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SuperBacon

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I didn't think much of the first episode but enjoyed the second a lot more. I get the first was scene setting to some extent.

I found the university staff all a little annoying so will reserve judgement on Nicholas Lyndhurst just yet. David seemed like someone doing a Niles impression, but it was a good impression so I can run with it. I will be tuning in next week and hope it carries on getting better.

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Had a spare hour so watched the first 2. I smiled. I laughed. I cried. They nailed it. It's so Frasier and Kelsey Grammer clearly knows the character so well. As with any show it'll take a while to get used to the situation and the new characters but I genuinely enjoyed that. Really surprised.

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I haven't watched the new series yet, but a review in The Independent might have ruined Frasier for me - "Grammer's Frasier can still block a kitchen door for comic effect with the best of them"; and that's just it, isn't it? You can picture the exact body language and flustered expression they're referring to. They've just captured the entire essence of the character in that one description, the entire act in one gesture. If you were to parody Frasier, it would be saying "I AM AGGRIEVED" and blocking a kitchen door, while Niles steadies himself on some furniture, and supporting characters flit in and out of different doors behind them. 

Edited by BomberPat
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Part of the charm though isn't it? I always felt like Frasier (as a character and the show itself) was able to nail the simple things so well but also dip into deeper connections and smarter jokes along the way. It always maintained a really good balance of that for me and I think that's why it was so successful and able to appeal to so many people. The most enjoyable comedies are able to work on various levels. It's just like the best family film comedies that nail those subtle adult jokes that go over the kids heads completely. Everything enjoys it but often for completely different reasons.

Plus sometimes you just need that familiarity. Frasier has a very homely feel to it for me. You know what you're getting.

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Oh completely, I'm only joking that it's "ruined it", it's just such a perfect distillation of the formula to sum it up in that one image. 

I've always felt that it's fascinating that it manages to be simultaneously reliant on some quite high brow jokes, while doing some of the bawdiest farce and broad strokes slapstick of its time, and functioning as a spin-off to Cheers. I used to joke that you could pile up two categories of Frasier episode - one pile of episodes in which all the central characters are, with spurious justification, forced to spend the night together in a ski lodge/cabin/holiday home of some description, and another pile where they're not, and they would be more or less the same size. That's obviously not true, but it feels true, because they do that kind of bedroom-swapping farce so well. 

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The dynamic between Frasier and Niles was incredible, not least because it was pretty flexible. As much as you're right, @BomberPat, that's just one of their dynamics. It's also equally as likely that Frasier will be playing the straight man to Niles's clowning - or that they'll just out-prissy each other.

I can't think of many dynamics like that, where they could freshen things up by just taking turns playing the more reasonable one - and how quickly they could reverse that dynamic, in single scenes or episodes. It's why episodes like the one where they try to write a book together work so well, while Del Boy and Rodney trying to do the same thing wouldn't work.

 

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According to the writers, the original idea for the new season was to have Frasier and Niles open a Theatre together, but David Hyde Pierce turned it down. They also wanted to include the funeral but again, David turning it down meant they couldn't.

I'm a bit gutted that we didn't get this, but in a way doing something new with the character at least gives it a clean break. But damn you David Hyde Pierce!!

 

 

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40 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

Oh completely, I'm only joking that it's "ruined it", it's just such a perfect distillation of the formula to sum it up in that one image. 

On a similar note, Derek Jacobi ruined Hamlet for me. The first thing that comes into my mind when Hamlet is mentioned is him hamming it up with “I die, Horatio”

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