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Reviews
Frasier: The Show Where Sam Shows Up (1995)
Sam is back
Sam as a character is funnier in this appearance than he is in probably 60% of Cheers episodes - here he doesn't have to play the straight man in quite the same way.
The effect Sam has on Roz and Daphne is hilarious, possibly inspiring Idris Elba's appearance in The Office (US) ("I am aware of the effect I have on women.")
Great lines include:
"It glows in the dark." "So do I."
"Who, me?"
"Believe me, no ball player is in Seattle because of the Mariners."
"She's one in a million." "For most guys, that's just an expression."
"Will she still take you back?" *laughing*
"And that was she?!" "No Niles, I told you that for absolutely no reason whatsoever."
It's also interesting that, purely for the purposes of a gag, Niles mentions "a congenital heart murmur that would plague me for the rest of my life" - 6 or so seasons later, Niles will undergo heart surgery and everyone will act as if it came out of nowhere.
Frasier: You Scratch My Book... (1995)
Some of the best writing in the entire run
The whole episode is great but the scene between Frasier and Niles after Daphne returns having bought her new coat ("spending like a drunken yuppie") is just a 5-minute pummel of brilliant lines:
"It's the world's oldest profession. Granted this is sort of the Walt Disney version..."
"It's noble. It's altruistic. It's fun, and you can't make me stop."
"Your woman is ENGLISH!"
"It's just going to take a little while to climb down off this particular high horse."
"That's the manager's special at Farmer Jack's Chicken Chicken Chicken"
Also, later: "your bag boy has arrived"
Frasier is a profound sap at heart but he, unusually, comes good in this episode by being honest (too honest, in the end) with Honey. He often clumsily offends women (undeservedly), such as when he schedules three dates on three consecutive nights, but in this instance he tells a hack she is a hack - he will get over it, and he can hold his head high.
Frasier: Caught in the Act (2004)
Among the best episodes of the whole run
In the pantheon of great Frasier episodes, most will naturally be from the earlier seasons, but they keep coming right until the end of the run, even if they do get less frequent. This is right up there, even just on the basis of the gag about playing the same character for 20 years, which is perfect and basically unique. It took 20 years to set up that gag...
Laurie Metcalfe is brilliant and it's always a treat to delve into Frasier's past (because so much of it is on screen). The final act is frantic and absurd and farcical and completely hilarious in the truest tradition of the comedy farce, piling laugh on top of laugh. A great episode.
Frasier: Freudian Sleep (2004)
The least good episode of Frasier
It's not a bad half hour of TV but by Frasier's standards, the dream sequences in particular make for a poor episode with very simplistic themes and not a huge number of actual laughs. However, on a recent rewatch I noticed that the first 10 minutes of this episode (before they get to the cabin, essentially) is brilliant and could easily take place in any of the first few seasons. Running out of Sherry is among the great Frasier gags, full stop, and Grammer's delivery of the line "her honesty was not refreshing" is among his most hilarious. If only once they reached the cabin we got something of the calibre of the Ski Lodge.
Frasier: Goodnight, Seattle: Part 2 (2004)
One of the great TV finales
There are plenty of great series which have underwhelming or overly-syrupy finales. Frasier ends on the highest of notes after a couple of seasons which divide opinion (though I still think season 11, while a little bumpy, contains 4 or 5 of the best episodes in the entire run, this one included). The Tennyson poem probably wouldn't have worked in anybody else's hands, but it fits so well with the character and the tone of the piece that it brings tears to my eyes, even though I've seen it dozens of times. It's also worth mentioning that this final episode contains one of the show's best ever gags - when Martin sits on the Eames chair which Frasier has put in place of the awful recliner, and Martin says that he would have been fine with the Eames all along. That's a gag which took 11 seasons to set up, and it was worth it.