Although Frasier is certainly one of the higher-profile shows to be released to Paramount+ subscribers on the 2023 TV schedule, it’s not without its detractors. Shortly before premiering in early October, Frasier was met with a wave of mixed reception, and it turns out that Ken Levine, who wrote for the original Frasier, is among those who’s unimpressed with the return of Kelsey Grammer’s title character. Levine broke down his issues with the revival, and honestly, I can see where he’s coming from.
During an episode of his podcast Hollywood & Levine, Ken Levine kicked off his commentary on the Frasier revival by first talking about how when someone is creating a show, specifically one that revolves around a lead character, the writer needs to imagine a “wagon wheel,” with said lead character being in the center and his supporting cast serving as the “spokes” who have “some very clear relationship to the character.” In the original Frasier, those “spokes” were David Hyde Pierce’s Niles Crane (who we won’t see in the revival), Peri Gilpin’s Roz Doyle (who returned in the Season 1 finale), John Mahoney’s Martin Crane and Jane Leeves’ Daphne Moon, and as Levine stated, a viewer can easily “point out, very specifically, what they provided to Frasier.”
However, with this Frasier revival, Levine doesn’t believe that the supporting cast functioning nearly as well as the “spokes” of this particular wheel. He started off by focusing on Jack Cutmore-Scott’s Freddy Crane and Nicholas Lyndhurst’s Alan Cornwall:
Now, I look at the new series. And I’m going down the line with the characters. Okay, Freddy, his son, definitely. There is a relationship there. We’ll get into just what that relationship is. But also, there is the character of Alan, who is the professor at Harvard, who supposedly was Frasier’s best friend. And yet he was never mentioned in nine seasons of Cheers and 11 seasons of Frasier. Best friend, and he was never referred to even once. So you’re going… ‘Huh? What’s the logic of that?’
As someone who enjoyed the original Frasier growing up and previously gave by thoughts on whether you need to see the Cheers spinoff in order to enjoy the Paramount+ revival, I’ll admit that was a bit perplexed to learn that Frasier and Alan are so close. Within the show’s continuity, I could understand if Alan was never able to travel to Seattle, but if this is our main protagonist’s best friend, you’d think that warrants him being mentioned at least one, if not multiple times across either 11 seasons of Cheers or Frasier 1.0. And yet it’s only in 2023, nearly 40 years after we first met Frasier, that Alan’s existence has been revealed.
Ken Levine then directed his focus to Jess Salgueiro’s Eve, and the writer described his confusion regarding why she’s included in the series as follows:
Then you have the character of Eve, who is living with Freddy, and Eve’s story is that her boyfriend was a firefighter. They had a child together, and the firefighter died. And so, Freddy is letting her and her baby stay with him. Okay, great. What does that have to do with Frasier? Can you lose that character? Sure could. I don’t know what that character is doing in relationship to Frasier.
While Eve is certainly integral to Freddy’s life given their shared ties to the deceased boyfriend/best friend, and Eve relies on Freddy’s help in taking care of her infant son. But outside of having a handful of conversations with Frasier and trying to help him out with his students in “First Class,” it’s not as though Eve was an important figure in the man’s resumed life in Boston. I don’t think that she could necessarily be dropped from the show entirely, but she’s certainly not one of the more important supporting characters.
Finally, Ken Levine talked about Toks Olagundoye’s Olivia Finch, who runs the psychology department at Harvard University, where Frasier Crane now works. Here are Levine’s issues with the character:
Then, there is the character of Olivia, who is the Dean at Harvard. She’s desperate to get Frasier to teach at Harvard because he’s now famous. They now establish that for years in Chicago, he had been a Dr. Phil type of television star. And again, logic here, I’m going: ‘This is Harvard. What do they give a shit?’ It’s like, why would Harvard be so excited to have, like, a Dr. Oz on their faculty? Now I can understand if, say, it was a very small college, some manufactured Middlebury University, and to have a celebrity on their faculty would be a big deal. This is Harvard. And so I’m going, what is her function in the thing? Because, after a while, Frasier is going to settle in, and he’s going to be teaching at Harvard. And then you’re going, ‘Well, what’s her role?’
I’ll admit that I let Olivia’s obsession with Frasier Crane’s stardom and harnessing it to improve the standing of the psych department slide since this is a comedy. Realistically speaking though, yes, someone in her position would not be enamored with Frasier in this way since this is an Ivy League university we’re talking about. So beyond that, she’s essentially just serving as another work colleague alongside Alan Cornwall.
While I’m among the people who had more positive thoughts about the Frasier revival than negative ones, there’s no question it’s not on the same quality level as the original Frasier, and I certainly understand all of Ken Levine’s criticisms. But this was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the writer’s issues with the revival. You can listen to the podcast for yourself to hear them all, though I will mention that Levine is not a fan of Frasier being incredibly rich in this new show since it means he can use money to solve a lot of his problems.
As of this writing, it hasn’t been announced if Paramount+’s Frasier will be renewed for Season 2, but if it is, perhaps someone on the show will hear Ken Levine’s critiques and take them to heart as the sophomore batch of episodes are being written. For now, keep track of what small screen entertainment awaits in the coming year with our 2024 TV schedule, or see what the lineup of best Paramount+ shows looks like.