by Gandalf » Fri Sep 12, 2003 1:07 am
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - When May of 2004 rolls around, NBC will be hyping the end of one of its most successful shows ever, an Emmy-winning, money-making juggernaut.
At almost the same time, NBC will also be saying farewell to a show that has won more Emmys than any other, helping anchor the network's schedule for going on 11 years.
As the months go by, it's a safe bet that if you're not sick of Joey, Chandler, Ross, Monica, Phoebe and Rachel already, you will be after the onslaught of soppy tributes, clip shows and endless promotion promising that after years of teasing, we won't have "Friends" to kick around anymore. Meanwhile, "Frasier," winner of an unprecedented five straight Emmys for best comedy, is on the verge of going gentle into that good night.
Fortunately for fans of the venerable "Cheers" spin-off, the show's producers are prepared for one last rage against the dying of the light. Christopher Lloyd and Joe Keenan, two of the writers associated with the show's glory years, have returned as showrunners after a stint in the ratings diaspora with lesser efforts like "Bram and Alice." Lloyd and Keenan, along with star Kelsey Grammer, are committed to helping "Frasier" go out with a bang, even if gets lost in the "Friends" finale hype.
But don't look for too much of a bang.
"We're not going to haul in a bunch of big stars or do a two-hour fireworks extravaganza," Lloyd insists. "It'll be, we hope, just a great small story that leaves everyone where the audience wants them left."
"Frasier" will return for its final season on Tuesday, Sept. 23 with a two-episode premiere. The tensions that erupted last year between Roz (Peri Gilpin), Frasier (Grammer) and Frasier's new love Julia (guest star Felicity Huffman) will be resolved ("resolved with great joy," Grammer adds) and Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) will continue their discussions about starting a family.
Lloyd and Keenan promise that the new season will feature the return of familiar faces like Frasier's son and his ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth), as well as new tensions in the relationship between Daphne and Niles. Those problems will be raised by a specter from Niles' past.
"The offstage character of Maris will enter Niles' life in a rather dramatic fashion and still up a little bit of trouble," Keenan teases.
Maris' potentially prominent role in the new season doesn't mean, however, that the elusive character will ever be seen.
"Maris just enters Niles' life," Grammer clarifies. "She doesn't necessarily enter TV Land."
Even with "Frasier" coming off a season where its ratings plummeted by 20 percent and its award nominations dried off, Lloyd and Keenan know that they have a rare opportunity here to reach a conclusion on their own terms.
"We kept saying, how often do you have the chance to end a series?" Lloyd says. "Usually the network ends your series. So to have to find a way to do great shows one last time and also send them all off into the sunset in a graceful way was something we couldn't pass up."
For Grammer, this final season will offer the chance to say goodbye to character he's been playing since Frasier Crane first walked into the bar where everybody would know his name, back in 1984.
"I'll need therapy for several decades to come, because this of course has been my career for 20 years, so I'm retiring in a weird way, but I'm now looking for the second act," Grammer says.
The actor intends to concentrate on producing and possibly directing before he returns in front of the camera.
"I think it's time to maybe play a new memorable character," he says. "We'll just see how easy that is for the audience to accept. The days are numbered for him. I will gladly bid him adieu, but I will always be thankful that I had this time with Frasier."
Grammer knows that when May arrives, his departure will probably be overshadowed, but he prefers not to get indignant.
"If it bothered me," he says in measured tones, "it would be uncavalier of me to say so."
While the first half of the season is mapped out, even the showrunners aren't sure how things will end.
"It wouldn't surprise me if it's a month before we shoot it, two weeks before we shoot it before we really figure out what we're going to do there," Lloyd says.
"It's not even the end of this character's life, frankly," Grammer says. "He will go on in some strange world of creation."
