“Good Afternoon, Seattle. I’m listening.” Dr. Frasier Crane’s iconic catchphrase has not been uttered on the KACL 780 airwaves for over 20 years.
Nevertheless, Kelsey Grammer’s stuffy radio psychiatrist is returning to his hometown for a particular Seattle-themed episode in season two of the Frasier revival on Paramount+.
Thus far, the revival has adopted the titular Frasier in Boston, the place he has been educating at Harvard and dealing on bettering his relationship along with his son, Freddy.
The sitcom was initially in Seattle to make Frasier’s journey and new begin away from Boston (and his roots on Cheers) extra profound. On the time, no person might have anticipated that the present would go on to win numerous awards and outline Seattle for a era of tv followers.
Returning to Seattle is greater than merely a nostalgia journey for followers, it’s essential for the present’s plot going ahead. Frasier’s longtime producer, Roz Doyle (performed by Peri Gilpin) made a shock look in the course of the season one finale, however she is ready to play a extra substantial position within the present going ahead.
“The return to Seattle was a perform of making an attempt to get Roz into our world, organically, with an actual purpose to be there,” says Grammer. “Seattle doesn’t work anymore, her daughter lives on the East Coast and she will embrace an entire new life.”
The Seattle-themed episode will see Frasier and Roz return to KACL 780, and can characteristic cameos from Dan Butler as Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe, Edward Hibbert as Gil Chesterton, and Harriet Sansom Harris as Frasier’s agent, Bebe Glazer. Returning to shoot the episode, says Gilpin, was an “emotional expertise.”
“Every part was the identical. The set was the identical, the studio was the identical, however we have been totally different. On the similar time, there was one thing surprising and unhappy about it, however we have been laughing our heads off and having enjoyable. You miss the outdated days however that forces you to embrace at this time and be right here now and go on from right here. That’s over, it’s gone.”
Jack Cutmore-Scott portrays Freddy Crane, Frasier’s son. Regardless of not being a part of the unique sitcom, he echoes Gilpin’s sentiments concerning the “emotional” return to KACL as he witnessed the forged return after so a few years.
“It was magic. We have been there when all of them revisited this set for the primary time in 20 years and it was deeply emotional. We’re on the periphery however seeing Peri, Dan, Gil and Kelsey come again onto the radio station set was fairly particular.”
It took twenty years for Roz and Frasier to reunite, however for Gilpin and Grammer, it was extremely pure to step again into that world and discover that the chemistry that helped outline the unique sequence nonetheless exists.
“It’s completely pure. It’s like a shorthand, you take a look at one another and that it’s nonetheless there. They know find out how to play one another,” says Grammer.
The dynamic between its actors—not simply Grammer and Gilpin’s Frasier and Roz, however David Hyde Pierce’s Niles, Jane Leeves’s Daphne, and John Mahoney’s Martin, was what made the present probably the most profitable and well-liked sitcoms of the last decade. And all these years later, nonetheless offers it a timeless high quality.
“The present is all the time about love and relationships and that doesn’t run out of time, it’s about those that care about one another,” says Grammer.
