Frasier

Season One of FRASIER finds the recently divorced Boston psychiatrist, Dr. Frasier Crane (Grammer), at a new place in his life. Last seen gracing the bars of Cheers, Frasier has a new life in his home town of Seattle as a popular radio psychiatrist, which has given him the chance to spread his words of wit and wisdom to the masses. Sharing an apartment with his ex-policeman father, Marty (Mahoney), and his father’s English physical care assistant Daphne (Leeves), Frasier must also cope with his psychiatrist brother Niles (Pierce) and Eddie the dog.

Frasier picked up its second season with another round of comedy as intelligent as its pompous title character. Fortunately, the sniping between Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and his father, Marty (John Mahoney), that took up a lot of the first season is mostly past, and the crack ensemble was ready to roll in a number of memorable episodes. Frasier tries to set up Daphne (Jane Leeves) with the new station manager in "The Matchmaker," Frasier, Niles (David Hyde Pierce), and Marty go fishing in "Breaking the Ice," Frasier and Niles jump into politics in "The Candidate," the team of Frasier and Roz (Peri Gilpin) breaks up ("Roz in the Doghouse"), and Frasier and Niles open a restaurant in "The Innkeepers." It was Pierce's Niles who emerged as a star in the second season, lusting after Daphne, learning about parenthood in "Flour Child," and challenging a Bavarian fencer for the hand of his ever-absent wife, Maris, in the comic tour de force "An Affair to Forget." Pierce picked up a well-deserved first Emmy, and the show repeated its first-season Emmys for comedy series and lead actor. Frasier's dates included Jobeth Williams (whom he takes on a disastrous getaway to Bora Bora), Shannon Tweed, and Tea Leoni, and other guest stars were Nathan Lane and, from his original show, Cheers, Bebe Neuwirth and Ted Danson.

With this third season, Frasier scored an impressive hat trick, winning its third successive Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. You don't need too much analysis to get to the bottom of this unprecedented success. The series was a primetime oasis of wit and sophistication, with welcome forays into farce that pricked Frasier's bubble of pomposity. His priceless reactions to the assaults on his dignity are worthy of Jack Benny. Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) can be infuriating, as in "The Focus Group," in which he is obsessed with knowing why a lone focus group participant (guest star Tony Shalhoub) doesn't like him. But he is also endearing in his delusional view of himself as, in the words of one mocking bystander, a "man of the people." Frasier meets his match in new station owner Kate Costas (Oscar-winner Mercedes Ruehl). Their combative relationship turns to lust over the course of the first 10 episodes.

Frasier's fourth season was mostly about relationships. Niles (David Hyde Pierce), now separated from Maris, is back on the market like his bachelor brother, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer). That's great when the pair goes to a cabin with a pair of fetching women (Megan Mullaly, later of Will and Grace, and Lisa Darr), but Niles is never able to completely dispel his attachment to his suffocating wife... or to Daphne (Jane Leeves). His obsession with the latter gets an immediate burst in the season's first episode, in which he has to masquerade as Daphne's husband, then later comes to a head when she appears at his apartment door asking to stay the night. The boys have the usual disputes with their father (John Mahoney), including their disdain for the former cop's new girlfriend, Sherry (Marsha Mason), the boisterous, banjo-twangin', "gotcha"-playing bartender who would remain a regular cast member through the end of the series. Ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) makes her annual appearance, this time when she and Frasier try to get Frederick into an exclusive prep school. And the title character? As much as Frasier teases his producer Roz (Peri Gilpin) about her dating habits, he himself is lonely, leading him to a memorable airport encounter with guest star Linda Hamilton and a season finale that proves a kind of a harbinger to the series' final episode. This season made Frasier a perfect four-for-four at the Emmys, winning its fourth consecutive award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Unlike previous seasons, this DVD set has no bonus features.