These episodes were on Hallmark tonight and it reminded me of something I've noticed with them.

I think that these episodes, particularly part one, might have suffered some serious shifting in the editing room. I think the original plan was for us to think that Niles and Roz slept together, but for whatever reasons (probably time) they edited the episode together differently. Here's why I think that:
The episode starts out with the two of them having a friendly, chance meeting in Nervosa, with Kit waiting on them. They commiserated about not having dates on a Saturday night and neither surprised to see the other there. A little further into the episode we see Frasier confronting Roz about her having had an affair with someone, and I think the original plan was for that scene to stop short of her saying it was Bulldog at that time. In the meantime, Frasier also finds out about Niles ordering the earrings and jumps to the conclusion that he's reunited with Maris, while we were probably meant to wonder if it was Roz that Niles was with. So Frasier goes over to Niles's apartment and this dialogue is most telling, when Niles says something like "You know about this? How do you even know about this?" And when Frasier says "how did this get started?" (while he thinks it's Maris and we were likely meant to suspect it was Roz) Niles says "well, we had coffee at Nervosa, and that led to a movie which led to dinner, and we've been pretty much inseparable since, and to tell you the truth, we're kind of happy about it." Then as the scene continues and we learn about Kit, the next scene would be the rest of the scene in the booth where we learn Roz's affair was with Bulldog. If you rearrange the scenes a bit, it makes total sense with the dialogue and with it being a few episodes after "Decoys," where they sort of toyed with the idea of Niles and Roz as a couple. It also puts purpose to the mystery they were building about who slept with whom, and to the storyline of Roz's affair with Bulldog, because as it stands right now, that affair just sort of sticks out there without much of a purpose in that episode.

I think most of the episode was supposed to go as is, other than a little shift in the order of scenes meant to make us think it was Roz and Niles together. If you didn't see these episodes tonight and you have time, pull your dvd's out and see what you think. :)

I haven't watched this in ages but I do prefer watching on my DVD's instead of Hallmark or Lifetime b/c they tend to chop the episodes up. Seriously, I can't understand why they do that when they are edited for commercials anyway. Such a pain.