Frasier season 1 reflections and rankings
Mar. 4th, 2020 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsFrasier season 1 reflections and rankings
This is a really solid first season of the show. Mostly.
There's only a few episodes I would say I didn't enjoy very much. But there's also only a few that I would consider outstanding. While the series does a very good job of setting up the characters, and running them through fun or interesting situations, there also isn't a lot of growth or change from those adventures. And while that may have been pretty standard at the time, I'll say the same thing about this that I say about TXF, by the time I got into this series I was already hooked by arc based storytelling; while I didn't quite expect it in sitcoms back then, I have always been inclined towards it.
Especially since I came to this show later on, when the arc (such as it is) was more evident. When there was more explicitly going on under surface a lot of time. Or at least off screen but you knew there were things happening with all the characters in a way I don't feel as much now.
I actually think I should take the opportunity to discuss my history with this show, because it actually turns out I may have been wrong in my series opening. I said I'd seen the show 2-3 times before, but I'm not so sure now I even saw the whole thing once. There are plenty of episodes across the seasons that have a ring of familiarity, but very few so far that I actually remember. And certainly not as if I've gone back to the show as an adult and really thought about the story and characters the way I have for several years now.
So here's a more specific account of what I remember. I started watching the show in s7, to be specific the first episode I have clear memories of seeing and having some understanding of the implications of was 'Back Talk'. Which means I must have seen a few before then, but that's what sticks in my head as my first real moment with Frasier; which of course is arc related and shipping related. Because I was me even then.
Consulting my handy list of episode dates, that would have been late 1999, and that makes some sense. That gives me a year and half or so before I left for college, and in that time I was able to see a collection of late night reruns of older Frasier eps and even some Cheers. I probably watched it some in college too, especially the new episodes, but my discovery of Buffy took must of my fandom attention at the time and I drifted away from Frasier as appointment viewing and and then to not viewing over the last few seasons. I've been assuming that at some point since then I watched through the series, but I no longer feel very confident in that. I do think I came back for the finale, so maybe that further confused my memory.
As stated a few times, before I started this rewatch and even during it, I've been poking at other episodes from the show, so now I have a pretty good understanding of where the show is going, but I didn't actually remember it going in.
That general stuff out of the way, this first season really is solid. All of the characters are likable and there's depths hinted at if rarely seen. It's a good sitcom cast, and used...okay. It's very much Frasier's show, which is part of the reason we see so little of the depth possible in the others. By the same token, they have to spend the time establishing the ground state for the other characters before they can have them with growth, while Frasier is a known quantity (to the writers, his actor, and much of the audience) so they're a little more able to do things with his character than the others.
Still, it's a problem that they don't give the other characters more focus to catch them up to Frasier's level. There are times they do with Martin and Niles, but definitely not with the ladies. I'll be curious at what point that starts to shift, because it definitely seems to have down the road. It might be a gradual thing instead of a full shift and won't really notice the difference until I can't deal with going back to early episodes because they're so different from later ones.
I guess we can talk a bit about the scoring system as well as the scores for this season. It is a weird scoring system, but it's working for me; but it does make it hard to be sure what average is.
-Out of 50, it should be 25
-out of 55 it would be 27.5
-since I very rarely give less that 1 to any category the average might be 29 or 31.5
-that makes the average of possible averages 28.25
By any of these numbers, most of the episodes this season were rated above average which it probably should be on a good show (I'm not shooting for uniform distribution where I rank it mostly against itself) although I do think a few might have gotten higher scores than they really deserved. But to confuse the issue even further I kept track of how I would rank the whole season and an episode's rank on that list was not determined by it's score, except in the sense that if I gave it a high score it probably also got a good ranking. Like the score, the ranking was determined at the time of viewing, so let's see what I came up with.
If I was ranking by scores (total/personal/story/characters)
1x16: The Show Where Lilith Comes Back (51.5)
1x17: A Midwinter Night's Dream (44.5)
1x03: Dinner at Eight (43)
1x21: Travels with Martin (43)
1x24: My Coffee with Niles (43)
1x22: Author, Author (43)
1x13: Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast (42.5)
1x08: Beloved Infidel (39.5)
1x07: Call Me Irresponsible (38)
1x05: Here's Looking at You (38)
1x06: The Crucible (37.5)
1x23: Frasier Crane's Day Off (36)
1x15: You Can't Tell a Crook by His Cover (35)
1x12: Miracle on Third or Fourth Street (35)
1x01: The Good Son (33.5)
1x04: I Hate Frasier Crane (33.5)
1x02: Space Quest (32.5)
1x18: And the Whimper is... (30)
1x09: Selling Out (30)
1x19: Give Him the Chair! (29.5)
1x14: Can't Buy Me Love (29)
1x20: Fortysomething (28.5)
1x10: Oops (25)
1x11: Death Becomes Him (24)
Which is somewhat easier to judge scores in.
-Barring the outlier with Lilith, my mark of a good score seems to be around 43 (which is also the most commonly given score.
-Episodes with Bebe score 30 points
-By and large I prefer episodes driven by characters who are not Frasier (Lilith, Niles, and Martin are the primary or at least co-focus of the eight top episodes)
-the score average is just a tick over 36 which does seem a little high for any of the possible averages, but that's what we have
But here's my actual ranking, it's not that different, but a little bit:
1x16: The Show Where Lilith Comes Back (51.5)
1x17: A Midwinter Night's Dream (44.5)
1x21: Travels with Martin (43)
1x24: My Coffee with Niles (43)
1x22: Author, Author (43)
1x03: Dinner at Eight (43)
1x13: Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast (42.5)
1x23: Frasier Crane's Day Off (36)
1x05: Here's Looking at You (38)
1x07: Call Me Irresponsible (38)
1x08: Beloved Infidel (39.5)
1x18: And the Whimper is... (30)
1x15: You Can't Tell a Crook by His Cover (35)
1x06: The Crucible (37.5)
1x04: I Hate Frasier Crane (33.5)
1x09: Selling Out (30)
1x19: Give Him the Chair! (29.5)
1x14: Can't Buy Me Love (29)
1x12: Miracle on Third or Fourth Street (35)
1x02: Space Quest (32.5)
1x01: The Good Son (33.5)
1x20: Fortysomething (28.5)
1x10: Oops (25)
1x11: Death Becomes Him (24)
There are a few of the changes that are worth some comment on.
-1x12 got a high score, but it didn't leave me with a good impression of it so a lot of lower numbered episodes got ranked above it.
-1x08 is kind of the same way, I had to give it good numbers at most things but each time I would ask myself if I liked something else better I tended to decide I did.
-1x18 is an odd duck because even at the time I couldn't claim there was anything wrong with it, I just couldn't give it particularly high scores anywhere, but it managed to hold on to a higher overall ranking.
-The various 43 scores are all twisted around each other, either version (or any other) is probably equal to the others depending on my specific mood when I come across the eps.
-I should probably regrade the first couple episodes at some point, I don't know if they end up at such different positions because I graded them so early or if it was another case of ultimately just concluding I liked other things more even if the scores didn't reflect it.
This is a really solid first season of the show. Mostly.
There's only a few episodes I would say I didn't enjoy very much. But there's also only a few that I would consider outstanding. While the series does a very good job of setting up the characters, and running them through fun or interesting situations, there also isn't a lot of growth or change from those adventures. And while that may have been pretty standard at the time, I'll say the same thing about this that I say about TXF, by the time I got into this series I was already hooked by arc based storytelling; while I didn't quite expect it in sitcoms back then, I have always been inclined towards it.
Especially since I came to this show later on, when the arc (such as it is) was more evident. When there was more explicitly going on under surface a lot of time. Or at least off screen but you knew there were things happening with all the characters in a way I don't feel as much now.
I actually think I should take the opportunity to discuss my history with this show, because it actually turns out I may have been wrong in my series opening. I said I'd seen the show 2-3 times before, but I'm not so sure now I even saw the whole thing once. There are plenty of episodes across the seasons that have a ring of familiarity, but very few so far that I actually remember. And certainly not as if I've gone back to the show as an adult and really thought about the story and characters the way I have for several years now.
So here's a more specific account of what I remember. I started watching the show in s7, to be specific the first episode I have clear memories of seeing and having some understanding of the implications of was 'Back Talk'. Which means I must have seen a few before then, but that's what sticks in my head as my first real moment with Frasier; which of course is arc related and shipping related. Because I was me even then.
Consulting my handy list of episode dates, that would have been late 1999, and that makes some sense. That gives me a year and half or so before I left for college, and in that time I was able to see a collection of late night reruns of older Frasier eps and even some Cheers. I probably watched it some in college too, especially the new episodes, but my discovery of Buffy took must of my fandom attention at the time and I drifted away from Frasier as appointment viewing and and then to not viewing over the last few seasons. I've been assuming that at some point since then I watched through the series, but I no longer feel very confident in that. I do think I came back for the finale, so maybe that further confused my memory.
As stated a few times, before I started this rewatch and even during it, I've been poking at other episodes from the show, so now I have a pretty good understanding of where the show is going, but I didn't actually remember it going in.
That general stuff out of the way, this first season really is solid. All of the characters are likable and there's depths hinted at if rarely seen. It's a good sitcom cast, and used...okay. It's very much Frasier's show, which is part of the reason we see so little of the depth possible in the others. By the same token, they have to spend the time establishing the ground state for the other characters before they can have them with growth, while Frasier is a known quantity (to the writers, his actor, and much of the audience) so they're a little more able to do things with his character than the others.
Still, it's a problem that they don't give the other characters more focus to catch them up to Frasier's level. There are times they do with Martin and Niles, but definitely not with the ladies. I'll be curious at what point that starts to shift, because it definitely seems to have down the road. It might be a gradual thing instead of a full shift and won't really notice the difference until I can't deal with going back to early episodes because they're so different from later ones.
I guess we can talk a bit about the scoring system as well as the scores for this season. It is a weird scoring system, but it's working for me; but it does make it hard to be sure what average is.
-Out of 50, it should be 25
-out of 55 it would be 27.5
-since I very rarely give less that 1 to any category the average might be 29 or 31.5
-that makes the average of possible averages 28.25
By any of these numbers, most of the episodes this season were rated above average which it probably should be on a good show (I'm not shooting for uniform distribution where I rank it mostly against itself) although I do think a few might have gotten higher scores than they really deserved. But to confuse the issue even further I kept track of how I would rank the whole season and an episode's rank on that list was not determined by it's score, except in the sense that if I gave it a high score it probably also got a good ranking. Like the score, the ranking was determined at the time of viewing, so let's see what I came up with.
If I was ranking by scores (total/personal/story/characters)
1x16: The Show Where Lilith Comes Back (51.5)
1x17: A Midwinter Night's Dream (44.5)
1x03: Dinner at Eight (43)
1x21: Travels with Martin (43)
1x24: My Coffee with Niles (43)
1x22: Author, Author (43)
1x13: Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast (42.5)
1x08: Beloved Infidel (39.5)
1x07: Call Me Irresponsible (38)
1x05: Here's Looking at You (38)
1x06: The Crucible (37.5)
1x23: Frasier Crane's Day Off (36)
1x15: You Can't Tell a Crook by His Cover (35)
1x12: Miracle on Third or Fourth Street (35)
1x01: The Good Son (33.5)
1x04: I Hate Frasier Crane (33.5)
1x02: Space Quest (32.5)
1x18: And the Whimper is... (30)
1x09: Selling Out (30)
1x19: Give Him the Chair! (29.5)
1x14: Can't Buy Me Love (29)
1x20: Fortysomething (28.5)
1x10: Oops (25)
1x11: Death Becomes Him (24)
Which is somewhat easier to judge scores in.
-Barring the outlier with Lilith, my mark of a good score seems to be around 43 (which is also the most commonly given score.
-Episodes with Bebe score 30 points
-By and large I prefer episodes driven by characters who are not Frasier (Lilith, Niles, and Martin are the primary or at least co-focus of the eight top episodes)
-the score average is just a tick over 36 which does seem a little high for any of the possible averages, but that's what we have
But here's my actual ranking, it's not that different, but a little bit:
1x16: The Show Where Lilith Comes Back (51.5)
1x17: A Midwinter Night's Dream (44.5)
1x21: Travels with Martin (43)
1x24: My Coffee with Niles (43)
1x22: Author, Author (43)
1x03: Dinner at Eight (43)
1x13: Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast (42.5)
1x23: Frasier Crane's Day Off (36)
1x05: Here's Looking at You (38)
1x07: Call Me Irresponsible (38)
1x08: Beloved Infidel (39.5)
1x18: And the Whimper is... (30)
1x15: You Can't Tell a Crook by His Cover (35)
1x06: The Crucible (37.5)
1x04: I Hate Frasier Crane (33.5)
1x09: Selling Out (30)
1x19: Give Him the Chair! (29.5)
1x14: Can't Buy Me Love (29)
1x12: Miracle on Third or Fourth Street (35)
1x02: Space Quest (32.5)
1x01: The Good Son (33.5)
1x20: Fortysomething (28.5)
1x10: Oops (25)
1x11: Death Becomes Him (24)
There are a few of the changes that are worth some comment on.
-1x12 got a high score, but it didn't leave me with a good impression of it so a lot of lower numbered episodes got ranked above it.
-1x08 is kind of the same way, I had to give it good numbers at most things but each time I would ask myself if I liked something else better I tended to decide I did.
-1x18 is an odd duck because even at the time I couldn't claim there was anything wrong with it, I just couldn't give it particularly high scores anywhere, but it managed to hold on to a higher overall ranking.
-The various 43 scores are all twisted around each other, either version (or any other) is probably equal to the others depending on my specific mood when I come across the eps.
-I should probably regrade the first couple episodes at some point, I don't know if they end up at such different positions because I graded them so early or if it was another case of ultimately just concluding I liked other things more even if the scores didn't reflect it.
