Frasier Online Episode Guide: Episode 9.14

Frasier Online Episode Guide -> Season 9 -> Episode 9.14

The Proposal

Episode Details

Written by: Rob Hanning

Directed by: Will Shriner

Original US airdate: 5th February 2002

Original UK airdate: 5th April 2002

Cast Information

Main Cast

Frasier Crane	....	Kelsey Grammer
Niles Crane	....	David Hyde Pierce
Martin Crane	....	John Mahoney
Daphne Moon	....	Jane Leeves
Roz Doyle	....	Peri Gilpin

Recurring Cast

Gertrude Moon	....	Millicent Martin
Peg	....	Lindsay Crouse

Guest Cast

Jewellery Clerk	....	Dan Bucatinsky
Suzy	....	Juanita Jennings
Angel No. 1	....	Tony Cox
Angel No. 2	....	Mark Povinelli
Wolfgang Puck	....	Himself

Guest Callers

Episode Synopsis

Niles is planning the perfect evening to ask Daphne to marry him, beginning with choosing the ring in a jewellers but the infighting between the brothers leads the assistant to think that the brothers are in fact a 'couple' planning to marry. Then Roz helps Niles to write his proposal speech, after that comes choosing the perfect wine, that takes the form of a tasting session at Frasier's apartment. Niles has an ulterior motive - he wants to get his father drunk enough so that he will agree to take Daphne's mother out on his proposal night. Thankfully, Martin agrees but also reveals a family secret - Frasier's mother was pregnant with him when she got married!

Martin's date with Daphne's mother is a disaster as she comes on far too strongly forcing Martin to say he just asked her out as a friend, and then (unbeknownst to Martin) the female security guard he was interested in overhears Martin say that he has no feeling in his groin area - which he only said to get Daphn'e mother off her back. Finally the night arrives with famous chef Wolfgang Puck preparing dinner, and all his guests hiding, but sadly for Niles disaster strikes - Daphne has the flu! Frasier tries to get all the guests out without Daphne seeing them, but Niles decides to ask Daphne to marry him anyway - to which she agrees!

Episode Title Cards

The Ring
The Words
The Wine
The Diversion
The Proposal

Episode Highlights

- Frasier and Niles are in the jewellers arguing over Niles' choice of engagement ring:
Jewellery Clerk: I'm sure we can find you something that will bring you both a lifetime of happiness.

- Roz tells Niles that Frasier told him he was going to ask Daphne to marry him:
Niles: That gossipping ninny!
Roz: Don't worry - he swore me to secrecy.
Niles: I swore him to secrecy!

- Martin is tired of tasting wine:
Martin: Time to cleanse my palette - I'm gonna get a beer!

- Martin tells how he asked Frasier's mother to marry him:
Martin: I was as nervous as hell...
Frasier: I love this story.
Martin: .... And then she said no.

- Wolfgang Puck is busy cooking Niles engagement meal:
Niles: Do I smell burning crab?
Wolfgang: That's cajun!

- Daphne arrives home looking awful with the flu:
Daphne: All I want to do is stuff Kleenex up my nose, collapse on the couch and pray for death!

- Frasier's flying leap to silence the trumpeteer, who appears after Niles proposes.

Frasier Online Episode Review

A delightfully constructed episode that harks back in it's simplicity to the pilot episode. Each stage of Niles' preparation for his proposal was well handled, but I don't think many could have forseen the twist of Daphne having the flu on proposal night. The only criticisms I could level at it are that more could have been done with all of Niles' hidden guests - there aren't many episodes that feature dwarfs dressed as angels and it was a little disappointing just to see them leave with only saying 1 line. These are however minor quibbles in what is a very good episode for this season.

Rating

81 %

Latest Viewer Episode Review

Avg. Viewer Review: 81.7%
Total Number of Reviews: 7

The perfect moment, May 20, 2013

Reviewer: Sammy J from Melbourne, Australia

A neatly constructed episode that continues the series' great track record of smartly playing the crucial moments in the characters' lives.

Rather than building up to a surprise proposal, the episode instead takes the opposite tack: from the title and the opening five seconds, we know exactly what's going on. Niles has, of course, been planning this for weeks. Perhaps basking in the satisfaction of this moment, the episode saunters through a few little tales to get there. The Crane boys sitting up and testing wine is a particularly well-written scene, with Frasier using the name Wojadubakowski as a drunk-test for Martin, and the revelation that Hester told Niles about Frasier's near-illegitimacy to cheer him up as a child. It's some solid family writing from Rob Hanning's final script for the series.

The only bum note is the scene between Martin and Gertrude which seems included mainly because the writers realised that her presence at the Montana was a stumbling block to the plan. I know Gertrude is going through a bunch of things but her intense rise and fall of emotions feels overdone and Peg's appearance feels like a holdover from this season's long-form format.

(One fun little oddity: note how the audience reacts when Niles takes the engagement ring. They've seen TV before, so they know something's up, but I think the assumption is that he will get the ring stuck on his own finger... not that Fraiser will end up proposing to him!)

Still, by and large the episode does great service to the most crucial moment since season 7's finale. Climaxing at the Montana, where a silly Wolfgang Puck cameo (perhaps more memorably parodied in "The Seal Who Came to Dinner") is only the start of a typically overdone Frasier moment. The comedic value of so many people dashing out of the apartment is worth repeat viewing (I love how the last guy is too scared to go on in a kind of action movie parody way). The proposal itself is incredibly sweet. Leeves and Hyde Pierce really sell the moment. While the Daphne/Niles courtship over the last year and a half has not gone exactly as I would have predicted or hoped, the unusual structure of this season has created them as a fully-realised couple, and it's so touching to see them together like this.

Rating: 89%

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Frasier Online Episode Guide -> Season 9 -> Episode 9.14

The Proposal

The perfect moment, May 20, 2013

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