Frasier returns for season 2 following its revival, and here’s our review of the first two episodes, Ham and Cyrano, Cyrano.
The first season of Frasier’s grand reboot it is fair to say divided audiences. Some gave up after an episode or two. Others, such as myself, immediately recognised what Chris Harris and Joe Cristalli’s revival sought to do: retain the format and style of the beloved original while updating everything with a 2020s sheen.
Many who stuck with the first season agreed that the series evolved and found a greater rhythm by the end, the actors involved beginning to find the core element of their characters, and indeed the series resisted the urge until the final episode, ‘Reindeer Games’, to bring in a legacy character from the previous show. That gave the ensemble here time to find their feet, in the main, as a fun assemblage of new players.
Season opener ‘Ham’ wisely, in this regard, begins with an episode designed to utilise primarily the entire main cast, rather than throwing in prominent guest stars, allowing the series to reestablish the core dynamics and hit the ground running in terms of comedy. Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst) buy a prized Spanish ham, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) inadvertently (or should that be indubitably) reveals to his father a secret about his schooling, and there you have our two A and B plots.
The main idea of ‘Ham’ is to reveal that Alan advised Freddy to quit Harvard, after which he pursued a career in firefighting, on the advice of a British equivalent to a Magic 8 ball. It’s a funny idea, played well especially as Frasier has to caveat his fury with telling Freddy how proud of his choices he is, but one that highlights the increasing feeling as the series wears on that Alan -who began as a rather caustic, sozzled old pal – is a stand in for Frasier’s brother Niles.
This is nothing against Lyndhurst, who might be the most talented comic performer in the entire show (Grammer included), and it’s good that Alan isn’t just defined as a boozy British cliche, but throughout the episode I kept imagining this story with Niles -discussing the ham, their conflict, quietly influencing Freddy – and in that context, it all made so much more sense. ‘Ham’ might be the most acute episode yet where you feel the absence of David Hyde Pierce keenly.
Around this, the dynamic between Frasier and Freddy – the age-reversed mockery of the former similar to how Martin treated him in the original series – continues to prove entertaining, and more side characters such as David (Anders Keith) and Olivia (Toks Olagundoye) are serviced well. David in his calamitous attempts to help out also evoked Niles in how he utilises physical comedy, but as opposed to Alan being a cipher, David being Niles’ son makes this all the more charming.
I’m less sold on what Eve (Jess Salgueiro) truly brings to proceedings, as demonstrated in how she’s rather crowbarred into the story here. She vacillates between the kookiness of Daphne and the sass of Rob without being as effective as either, and the show seems to have entirely forgotten the fact she’s a stressed single mother. ‘Ham’ doesn’t utilise her as well as the rest of the ensemble.
Working well to settle audiences back into Frasier’s cozy world, ‘Ham’ reminds anyone who has enjoyed this revival why they’re sticking with it.
‘Cyrano, Cyrano’, the second episode which arrived as part of a two-episode Paramount Plus premiere, is slightly less effective despite having a stronger hook built on farce and misunderstanding, two elements of Frasier which historically have led to some of the series’ best episodes.
Set on Valentine’s Day, Frasier is blue after a date blows him off, so he contrives to work Cupid’s arrow on Olivia and Moose (Jimmy Dunn), Freddy’s friend and firefighter co-worker who began an unlikely dalliance with the educated woman at the end of Season 1. Though it was a sweet pairing, one bringing two very different people together, Olivia probably correctly judges they’re not a good match, but Frasier ends up counselling both – much to their ignorance – on how to woo the other.
It’s a decent set-up and one Grammer clearly has a blast playing, with Frasier hiding behind plants to try advising Moose on Shakespeare and Olivia on sports (with the help of a waitress he’s naturally been flirting with), but the comic potential of it never entirely takes flight. Maybe in part because the episode decides to not pursue the romantic interest between Olivia and Moose when it should perhaps have, aligned as it would have been with Frasier’s eternal discussion about elitism and class, and how the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Nevertheless, the point of the episode is to affirm Frasier’s own belief still in the power of love, which considering his litany of failed relationships is a testament to his resilience frankly! ‘Cyrano, Cyrano’ is a nice way of giving Olivia a central role in the narrative, but naturally it leads others in the ensemble to, again, struggle with almost nothing to do. David is written off after one scene, Freddy and Eve are parked in the bar, while Alan gets caught up in the mistaken farce briefly in an idea that peters out.
Alan fearing dismissal and subsequently deciding to actually do his job for once is a neat concept, one that probably deserved more for Lyndhurst to chew into than he gets here, but nevertheless it adds a little extra to the plot before the core farce kicks in – with the funniest moment coming as Alan describes the stages of grief he went through when he failed to get a study published debunking the stages of grief.
Truth is though, ‘Cyrano, Cyrano’ feels undercooked in a way that ‘Ham’ just about doesn’t. Pun very much intended. Nonetheless, a solid start to a season that will hopefully repeat the trick of Frasier’s first year: comfortable, nostalgic amusement that doesn’t reinvent the wheel.
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