Some Thoughts on a Sequel to Frasier

Currently there are how many revivals of old TV shows on the air? And how many have been on the air lately? So it was inevitable that people would start talking about reviving Frasier. Also, to be fair, Kelsey Grammer’s post-Frasier career hasn’t been greatr. Though I did like his short-lived show Boss, which was flawed but had moments of greatness, and he was very good in the film Like Father.

The revival is an interesting idea. It would be about the execution, of course. And require good writers. But it’s possible to imagine a show about a man who is either facing retirement or has just retired, and trying to come to terms with what that means. About getting old. His father has passed away, he’s lost friends recently. His son is grown and maybe he sees him struggle with some of the same things that he struggled with at that age, and finds himself unable to help his son. 

There are jokes about what it means to be the son of psychologists and psychiatrists, so being the son of two…

It would be about a man’s relationship with his ex-wife, the mother of his son, who he will always love and always loathe and they find themselves spending more time together. Not that they’ll ever be together again, but they find comfort in their shared history, in not having to explain themselves, with someone who knows them. And they like that the other will call each other on their crap. And because they’re divorced, they don’t necessarily have to do anything about it or care. It’s a dance and as psychiatrists they recognize it, but they’re both okay with it.

Imagine a show about a couple, each on their second marriage, which is happier than their first marriages were. They have no children, but he has one from his first marriage that they both get on with. They’re not unhappy per se, but they feel like something is missing.

Where would it be set? In Chicago, where Frasier moved at the end of the final episode? Back to Seattle? Back to Boston?

Of course so much depends on the supporting cast. Would Laura Linney sign on? Would David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leaves return? Wendie Malick as their father’s widow? Roz? Some of the gang from Cheers?

But that idea of a comedy about aging. About trying to make sense of one’s life. About looking at the end of one’s life.

Because Cheers and Frasier were about unhappiness in so many respects. They were about being unfulfilled and unsatisfied with life and one’s choices. Just as Frasier was in so many ways about middle age, this would have to be a show about old age. About realizing that he’s turning into his father in many ways.

About recognizing that he didn’t have a bad life, he didn’t have an unhappy life, but he didn’t live the life he aspired to. He didn’t live his dreams. He didn’t lead this exceptional life that he wanted to when he was young. And what it means to brought short by time to realize that he never will. What does it mean that he has found a way to be happy. And how does he confront this last final challenge.