Has Frasier jumped the shark?

[sonyab]

i love frasier! huge fan.. but when freddy became 13 again and had a bar mitzvah the show jumped the shark head first but then when they had the episode of niles and his heart problem the show jumped out of the water and was ok again. i loved that epiode i was so worried for niles.. the episode where lillith asked fraiser for a favor and wanted his sperm to make a baby the show was very close to the water and then at the end of the show when they both changed their minds the show stayed far away from the water.. good ending.. that episode bothed me cus why would she just want his sperm and not want to sleep with him? she was manipulating him and giving him the guilt trip i mean come on? why would she treat him like that? how old is she anyway? 40? 50? i love this show its very funny.. i loved frasier ever since cheers

[Mcfly]

45 is a little old to have a child, but can be done, so I wasn't bothered by it too much.

I feel the show "jumped" after Daphne and Niles ran off at his wedding. The show just wasn't funny anymore (for me) and started slogging thru episodes (most fans will tell you that took a lot of the spark out of the show, too). Niles heart scare was silly (Daphne and the candy machine was one of the biggest "Oh, please" moments ever) and Frasier's labored romance with that bitchy single mom was grating on me.

Just recently though (the last 4 or 5 shows) things have improved a little. But NBC jumped the gun singing them to three more seasons last year with the ratings falling. Hopefully 2004 will be it.

[Brian Damage]

The show may have lost a little steam, but overall I think the show is still pretty strong.

[peter may]

Unfortunately, I think it has jumped the shark, I am still a fan and buy the videos of it. I think iy should be cancelled now as it has gotten way too much like a drama.

i still watch though!

[Samsgirl xo]

its degraded this year. the lilith episodes that have been on have been rediculous... i wish they had more of the same, but how much more can you push a show to keep going?

[trekkie]

FRASIER is dead. The show had such a great premise when it began ... Frasier is a talk show host surrounded by such hilarious co-workers, and his brother is infactuated with his father's caretaker.
Now, Niles is together with Daphne, some of the greatest characters from the earlier days are gone and the writers have run out of ideas.
Kelsey Grammar is very talented, and David Hyde Pierce is wonderful at comedy (I've seen him in dramatic roles; he's not very good at drama; his true gift is comedy).
But as a whole, FRASIER is just hanging on by a thread now.

[Valma]

Frasier's not dead for me! I still am enjoying the show as much as I ever did (and I think it still can outshine *anything* else on the tube currently). The plots have shifted their focus over the years (that only makes sense really - it can't possibly be the same show it was in the beginning - too many things have happened in the characters' lives since the show started), but if you care about the characters there is still lots going on to keep your interest.

As far as the talent involved - Kelsey G. is very good in the main role and has made the most of that character over the many years he has played it.

I disagree with part of your remarks about David Hyde Pierce. He is not just a wonderful comedic actor - he is a brilliant actor - PERIOD! He has an extensive background in theatre work involving both drama and comedy (he's done Chekov, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Kondoleon and Shaw). For his dramatic role in the television series "The Outer Limits" he won a (well deserved) Cable Ace award (the episode was titled "The Sentence"). I saw him on stage in L.A. in "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" and was moved to tears with his sweeping performance (nominated for a best actor for the Ovation Award for that role). Even though "Full Frontal" wasn't a financial success, DHP was magnificent in the very complex role of Carl (the "heart and soul" character of that movie) - his dramatic scenes were done with such conviction they could have ripped your heart out. Embedded in the slagheap of criticism that was thrown (undeservedly IMO) at that film were many words of very high praise for DHP's efforts. Yes, he is great at *any* type of comedy, but he's much, much more than that as well. :-)

[trekkie]

Personally, I didn't think he was great in that episode of Outer Limits.
But, to each his own

And I do care about the characters in FRASIER; I just find that the show has lowered in quality, mainly because Niles and Daphne got together.

Now, the story's are just your standard sitcom fare that the show originally attempted to stray away from.

[ClairForsyth]

Frasier so jumped the shark - three years ago, when Niles and Daphne got together. Which is a shame, because they couldn't have played the pining-lustful-Niles angle for much longer without killing the show either. I think the problem is less the character pairings and more the writing, it's declined terribly over the last few years. It used to be smart and witty and erudite and so sharp. Now it's just bland, and the occasional jokes that make me laugh don't have any of the high humor that used to be the show's trademark, they're jokes any halfway decent sitcom writer could have churned out. The actors are still wonderful but they're given less and less funny stuff to do. I agree that David H-P and the rest of them can do drama as well as comedy, but it's a sitcom, so they wind up with weak drama mixed with a lot of weak laughs, which is never good. I think it's been a bad career move for the actors, sticking with the show this long - getting typecast's bad enough without getting typecast in a boring, outplayed role. I wish they'd canceled this show immediately after they got Niles and Daphne together. It would have left me with much happier memories. Now I'm just waiting for it to go off the air, and hoping that they won't run the last few seasons too often in syndication once it's canceled.

[Valma]

If you truly feel that way , my question is - why do you still watch it? It's a television programme for crying out loud - turn the channel and find something else to watch. There are plenty of shows that I used to watch, but when I found that I didn't enjoy them any longer (because of the writing, change of cast or whatever reason) I stopped watching - no regrets (The X-Files for one, and Law and Order for another).

As for your broad sweeping statement about the writing, I can think of lots of episodes in the last few years that I would stack up against earlier ones. In fact "Daphne Returns" and "Bla-Z-y Boy" are two of my all time favourites and are better written for my money than most of the earlier episodes (and they had the monumental task of being the "tenth bite of the apple" rather than the first one, in the minds of the viewers!).

Tonight I re-watched "The Wizard and Roz" and was amazed at how clever the writing was and how well constructed the plot was. A lot of subtle lines just bypassed me the first time I saw it and only on repeated viewings could I catch everything.

As far as the accusation that Frasier has got all dramatic now - well right from the start, the show always infused dramatic elements into its storylines (The Good Son, the premiere, had some very tense moments in it), so it hasn't been the completely "feel good laugh fest" that some people seem to want to make it out as.

Another point - the typecasting comment. For what it's worth, DHP was probably in jeopardy of being typecast after about the third or fourth season (long before the Winnebago show). Even if they had ended the show when Niles and Daphne ran off together, that problem would have existed, so that point is rather moot. I don't think on the industry side of things, it makes one whit of difference about the *exact* length of time or a tail-end judgement in a highly decorated and honoured career, as to future employment possibilities for any of the cast members. With a resume like DHP's and the hardware that he has collected, he is either going to get a role or not. If he doesn't, it certainly isn't going to be because some thought that the ending years of Frasier was weak.

With the cast positioning themselves in movies, T.V. movies, live stage theatre productions, producing roles etc. for life after Frasier, I don't think that their careers are in trouble in the near future. DHP's new movie effort "Down with Love" seems to have all the earmarks of something that a lot of people will go to see (so he hasn't done too badly for someone who has been typecast). His play "Six Dance Lessons..." was a smash hit that was held over for many weeks longer than it was scheduled.

Not too shabby, eh? :-))

[trekkie]

FYI, I don't watch FRASIER anymore. I haven't watched the show in months, the quality has gone so downhill.

[ClairForsyth]

Well, I guess I shouldn't talk. I stopped watching it (except for the occasional episode here and there) awhile back, when it just didn't seem worth my time anymore. The final straw for me was what they did to Donny's character in the season opener. It was bad enough that there was no humor in that episode without their bringing Donny back solely for the purpose of smashing him underfoot for the sake of a couple of cheap laughs. I always liked Donny, and Mel, too - they contributed a lot to the arc of the Niles/Daphne get-together season, whichever season that was. I think it says a lot about the show that they used to care enough to treat secondary characters like that with respect, and now they just don't.

I don't know episode titles, but I assume Bla-Z-Boy is the episode where Martin's chair gets burned up and dropped off the balcony. That episode, I will concede, was as good as most of the early stuff. But it's one of the very few episodes in the last few seasons that have been, in my opinion. If Daphne Returns is the episode where she comes back from the fat camp (and as a plus-sized woman, can I just say that I was horrified at the type of stereotypical fat jokes they threw at her during that season?) then I hated that episode. I agree that he idealized her, but I hated the idea that he could just say "Okay, I'm not idealizing you anymore, now let's have sex!" When you realize that the object of your affections is not the perfect person you thought she was, it can take weeks to recover and adjust your viewpoint. (This is experience talking again.) I hated that whole stupid plotline. They should have just hidden her abdomen behind Martin's Barcalounger and had done with it.

And I'm glad a lot of the episodes are funnier on a repeat viewing, but sitcoms shouldn't be written so that the viewer has to watch an episode more than once to get most of the humor. Most people don't tape this stuff - it's got one shot. Subtlety's excellent in its place, but I miss watching the show and being able to laugh through it. There has been nothing in the last few seasons that can match the episode where they're all at the ski lodge and everyone's trying to seduce everyone else, or the tango episode - see, they could do drama mixed with comedy properly back then! - or the episode where Frasier's dating the woman who looks like this mother, or even that episode early on where Frasier and Niles just sit and talk over coffee for the whole episode.

You can see I used to be a devoted viewer. I miss the show. But I do think it's lost almost all its sparkle by now. Or it had by the beginning of this season, which is when I stopped watching regularly.

[Frasierfan1983]

I discovered Frasier when season 4 first aired in the UK, and since then I have been a devoted fan and have managed to catch up with almost every episode before that.

I have to say, though, that when you compare new episodes with earler episodes, there is almost no doubt that quality has declined. Not necessarily in each episode- more a case of there being a smaller number of great episodes in a season than there used to be.

Take season 5, for example. A perfect mix of hilarious episodes ('The Ski Lodge', 'The Perfect Guy', 'Voyage of the Damned'), episodes with dramatic or interesting plot twists ('The Maris Counselor' - when Niles decides to divorce, 'Room Service' - when Lilith sleeps with Niles) and some that managed to do both ('Halloween' - Very funny, but Roz discovers she's pregnant at the end). This string of great episodes all in one season has never been matched since.

On the other hand, I believe that Frasier is still well worth watching simply because it would be, for me, heartbreaking to let the characters go. More importantly though, there are still some great episodes. Even this season there have been a few - and I hear it's getting better.

Also, I don't really go with the idea that Frasier has been on a downward slope all the time. Seasons have fluctuated in my opinion. For example, I thought that several of the episodes in the first season were poor, and also that the second and fourth were both better than the third in between them.

I guess that Frasier did lose its magic when the Niles' unrequited love thing had to be eliminated from the plotlines, although I thought the Season 7 finale was an incredible episode.

To conclude, I live in faint hope that Frasier can improve once more, but don't hold me to it...

[Striel]

I don't think that Frasier has "jumped the shark" just yet. It has its bad episodes but all in all, I think the show has picked up this season.