Frasier Season 1 Episode 4 Review: Trivial Pursuits
Freddy's frustration over his father referring to him as "just a firefighter" pushes him to take a radical step in Frasier Season 1 Episode 4.
He invites his Dad to visit the firehouse.
Does Frasier mean to sound dismissive when he refers to his son as "just a firefighter"? He may not mean to, but Freddy can't be blamed for taking it that way.
Freddy is clearly a smart man. He also possesses a great combination of his grandfather's everyman heroic nature and his parents' intellect.
When the Trivia Night category turns to wine, Frasier believes he's got the win in the bag, but not only does his arrogance cause him to take too long to answer, but he's forgotten that his beer-drinking son grew up around wine-drinking snobs.
Some kids get to spend their summers playing baseball; I got to categorize my Dad’s wine cellar.
Freddy
The Trivia Night at the bar was fun, and the team names were inspired, but the very mention of Carl Jung made me miss Niles.
It was one of two scenes in this half-hour that had me picturing what it would have been like if David Hyde Pierce had agreed to be a part of this reboot.
At some point in this series, perhaps that will stop happening, but it hasn't yet.
Instead, we have Frasier teamed up with Alan and Olivia.
Alan has some engaging moments, and he and Frasier do feel like colleagues and old friends, but Olivia is the odd man out, so to speak.
You do not make youngest department head by catching your rival during a trust fall.
Olivia
If Olivia is supposed to be funny or sarcastic, it's not quite working. Many of her lines make her sound mean or downright bitchy.
She feels like the boss you hang out with in social situations because you have to, not because you want to. I wonder if that will get better or if the character will eventually disappear entirely as the series figures out she's unnecessary or just not working.
A character that is working for me is Eve. She's Freddy's best friend and confidant. She's a mediator between Freddy and Frasier, and someone even the illustrious Dr. Frasier Crane will take advice from.
Eve also holds her own well with Alan, who doesn't hesitate to challenge her over the answer to a Trivia Night question he got wrong.
We were able to learn an important detail about Eve and her relationship with her late boyfriend, Adam, in this sad but touching Frasier quote.
Alan: You will rue the day you fought me over Shakespeare and Middleton. You know, you have made the greatest mistake of your life.
Eve: The greatest mistake of my life was not saying I love you to my boyfriend the morning he left and never came back.
Alan: Well, you’ve made the second greatest mistake of your life.
- Permalink: Well, you’ve made the second greatest mistake of your life.
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Eve has common sense and heart. She's quirky and easy to love and, in that way, reminds me a bit of Daphne from the original series.
Then there's David. When the firefighters mistook David for one of the orphans, I couldn't help but wish they wouldn't make Niles and Daphne's son seem so dumb.
And yet, the scenes were cute and made me laugh. Anders Keith makes the most out of the moments he's given, and I hope they are able to expand this character before Frasier Season 1 is over because I'm guessing Keith is capable of much more.
But let's get back to Freddy and Frasier.
Freddy: My Dad is always so dismissive of my job. I honestly don’t think he’ll ever understand why I do what I do.
Eve: Maybe he would if he saw you in action.
Freddy: Oh, sure. I’ll just start a small grease fire. See where it goes.
- Permalink: Oh, sure. I’ll just start a small grease fire. See where it goes.
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Eve's advice is sound, but it has one flaw. You never know what type of day a firefighter is going to have. And Freddy clearly wasn't expecting to have to pose as Mr. July, although he did look good doing it and he didn't even have to remove his t-shirt.
But when Frasier not only helped the man stuck in his dog door with his anxiety but was then recognized by him, Freddy looked dejected.
Was he always going to live in his famous father's shadow? Would his Dad ever respect him.?
Freddy didn't realize that it wasn't as much a matter of respect as fear.
I have no doubt that Frasier would have preferred his son follow in his footsteps and have gotten that psychology degree from Harvard, but that's not what's been gnawing at him. And what he hadn't been able to share with Freddy, he was able to confide to Eve.
You just took me back to my childhood. My father was a police officer. When he would work late, my brother and I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if we’d ever see him again.
Frasier
I love this throwback to the original series. Both Frasier and Niles had previously shared the fears they had growing up, worrying something would happen to their father.
At the start of the original Frasier, Martin was recovering from a gunshot wound that would leave him using a cane for the rest of his life, so those fears were certainly not unfounded.
Before speaking with Eve, it seemed Frasier wasn't allowing himself to give voice to those deep-seated anxieties, but perhaps knowing that Eve had lost Adam made it easier to share.
Now, decades later, I have a son who has chosen the one job more dangerous than being a police officer.
Frasier
I wish Frasier would share all of that with Freddy, but maybe that will happen in a future episode.
In the meantime, Frasier actually took an interest in hearing what Freddy's job was like, taking Eve's sound advice about how our imaginations can sometimes make the monsters scarier than they really are.
I'm not sure that's the case here, but even if it's not, these conversations will certainly bridge the gap that exists between father and son, and that's priceless.
This installment had some highlights.
- Eve beaming as she realized that she was able to help Frasier, and parroting back his old radio show tagline, I'm listening.
- Frasier telling the firehouse dog that he's got no chance of wearing him down. (Oh, how that made me miss Eddie.)
- And as I'm not sure I've mentioned this in a previous review, I love that the new neighborhood bar is named Mahoney's, clearly a nod to the late John Mahoney, who played Frasier's father, Martin.
So what do you think, TV Fanatics?
Is the new Frasier starting to warm your heart and tickle your funnybone? Who are your favorite and least favorite of the new characters?
Hit that SHOW COMMENTS button below to share your thoughts, then check back in for our Frasier Season 1 Episode 5 review here at TV Fanatic.