Frasier season 2 reflections
Jun. 21st, 2020 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsFrasier season 2 reflections
So I have to start this with a fair disclosure. I wrote the last of the season 2 reviews back in February. I did keep going with the reviews through s3 without stopping to do a s2 wrap-up, and then I hit a wall and didn't come back to this. So these thoughts are definitely not fresh.
I actually liked s2 less than s1, and my scores reflect that. As most of my higher scores came in the back half of the season, it ended up not being quite the sophomore slump I feared for a while early on, but it's average was lower, it had nowhere near the highs and quite a few more lows. Some of this I could put down to my grading getting more particular and settled so I'm gravitating more towards average scores (which is my natural state of grading). But I also notice I had a lot more reviews that started with some version 'well, it was okay but I didn't exactly love it,' which I think would be a very accurate summation of my feelings on this season.
It was rarely objectionable, it was usually decent, it just wasn't that good. It's got a weird dichotomy going on; the stories often feel unambitious, when actually the concepts in a lot of those episodes were pretty ambitious, they just get stripped down to fit an episode and feel underdone, the resulting stories left feeling small and weak. I actually think this may be a similar problem as I sometimes had with TXF, the 90s being a time of shifting ground in the kind of stories told in episodic TV; s1 was a bit more of a traditional sitcom, while this is torn between that traditional background and new ideas for bigger stories.
I think later in the season they got a bit more back to basics, there were fewer times when I felt a plot was badly under-served and was able to enjoy the episodes for what they were. Then in season 3 they actually let some things shake up the status quo, either for a little while or for good. So maybe the problem was they felt s2 was too early to do shake-ups (there were still some gaps in their character and situation establishing) but they were starting to have ideas that would have required shake-ups. I don't know exactly, it could be the opposite and be that establishing character and situation was no longer enough to feel like something was important the way it was in s1.
Either way, this was not as good as s1, nor as good as s3 (I could pretend I wasn't considering that as I write this, but since I already explained the situation, I might as well). So stay tuned for some more positive reviews (at least by the scores I can look at quickly), as we head into season 3.
So let's look at the scores for this season. First ranked by straight numbers, as before going by: total/personal/story/characters.
2x13: Retirement is Murder (42.5)
2x03: The Matchmaker (42.5)
2x17: Daphne's Room (41.5)
2x15: You Scratch My Book... (41)
2x21: An Affair to Forget (39.5)
2x24: Dark Victory (38)
2x04: Flour Child (34)
2x20: Breaking the Ice (34)
2x11: Seat of Power (34)
2x16: The Show Where Sam Shows Up (33.5)
2x08/9: Adventures in Paradise (34/32: used 33)
2x22: Agents in America, Part III (31.5)
2x05: Duke's, We Hardly Knew Ye (30)
2x18: The Club (30)
2x10: Burying a Grudge (30)
2x07: The Candidate (29.5)
2x02: The Unkindest Cut of All (25.5)
2x06: The Botched Language of Cranes (25)
2x23: The Innkeepers (24)
2x19: Someone to Watch Over Me (23.5)
2x01: Slow Tango in South Seattle (23.5)
2x12: Roz in the Doghouse (22)
2x14: Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice... (19.5)
Number analysis notes:
-Average is around 31.7, which is more that four points lower than s1's average. That's a fairly marked decrease. Still technically above any option for a numerical average, but not by as much as last season.
-Even if you ignore the outlier of Lilith's s1 episode, the spread of scores this season was narrower than last season. I can't call any of the scores this season outliers, even the lowest is only a couple points lower than the next one up the list.
-S1 had 7 eps above 40, and my mark of a high tier ep was 43. This only had 4 eps above 40 and none at or above 43, 38 is the mark for the top quarter. While 25 starts to bottom quarter compared to 30 in s1.
-There are actually a lot of changes on the list of my in the moments ranking, so let's look at that.
2x13: Retirement is Murder (42.5)
2x03: The Matchmaker (42.5)
2x15: You Scratch My Book... (41)
2x17: Daphne's Room (41.5)
2x21: An Affair to Forget (39.5)
2x24: Dark Victory (38)
2x16: The Show Where Sam Shows Up (33.5)
2x04: Flour Child (34)
2x08/9: Adventures in Paradise (34/32)
2x20: Breaking the Ice (34)
2x18: The Club (30)
2x22: Agents in America, Part III (31.5)
2x05: Duke's, We Hardly Knew Ye (30)
2x07: The Candidate (29.5)
2x11: Seat of Power (34)
2x23: The Innkeepers (24)
2x10: Burying a Grudge (30)
2x06: The Botched Language of Cranes (25)
2x12: Roz in the Doghouse (22)
2x19: Someone to Watch Over Me (23.5)
2x01: Slow Tango in South Seattle (23.5)
2x14: Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice... (19.5)
2x02: The Unkindest Cut of All (25.5)
-There aren't a lot of changes beyond a couple minor twists in the top of the list.
-There is however quite a mess starting in the lower 30s.
-I had written Unkindest Cut as 23.5 but thankfully I looked back to the original review when looking for its other scores and found it was 25.5. Considering it's my least favorite ep of the season even 23.5 was kind of high and it went up.
-I'm sure I had quite a debate with myself on those last two, as Fool is objectively worse, but Unkindest was just so boring. It did less wrong, so its scores were average, but I never actually found one I felt so meh about.
-Innkeepers is such a weird ep with me. It's so loved by people in general, but I gave it a low rating, and then turned around and ranked it above a few eps with better scores.
-Seat of Power is kind of the opposite, I found that while I gave it a decent score, I didn't actually like it as much as some with lower scores. It's also kind of a perfect representation of the problem I had with this season, it's a good idea, it has good moments, but the story doesn't fit in the episode time it's given.
So I have to start this with a fair disclosure. I wrote the last of the season 2 reviews back in February. I did keep going with the reviews through s3 without stopping to do a s2 wrap-up, and then I hit a wall and didn't come back to this. So these thoughts are definitely not fresh.
I actually liked s2 less than s1, and my scores reflect that. As most of my higher scores came in the back half of the season, it ended up not being quite the sophomore slump I feared for a while early on, but it's average was lower, it had nowhere near the highs and quite a few more lows. Some of this I could put down to my grading getting more particular and settled so I'm gravitating more towards average scores (which is my natural state of grading). But I also notice I had a lot more reviews that started with some version 'well, it was okay but I didn't exactly love it,' which I think would be a very accurate summation of my feelings on this season.
It was rarely objectionable, it was usually decent, it just wasn't that good. It's got a weird dichotomy going on; the stories often feel unambitious, when actually the concepts in a lot of those episodes were pretty ambitious, they just get stripped down to fit an episode and feel underdone, the resulting stories left feeling small and weak. I actually think this may be a similar problem as I sometimes had with TXF, the 90s being a time of shifting ground in the kind of stories told in episodic TV; s1 was a bit more of a traditional sitcom, while this is torn between that traditional background and new ideas for bigger stories.
I think later in the season they got a bit more back to basics, there were fewer times when I felt a plot was badly under-served and was able to enjoy the episodes for what they were. Then in season 3 they actually let some things shake up the status quo, either for a little while or for good. So maybe the problem was they felt s2 was too early to do shake-ups (there were still some gaps in their character and situation establishing) but they were starting to have ideas that would have required shake-ups. I don't know exactly, it could be the opposite and be that establishing character and situation was no longer enough to feel like something was important the way it was in s1.
Either way, this was not as good as s1, nor as good as s3 (I could pretend I wasn't considering that as I write this, but since I already explained the situation, I might as well). So stay tuned for some more positive reviews (at least by the scores I can look at quickly), as we head into season 3.
So let's look at the scores for this season. First ranked by straight numbers, as before going by: total/personal/story/characters.
2x13: Retirement is Murder (42.5)
2x03: The Matchmaker (42.5)
2x17: Daphne's Room (41.5)
2x15: You Scratch My Book... (41)
2x21: An Affair to Forget (39.5)
2x24: Dark Victory (38)
2x04: Flour Child (34)
2x20: Breaking the Ice (34)
2x11: Seat of Power (34)
2x16: The Show Where Sam Shows Up (33.5)
2x08/9: Adventures in Paradise (34/32: used 33)
2x22: Agents in America, Part III (31.5)
2x05: Duke's, We Hardly Knew Ye (30)
2x18: The Club (30)
2x10: Burying a Grudge (30)
2x07: The Candidate (29.5)
2x02: The Unkindest Cut of All (25.5)
2x06: The Botched Language of Cranes (25)
2x23: The Innkeepers (24)
2x19: Someone to Watch Over Me (23.5)
2x01: Slow Tango in South Seattle (23.5)
2x12: Roz in the Doghouse (22)
2x14: Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice... (19.5)
Number analysis notes:
-Average is around 31.7, which is more that four points lower than s1's average. That's a fairly marked decrease. Still technically above any option for a numerical average, but not by as much as last season.
-Even if you ignore the outlier of Lilith's s1 episode, the spread of scores this season was narrower than last season. I can't call any of the scores this season outliers, even the lowest is only a couple points lower than the next one up the list.
-S1 had 7 eps above 40, and my mark of a high tier ep was 43. This only had 4 eps above 40 and none at or above 43, 38 is the mark for the top quarter. While 25 starts to bottom quarter compared to 30 in s1.
-There are actually a lot of changes on the list of my in the moments ranking, so let's look at that.
2x13: Retirement is Murder (42.5)
2x03: The Matchmaker (42.5)
2x15: You Scratch My Book... (41)
2x17: Daphne's Room (41.5)
2x21: An Affair to Forget (39.5)
2x24: Dark Victory (38)
2x16: The Show Where Sam Shows Up (33.5)
2x04: Flour Child (34)
2x08/9: Adventures in Paradise (34/32)
2x20: Breaking the Ice (34)
2x18: The Club (30)
2x22: Agents in America, Part III (31.5)
2x05: Duke's, We Hardly Knew Ye (30)
2x07: The Candidate (29.5)
2x11: Seat of Power (34)
2x23: The Innkeepers (24)
2x10: Burying a Grudge (30)
2x06: The Botched Language of Cranes (25)
2x12: Roz in the Doghouse (22)
2x19: Someone to Watch Over Me (23.5)
2x01: Slow Tango in South Seattle (23.5)
2x14: Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice... (19.5)
2x02: The Unkindest Cut of All (25.5)
-There aren't a lot of changes beyond a couple minor twists in the top of the list.
-There is however quite a mess starting in the lower 30s.
-I had written Unkindest Cut as 23.5 but thankfully I looked back to the original review when looking for its other scores and found it was 25.5. Considering it's my least favorite ep of the season even 23.5 was kind of high and it went up.
-I'm sure I had quite a debate with myself on those last two, as Fool is objectively worse, but Unkindest was just so boring. It did less wrong, so its scores were average, but I never actually found one I felt so meh about.
-Innkeepers is such a weird ep with me. It's so loved by people in general, but I gave it a low rating, and then turned around and ranked it above a few eps with better scores.
-Seat of Power is kind of the opposite, I found that while I gave it a decent score, I didn't actually like it as much as some with lower scores. It's also kind of a perfect representation of the problem I had with this season, it's a good idea, it has good moments, but the story doesn't fit in the episode time it's given.
