How Frasier's Daytime Talk Show Could Return In The Revival, According To The Producers

The "Frasier" revival has had some undeniable highs, but it's also had some unequivocal lows. As Paramount's reboot has attempted to move Kelsey Grammer's snooty psychiatrist into the streaming age, it has managed to both preserve aspects of what made Dr. Crane so beloved, and introduce some questionable developments into "Frasier" lore.

Case in point: the season one episode of the revival that saw Frasier at the center of an "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil" parody. Episode three of the new series revealed that, during the 20 year break between the original "Frasier," which wrapped up in 2004, and the revival show, everyone's favorite celebrity psychiatrist had given in to his worst impulses and fronted a "Dr. Phil"-style TV talk show, creatively named "Dr. Crane." The show saw its host dressing up in ridiculous outfits, karate chopping "negative self-talk" signs, delivering a segment entitled "Frasier's 'Fra-vorite' Things," and interviewing the world's smartest pig, Albert Sweinstein. Frasier himself reveals to his friend and fellow Harvard professor Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst) that the show started as a more straight-laced talk show but wound up a bombastic sensationalist mess.

It wasn't exactly the revival show's best moment, and felt more like a betrayal of the character than a funny revelation about what Frasier has been up to since we last saw him. Now, following the return of Frasier's agent Bebe (Harriet Sansom Harris) in episode five of season 2 of the revival, there's talk of "Dr. Crane" returning in future episodes, and we hope it remains just talk.

Having Frasier's high-mindedness punctured by his self-interest was always a funny device used throughout the original series. But something about the lovably pompous doctor fronting such a tawdry thing as "Dr. Crane" for years seemed to go against the central principles of the character. On the OG sitcom, Frasier always found his way back to his integrity, even when his ego and commercial instincts initially led him astray.

All of which is to say the "Dr. Crane" episode of the revival was the first sign that this new series wasn't entirely what fans of the original series had been hoping for. Actually, it was the second sign, after it was revealed that Kelsey Grammer would be the only actor returning for the revival. Thankfully, "Dr. Crane" sort of came and went, and wasn't really mentioned in subsequent episodes. That is, until the season 2 installment, "The Squash Courtship of Freddy's Father," in which Bebe Glazer returns to try to convince Frasier to revisit his TV talk show.

The episode, which also picked up on a salacious storyline from the original "Frasier" series, sees Bebe enlist her own daughter, Phoebe (Rachel Bloom), to try to sway her client in the direction of a triumphant return to the small-screen. Thankfully, Frasier refuses throughout the episode, seemingly persuading Phoebe to market his new memoir and give up on tempting him back to TV. However, when the episode wraps up, we see that Bebe and Phoebe had schemed all along to manipulate Frasier into accepting Phoebe as his agent so that she could eventually steer him back towards "Dr. Crane" under the guise of wanting to shepherd his memoir to publication.

It raised the question of whether we would actually see Frasier fronting his TV show within a show as the series went on, and now we have some insight into whether such a thing will actually happen.

Speaking to TV Insider, executive producers and co-creators (revivalists?) of the new "Frasier" series, Chris Harris and Joe Cristalli were asked about "Dr. Crane" and the likelihood that Frasier would return to daytime TV. For his part, Cristalli admitted, "It would be fun to see him do that show again at some point" and noted that the writers had "set the groundwork for [Bebe and Phoebe] to trick him so it does feel like they should eventually be able to trick him into doing it." He continued, "There's something funny about him walking into a studio not knowing that the set is built and that he's doing a show and he's just doing it."

In order for Frasier to do so, however, the writers envision Bebe and Phoebe appealing to his sense of duty to help others. "They'd have to appeal to [how] Frasier wears his heart on his sleeve," said Harris. "He goes overboard trying to do things for other people and they'd probably have to appeal to that." Picking up on that idea, Cristalli envisioned the agents imploring Frasier to consider "all the people you haven't helped in the three years you've been off the air'," before imagining Frasier responding with "'Oh my god, there's so many people that need my help.'"

With Kelsey Grammer having ambitious plans for "Frasier," envisioning 100 episodes of the revival, there's every chance we will see him return to Dr. Crane. For now, we know that later in season 2, Frasier will be returning to Seattle, the city where he lived for the full 11 seasons of the original series. There, he hosted a radio call-in show, which was a much more dignified affair than "Dr. Crane." Let's hope that this upcoming episode serves as a reminder that we like our Frasier be-sweatered and doling out life advice from behind a mahogany desk, and not donning ridiculous getups to update us on his "Fra-vrote Things."