I’ve been watching Frasier for almost two decades now. I watched it practically every weekday morning with my mum on Channel 4 before school, and later before college.
It became part of my morning routine, like spending time with old friends. And even into adulthood I continue to watch it while I eat breakfast.
So, as you can probably imagine, because of this, when the sequel was announced, I was genuinely excited, but also apprehensive.
As a big fan of the show, there were so many possibilities going through my head of what they could do with the sequel, and where the Crane family would be years later.
Three things stuck out to me almost immediately while watching the first few episodes.
Number 1: There was no natural flow with the way they talked or interacted with one another. The original series felt like you were plonked into Frasier’s new life after his divorce. But from the first scene in the sequel, it was like watching the equivalent of an info dump.
– Charlotte and Frasier were together for 15 or 20 years until she kicked him out.
– He had a successful TV show in Chicago.
– Freddie wasn’t at Martin’s funeral.
All of this was said to Alan, a university friend we didn’t know Frasier had, and that was it. That was the way they caught the fans up with Frasier’s life after all this time.
I felt so disappointed because it was like they reverted Frasier back to how he was before, a desperate, lonely man still searching for love and family.
I think they did the character a disservice here. I think Frasier would’ve changed and been in a very different place in his life.
I would’ve loved to see him content and settled, with the only regret he wanted to put right being his relationship with Freddie.
The focus on the father, son dynamic would’ve been a great homage and mirror image to Frasier and Martin.
It just seemed like the writers were too afraid to go deeper into the strained relationship, and tried to keep it lighter, which didn’t work out. Frasier and Freddie’s scenes always felt a little awkward to me.
Which goes into number 2: I felt like I was just watching actors say the lines, instead of the characters transcending through the actors, like in the original series.
I believed every word or action or viewpoint of the characters in the original. It’s so clever and absorbing. Still funny to this day.
But I couldn’t see that with the sequel. I just couldn’t look past the awkwardness of all the actors. It was like I could visually see them saying the words that they’ve memorised in their heads and they’re automatically coming out of their mouths.
It lacked a bit of personality. It was all too neat, there was no room for anything impromptu or spontaneous, like adlibs.
It also seemed like the main cast as a whole didn’t quite ‘fit’ together.
Think of the two series as a jigsaw puzzle…
The 1993 Frasier characters are like an old jigsaw puzzle you find, where all the pieces are in the box, and they all fit together perfectly, and you end up with a complete image.
The 2023 Frasier characters are like a jigsaw you find in an attic, and it only had half of the pieces in the box. You try to force the jigsaw pieces together anyway, for the nostalgia, but in the end, you’re just left with a misshapen mess.
Number 3: One of the things the original Frasier mastered was giving every character a unique voice. There are thousands of scenes that are so good that they’ve become inside jokes amongst fans over the years.
Also, the voice of the character shines through.
If I were to say the quote, “Dad and I both wanted to tell you, but I won the coin toss,” most Frasier fans would immediately know it was Niles.
That’s because the line isn’t just funny. It’s unmistakably Niles.
His dry wit, his relationship with Frasier, and the way he delivers a cutting remark all come through in a single sentence.
That’s something the original series excelled at. Every character had their own rhythm, vocabulary and sense of humour. Even without seeing the scene, you could often tell who was speaking.
I never quite got that feeling with the sequel. The dialogue often felt interchangeable, and I struggled to hear each character’s own distinct voice in the same way.
It’s always going to be difficult for a sequel to measure up to its predecessor.
Unfortunately, this was one of those that, for me, missed the mark.
It missed the heart, the essence.
Instead, it seemed to focus more on surface-level interactions than the deeper heart-to-heart conversations that made the original so memorable.
I have a lot of ideas for how I would write the sequel if I could. I always like a ‘what if’ rabbit hole, and this has turned into a possible fan fiction idea; ‘Back in Boston’.
But I don’t want to get ahead of myself and start rambling, so I’ll leave it here.
It’s a story for another day… 😉
I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree, disagree, or have a completely different perspective. Feel free to leave a comment below. And as always, let’s keep the discussion friendly and respectful.
Stevie Wren Writes 
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