HOLLYWOOD -- The doctor is out. Or at least he will be after tonight.
"Frasier"
WHEN: 8:54 tonight on NBC.
STARRING: Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce
Frasier could return to TV
After 11 years on NBC's "Frasier" (and nine years before that on "Cheers"), star Kelsey Grammer will say goodbye to Dr. Frasier Crane, a character he's played for 20 consecutive years, tying a record set by James Arness, who played Marshal Matt Dillon on "Gunsmoke."
Following a one-hour clip show reminiscence tonight at 8, a final one-hour "Frasier" will air on NBC beginning at 8:54. The episode is expected to include the wedding of Martin (John Mahoney) and Ronee (guest star Wendie Malick), the birth of a child for Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) and maybe even romantic contentedness for Frasier with Charlotte (guest star Laura Linney).
"I wanted to quote a Tennyson poem, so I got that," Grammer said of the finale in a teleconference last month. "The other accomplishment was to leave everybody in a place where we're hopeful. They're going on to a life that's not necessarily better, but at least as interesting as the one we've shared with the audience."
Grammer said his TV alter ego has remained consistent over the years, but fussy Frasier has shown some growth.
"He is brutally honest to the point where he usually ended up torpedoing his own hopes," Grammer said. "The thing that has changed the most is that he is just more comfortable in his own skin now, and he's willing to acknowledge that he may have some shortcomings. In the early days he wasn't willing to acknowledge that."
It's easy to forget that the story of Frasier Crane began long before "Frasier" itself, a testimony to the show's ability to stand on its own despite its creation as a spinoff from "Cheers." In 1993 as they prepared to launch Seattle-set "Frasier," creator/executive producer Peter Casey said producers attempted to avoid repeating what had been done on "Cheers."
"We were, frankly, terrified of being compared to 'Cheers,' because it was the most popular show in America at that time," Casey recalled during a January press conference with the "Frasier" cast and producers on the Paramount soundstage that housed the sets of both "Cheers" and "Frasier." "The very first thing we did was to move it as far away from the Boston [setting] as we could so we wouldn't constantly be asked by NBC to have the 'Cheers' people visiting, because we felt that's only going to continue to have people remember 'Cheers' and loathe us."
Now NBC's "Friends" spin-off, "Joey," is following the same blueprint, uprooting Joey Tribiani (Matt LeBlanc) and moving him to Los Angeles and surrounding him with family for a new sitcom premiering this fall.
"If you surround yourself with people who are really funny and you be the glue that holds the show together, that's a good jumping off point, I think," Grammer said.
But "Frasier" differentiated itself from its predecessor in other, more subtle ways, too. Instead of establishing shots of the buildings where the action takes place, "Frasier" used title cards between scenes, and there was no music.
"It's still the only sitcom on TV that has no internal score," said creator/executive producer David Lee. "There's no jaunty little melodies telling us it's time to go on to the next scene."
The biggest difference between "Frasier" and any other sitcom was the often highbrow nature of its comedy. Without that, its farcical stories could be easily compared to "Three's Company."
But the show's mix of universal problems in an upper-crust setting never launched imitators the way "Friends" spawned a dozen twentysomething sitcom clones.
"I'm not sure if I hadn't been on 'Cheers' first they would have bought 'Frasier,' " Grammer said. "I'm not sure sophisticated comedy has a real place on television anymore. I'd like to think it still does. I'd like to think someone I know or perhaps myself will provide that oasis somewhere."
He lays the blame for that at the feet of reality TV, which grew out of technological advances.
"Audiences continue to respond to people behaving badly," he said last month. "As long as people find that entertaining, there will be no room for sitcoms.
"This is the first television generation that has grown up being told it is the most fascinating thing in and of itself," Grammer said in January.
Grammer clearly prefers more nuanced comedy. For that reason, he thinks "Frasier" reruns will stand the test of time. Topical references were few; the stories were about the characters and their relationships.
"It's about the human experience, brothers and fathers and falling in love and being disappointed and being heartbroken," Grammer said. "That actually is what fuels what's funny in our lives. I think subsequent generations will rediscover the value of scripted comedy, so that the sitcom will not die. It will just be resurrected."
For his part, the relationships on "Frasier" helped Grammer grow in his personal life.
"By virtue of exploring honestly what it would be like to have a brother, I have discovered what it might be like to have a brother and to have a father," he said. "I didn't grow up with my father, so this relationship, this series of relationships, has probably been more than efficient to my development as a caring, loving human being than I could have had in my own life because the parameters weren't there. I've been able to fuel my imagination with the gift of a real brother. That's been an extraordinary experience for me," he said.
The relationship between Frasier and Niles was always at the heart of "Frasier" as sibling rivalry sometimes reached epic proportions.
"It explored the older sibling/younger sibling rivalry pretty well and the love brothers can feel for one another after they get past all that," Grammer said. "[Niles] became what Frasier was on 'Cheers,' the sniping hit-and-run comedy mechanism that my character played on 'Cheers,' and I got to become more the Ted Danson character."
First Published: May 13, 2004, 4:00 a.m.
