Frasier writer clears up plot hole ahead of reboot

Virgin Radio

3 Oct 2023, 14:15

With the newly rebooted Frasier set to land on our screens soon, one of its writers has addressed a longstanding potential plot hole from the original series. 

The acclaimed sitcom is set to be revived this month, with Kelsey Grammer returning as the titular therapist after 19 years. The new episodes will see him back in Boston, having left Seattle.

With the show coming back, writer and executive producer Joe Keenan, who won five Emmys and co-wrote the series finale, has addressed something that fans have been questioning for years. Basically, people have long-since wondered how Frasier got so rich and lived such a lavish lifestyle while living in his fancy apartment, given that he was on a local radio presenter’s salary.

“The question has come up,” Keenan said in an interview with Metro. 

Suggesting an explanation, he continued: “We think Frasier made a lot of money in private practice in Boston, and he has investments. What we imagined to be the salary of a local radio personality was perhaps a little bit inflated.”

Noting that Frasier’s brother Niles also lived the life of luxury, he added: “On the other hand, when you looked at Niles and his house with Maris, this baronial mansion that Niles lived in, Frasier’s apartment didn’t seem all that.”

Stating that Frasier's apartment “wasn’t that big” and that “you were surprised at how much smaller it was to navigate than it looked on camera, and how narrow some of the passages were,” the writer said: “His dining room only seated four people… That apartment, without that view [of the Seattle Space Needle], would not seem that astonishing. It was the view that made it seem fabulous.”

The screenwriter and producer also spoke about Frasier’s apparent charm with women and that the shortness of the episodes meant that “you find yourself cutting a lot of corners with meet cutes.”

He added: “If there’s something that we always laughed at in the room, it’s how rapidly women are charmed by Frasier, who wouldn’t be charmed in real life by the corny, flirtatious things he’ll say and the compliments he’ll say.

“That whole highfalutin, chivalrous thing he’ll play when he’s trying to get a woman interested, I don’t know if people would be offended by that as much as they find it ham-fisted.”

The new series will follow Frasier in the next chapter of his life as he returns to Boston with new challenges to face, new relationships to forge and, as the synopsis says, “an old dream or two to finally fulfil. Frasier has re-entered the building!” 

Only Fools and Horses legend Nicholas Lyndhurst will star as Alan, Frasier’s friend from college, and Castle’s Toks Olagundoye will play his colleague Olivia.

Here’s everything you need to know about the reboot.

Frasier will air on Paramount+ from 13th October.