community is portrayed in media. Homophobia was very much a part of mainstream American entertainment throughout most of my life. It was played up for laughs with either straight characters being scandalized that they were perceived as gay, or gay characters who played to uniformly campy stereotypes, or making homophobic politics and violence an integral part of the storyline. That’s not to say that shows like Queer as Folk weren’t also landmarks, but that was more of a for us by us kind of thing. Schitt’s Creek is a sitcom that’s intended to be enjoyed by everyone.
I mean, I grew up in a time when people like Elton John and Boy George felt like they couldn’t be fully out, and Rock Hudson was completely closeted. I think that shows like Schitt’s Creek help with the perception and normalization of the LGBT community and relationships.
LMAO, I say it all the time when shitting on Disney virtue signaling, stopping a show to get up on a soapbox just makes the show worse and convinces no one of anything they don't already believe, and making them a trope doesn't really help either
If you want to actually reduce bigotry, you normalize it... And apparently they succeeded, since the only time I remember thinking about it was going "oh wait, is he bi?" When they introduced that (I remember it being slightly ambiguous for a couple scenes)
Ok, the show deserves some credit when you put it in this context... Looking back at what I remember from the show, they did it very well.
Like at first, he's stereotypical and super flamboyant, but they're all caricatures anyways. Playing into the tropes probably made his orientation less threatening for someone a bit homophobic. They just let that sit for a while without any romance on his part
Then I think brought up he had an ex gf after a season or two? Which is a nice curve ball to make people question their assumptions, and then they eased into it and made the plotline with the ridiculous sitcom love triangle, and they made it about that while having very little actual pda on screen...I remember a kiss or two, but it was pretty overshadowed by the awkward situation... An amazing way to desensitize someone (it feels weird because it's awkward sitcom nonsense, so a good person a little weirded out by seeing guys kiss doesn't feel called out, and the emotions get triggered and directed to an appropriate target)
I binge sitcoms over a few days while I work or game, so I remember less as the seasons go on... It was good on the surface, I'm going to give it a rewatch looking deeper
Thanks for sharing. My biggest passion is the way technology could shape us for the better, so I find this very cool
The Levys were following an uniquely Canadian comedy tradition about not punching down people in small towns. If Schitt's Creek had been American there would be a strong chance that there would have been homophobic character who becomes the butt of the joke, who's there to make the audience go "Haha, stupid hick."
Dan Levy said in an interview with Vulture:
If the Levys had gone the way of punching down onto small town people, I don't think Schitts Creek would have been as effective in getting people to re-evaluate the beliefs.
Isaac Cabe's article As 'Schitt's Creek' Ends, Let's Appreciate Some Canadian Comedy, Eh? really highlights this uniquely Canadian comedy tradition.
I absolutely agree, and thank you for explaining it better than I did.
Hey, you like what you like. Nothing wrong with that. But Frasier set the record for most Emmys won (excluding SNL) for a TV show- it won 37 over its run. That record was only beat in 2016 by Game of Thrones. There's nothing wrong with not liking Frasier, but being the current third-most-awarded show in television history says a lot about its quality.
I get that and I agree. I’m just differentiating between shows that were transformative for their viewers and ones that were “just” popular shows. Sometimes you get a crossover, like MASH, which was a very strong voice for post-Vietnam era America in which the idea of war and military service had begun to transform. We’ve lost ground on that one, of course, post-Reagan and especially after 9/11.
Like I said in another response, I see Schitt’s Creek as transformative in how it portrays LGBT persons and relationships by deliberately crafting a world in which prejudices (like racism and homophobia) do not exist. There are a number of shows that have over time led to the greater acceptance and normalization of the LGBT community, such as Queer Eye, but even a lot of those play to high camp tropes, and shows like Drag Race target the queer-and-ally communities more than being just a straight forward (sorry, couldn’t resist) sitcom.
In just my lifetime, we went from a world where Rock Hudson was closeted, Elton John and Boy George were flamboyant but not officially out, and where Nathan Lane worried that his epic role in The Birdcage would make people realize that he’s gay. There’s a great story behind that one. Before that you had the gay-coded villains like Vincent Price and comedians like Rip Taylor. Taylor never came out. Neither did Liberace.
I cite the Jeffersons similarly because the show came out as black Americans were moving from a civil rights struggle to a feeling of acceptance for and from the white American communities. The theme song Moving On Up embodied that social dynamic, while All in the Family lampooned the alternative vision of the white blue collar racist whose excuse was that he was just an “ordinary guy.”
I’d feel differently if Fraiser were to take a similar approach to mental health issues - normalizing and humanizing them, instead of playing them for gags. In my opinion, it was mostly about class dynamics with most of the humor involving the disconnect between the egotistical educated elite versus the real world. Contrast Fraiser’s relationship with his patients with that of the psychologist Sidney Friedman on MASH. By our standards today we could look at MASH and see homophobia and rampant sexism, but for its time it was humanizing, and Arbus’ character played into that narrative in most of his appearances.
Awards are awards, and at the end of the day they represent the opinions of the industry. I’m absolutely not saying they don’t matter. But people who watch a show like The Good Place (which explores absolutely fundamental issues of ethics and philosophy while still being a brilliant sitcom) have the power to change the way people think.
Wait, what was that about Person of Interest?
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Yeah. Caviezel is one of the very few people in hollywood who makes mel gibson look "not that bad"
It is truly amazing how the POI production crew managed to get such a good show out of him. And it makes it even funnier every time they put Reese in a mask so that they could have a fight scene where stuntment wouldn't be at risk of being murdered.
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Jesus! This is Steven Segal or Kevin Sorbp level crazy.
A bunch of anal retentive closet homosexuals eating cheese in a cramped apartment, yeah top comedy right there.
I mean... no Niles, no care
Yep! Buh bye now. Buh bye.
One must seperate the art from the artist. Do u also avoid listening to michael jackson?
One doesn't have to, if one doesn't want to. I don't listen much to Michael Jackson (though I have a soft spot for Thriller), but I'm also not 100% sold on the allegations made against him.
Sure u dont have to do anything. But if are to hold urself to ur own standards u set for urself you have cut urself off from a majority of art throughout history. For example by ur own standards then u cant look at anything by Caravaggio, Paul Gauguin, Richard Wagner, Jackson Pollock, etc etc. Whats the purpose of artwork if not to express something. Can you express anything if an artwork is to be judge by ur charecter and not by itself?
I draw the line at the artist's life. I think there's a world of difference between appreciating a Van Gogh, and buying a book by J. K. Rowling. Van Gogh terrorized a woman and sent her his ear, but he's dead, so any "support" I give him doesn't help him. Whereas J. K. Rowling and Kelsey Grammer are alive and supported by their art. And I refuse to be part of that support.
So pirating it would solve ur issues? U can enjoy the art seperated from author without having to support them.
Sure, if I was that motivated. Though there is the question of how much his world view is expressed in his work, and how much I want to expose myself to it. But at the end of the day, I've gone, what, 30 years without watching Frasier? I don't need to see it. There are plenty of other TV shows I can watch.
U said it was in ur backlog all ur issues have been solved other than potentialy exposing urself to an ideology u disagree with. Why dont u wanna expose urself to an idealogy u disgree with? Are you scared that it might change your mind?
Ohh and for the record idk what a fraser is and have absolutly no idea what sort of beliefs are in it.
Toxic ideologies have a way of coloring your thinking. When I listen to far right nut jobs, racists, sexists and other lunatics I feel stressed and anxious. So, why should I listen to them?
I'm all for discourse and discussion when there are two legitimate competing viewpoints, but not when one of the two viewpoints espouses hate and vitriol. I'm too old to waste my time on that.
Also, if you don't know what Frasier is, why are you invested in convincing me to watch it? Or were you trying to make fun of my spelling while using "u" and "ur"?
Real question: is looking illiterate worth the two letter savings?
U know what grammar nazis and regular nazis have in common? They both found there ideology in moronic concepts of purity.
Lol
Right wingers and remembering death of the author whenever it turns out the author is a shithead, name a more iconic duo
So ur saying an artwork should not be judged on the merit of its content but the merit of it creator?