After nearly 20 years, Dr. Frasier Crane has reentered the building thanks to the Frasier revival on Paramount Plus.
The Cheers spinoff starring Kelsey Grammer followed the Niels Bohr of Sam Malone’s Boston watering hole back to his hometown of Seattle to host a call-in radio show and reconnect with his family and a whole other crazy bunch of individuals. Frasier initially ran for 11 seasons and racked up dozens of awards.
Now, as Dr. Crane prepares to enter another new chapter of his life, Grammer reprises his Emmy-winning role for the new streaming series from executive producers Chris Harris of How I Met Your Mother and Joe Cristalli of Life In Pieces that was officially given the green light in fall 2022.
Frasier revival release date
The Frasier revival release date has been set. The first two of 10 episodes will drop on Paramount Plus on October 12, 2023 in the U.S. and Canada and October 13 in all other territories.
In addition to its Paramount Plus premiere, Frasier will return to primetime as the first two episodes will also air back-to-back on CBS at 9:15 pm ET/PT on October 17. The announcement also came with a teaser (seen above) that featured an all-new recording of Grammer singing the show’s theme song.
Despite being largely absent from the airwaves since 2004, Frasier has remained in the zeitgeist thanks to a Dr. Pepper commercial, a great bit on 30 Rock and nightly cable reruns. In that time, a whole new generation has come to appreciate the witty comedy.
As a result, talks regarding a sequel series have been taking place since 2018. That year, Grammer started taking exploratory meetings with writers to hear pitches for the esteemed psychiatrist’s next adventure. The long-gestating project finally started to take shape in 2021 with the approval of ViacomCBS and production began in 2022.
Frasier revival cast
The Frasier revival cast is led by Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane, a psychiatrist and radio personality.
Aside from Grammer, the cast of the revival will largely consist of new additions to the Cheers-verse. Even with new actors making up the Frasier revival cast, though, longtime fans will recognize a few key characters.
Jack Cutmore-Scott stars as Frasier’s son, Freddy Crane. He’ll be joined by Anders Keith as David Crane, Frasier’s nephew and the son of Niles and Daphne (who are not currently set to appear in the series, but haven’t ruled out a cameo at some point).
Rounding out the cast will be Nicholas Lyndhurst as Frasier’s college friend Professor Alan Cornwall, Jess Salgueiro as Freddy’s roommate Eve, and Toks Olagundoye as psych department head Olivia.
And though Niles and Daphne are likely still in Seattle, two other familiar faces from the original show will pop in as recurring characters: Peri Gilpin as Frasier’s former producer and close friend Roz Doyle, and Bebe Neuwirth as Dr. Lilith Sternin, Frasier’s ex-wife and Freddy’s mother.
Frasier revival plot and season 11 ending explained
When we last left Dr. Frasier Crane, he was at a crossroads. Everyone in his life was about to embark on exciting new adventures: his father Martin and Ronee had just gotten married, brother Niles and Daphne became parents, and Roz was promoted to the station manager of KACL. And with his current girlfriend/former matchmaker Charlotte moving back to Chicago, he felt like nothing was keeping him in Seattle any longer.
Luckily, an opportunity to do television in San Francisco emerged and called to him as his next step. However, at the end of the two-part finale, Frasier landed in Chicago to presumably pick up where things left off with Charlotte instead of relocating to the Bay Area.
Unfortunately, things don’t appear to have worked out for Frasier once again. When the new series begins, we’ll see that he’s returned to Boston. But just as he and his father butted heads over their differences, he finds himself in a similar position with his own son. On top of that, as it says in the series teaser, he’ll be ready to take on “new challenges to face, new relationships to forge, and an old dream or two to finally fulfill.”
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