Shrinking returns: analysing the pros and cons of a Frasier reboot

There’s going to be a Frasier reboot. According to reports, plans for a revival are still at the exploratory stage, but that just seems like a formality. Frasier was a sitcom from the past so, adhering to the rule stating that all sitcoms from the past must be remade in 2018, there’s going to be a Frasier reboot.

Let’s just accept this as fact. Your arguments about creative redundancy died when Roseanne came back and died and came back again as a spin-off. Anything goes now. There’s no point complaining about preserving the integrity of a perfect sitcom, because money trumps that. A Frasier reboot will make money, so there’s definitely going to be a Frasier reboot.

Once you’ve put these reservations to one side, the idea actually makes a lot of sense. Primarily, it makes sense to Kelsey Grammer. Frasier came off the air 14 years ago, and Grammer has struggled to find a role as perfect ever since. Back to You, Hank, Boss, The Last Tycoon all sank without trace after a handful of episodes. He currently provides the voice of Blinky in a Netflix cartoon about trolls. You’d be angling for a Frasier reboot if you were him, too.

But it also makes a lot of sense to me, because Frasier was an incredible sitcom. It was pompous and highbrow in a way that many of today’s mainstream sitcoms just aren’t, and often treated its episodes like a grand repertory stage farce.

An episode like 1998’s The Ski Lodge, where multiple characters roamed around a custom-built set mistakenly looking for sex is an incredible work of comic precision. It’s arguably the closest that television sitcom has ever got to Alan Ayckbourn. There’s an oral history of that particular episode which is worth a read if you want to hear about the back-breaking work that went into making it. And, honestly, if the reboot even comes close to having a scene as tremendous as Buttons and Bows, the whole series will be worth it.

Better yet, if a Deadline report is to be believed, this will be no straight remake either. Instead it’ll be a new show with new writers, a new setting and a new tone. Which is risky, but that’s exactly what Frasier was. He started life as a broadly pernickety side-character on Cheers, but blossomed into something richer and more interesting when he upped sticks for Seattle in Frasier. The character has made the leap once to huge success. Who’s to say it won’t happen again?

There are a few worries, however. Most notably John Mahoney, who played Frasier’s father Martin, died in February. It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of Martin in Frasier. He was a classic counterpoint figure; the rugged and blue-collar flipside to his milquetoast sons. Without him there to ground the Crane brothers’ flights of fancy, there’s a good chance that the Frasier reboot will twist in the wind.

Plus, there is the Kelsey Grammer issue. In an age of extreme sensitivity, where film directors get sacked for old tweets and the highest-rated show on television gets cancelled thanks to its star’s political views, it’s worth remembering that Grammer – a Trump-endorsing Tea Party supporter who once Instagrammed a photo of himself wearing a T-shirt that likened abortion to gun violence – isn’t exactly a safe bet. Indeed, it might not take much more than a screening of his 2008 film An American Carol (in which a Michael Moore analogue is taught that patriotism is the only thing stopping America from being overrun with Islamic terrorists) to give executives cold feet about the whole idea.

But screw it. Let’s give it a whirl anyway. Let’s have a reboot where Frasier moves back to Boston after losing his radio show. That way an entire city can play the role of his father and keep him in his place. Let’s make it eight parts funny to two parts sad. And let’s keep Kelsey Grammer off the internet until it’s been broadcast. It can’t go wrong.