...there are two big, interconnected problems with bringing the original characters onto a revival, even in small or recurring parts. One is that the old characters are so well-established that the new characters, by definition not established yet, can look bad.
The other is that disconnected from the original cast, the original characters don’t seem that great any more.
Here’s a weird comparison to 90210 but one that fits: Remember that WKRP revival that MTM produced for syndication in the early ’90s? The idea behind that show was that it was the same station with mostly new characters, but three characters from the original came back as regulars. The revival didn’t work for a whole bunch of reasons, but there were two things that went through my head when I watched it: one, that the presence of the familiar old characters made the new characters seem even worse by comparison, and two, the familiar old characters weren’t funny any more because they depended on their interactions with the other original characters to make them funny.
This is one reason that spinoffs are so hard to do, that when you remove a beloved character from his surroundings, he’s no longer the same character. Joey on his own show was a terrible character because ten years’ worth of writing for Joey had been based on the presence of characters who weren’t there.
Jaime's nailed it there, I think, but at the same time, I think back to a session I had years ago with Peter Casey, one of the Writer/Creators of Frasier (and before that, Wings.)He talked at length about the process of setting up Frasier. There's brilliance, of course, in the idea that Frasier came from a blue collar regular guy cop father. Gave the show an opposites crackle from moment one.
In a way, that element kind of makes Weinman's point, too, in the sense that that all-important element of Frasier was a direct contradiction of the history offered in Cheers.
digression
Were Frasier a sci-fi show -- say one of the Treks -- that would have induced something like apoplexy in the faithful. Trek did a couple of episodes to try and explain why Klingons in the original series looked different from Klingons in the movies, and STILL, some fans weren't happy. Even though to my mind, the most brilliant, simple explanation was offered by Worf in the ep where they went back and retold some of the Trouble With Tribbles. When greeted by his crewmates confusion at the non-bumpy-headed Klingons, Worf scowled (as usual) and said, "they are also Klingons, and we don't talk about it to outsiders." Or something like that.
See Also: Force, The & midichlorians, things that never needed explaining in the first place goddamnit.
/digression
Anyway, they had established in Cheers that Frasier's parents were both dead, and exactly like him: effete intellectuals. He also never mentioned a brother. And here's where guest shots by the original cast from Cheers actually HELPED a show -- when they showed up they teased out an important part of Frasier backstory: Frasier lied because he was ashamed of where he came from.A nice retcon, because it rippled through to the new show and actually changed stuff up. It gave the new show juice.
Anyway, this has all been a long winded and particularly disjointed (I'm fighting an inner ear infection, so screw you, hippie) way of getting to my main point: the magic of TV is that you can just never, ever tell what will work, and for all the sturm and drang from the network, and notes here and notes there and testing, and tone meetings and dry runs and conceptual circle jerks, the cold, hard and inescapable truth is this:
brilliance only ever seems that way in hindsight.
Because the most brilliant thing the creators of Frasier did was completely counterintuitive...the one thing that should have never, ever, ever worked: they gave him a brother who was exactly the same as him, did exactly the same thing for a living, and was, in fact, Frasier -- the Frasier we'd known from Cheers. He was MORE FRASIER THAN FRASIER.
Now, there's no question that if not for the fact that David Hyde Pierce (who'd been brilliant in a so-so sitcom called The Powers That Be) was cast the gambit might not have worked. But he was, and by doing this crazy thing, fans got to have their cake and eat it too.
Is that why Frasier, from that very first episode, seemed like a show that had been on for years, in a way that Joey, the New WKRP, and probably, sadly, 90210 never, ever could?
I don't know.
There's no way that move should have worked.
But it did.
Take that, Weinman, you inglorious bastard!
9 comments:
It didn't seem that counter-intuitive to me to add the brother. You can't have everyone contrast Frasier in the same direction or it gets boring. If you get a full spectrum of contrasts, you have more to work with.
And for 90210 the first thing I compared it to was Degrassi the Next Generation, which had characters from the original series, but accepted that the years have changed the characters, and filled different roles in the new series. But maybe I am giving the CW too much credit.
I shake my head and laugh.
Let's throw it open to the pros who've actually pitched series at a network. Couple questions:
1) Have you ever pitched a show where two characters in the ensemble fulfilled exactly the same function, and in fact had the same personality?
2) How'd that work for you?
Ryan -- I'd suggest looking up the word "contrast." The point I was, in fact, making is that on paper -- before you saw it in action -- Niles doesn't *contrast* Frasier AT ALL.
Ryan: Degrassi is a good example of how this approach can work, and I should have mentioned it.
Another one that sort of worked, at least at first, was Batman Beyond, which was Batman: the Animated Series 50 years later, where Bruce Wayne is training a new Batman and Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon is the new Commissioner.
In both those shows I think it helped that those original characters had clearly been promoted to the role of either authority figures or at least "older" characters -- they weren't having the same types of problems they were on the original series. (And on the New WKRP, Mr. Carlson actually worked because he was an authority figure and could function equally well with new characters.) They established pretty clearly that Bruce Wayne was no longer Batman and the original Degrassi kids were no longer kids, even if they had soapy problems of their own.
We'll have to see if 90210 can manage to establish that if we want cool teen problems, we should not look to Brenda and Kelly to provide them.
Re Niles: He's also an example of how a show can benefit from introducing a character who embodies all the hero's most unlikable qualities, but worse. Not that Niles wasn't likable, but he was like a parody of the Cheers version of Frasier: prissier, snootier, snobbier, more anti-social. As soon as he walked in, we could accept Frasier as the hero because there was audio-visual proof that Frasier wasn't that bad.
On King of the Hill, one of the things Greg Daniels did when he came on to the project was add the character of Hank Hill's father, Cotton, because that way nobody could accuse Hank of being too reactionary or too uncaring of a dad: as soon as we saw Cotton, we would not only know why Hank wound up the way he did, but that Hank was a much better man and father than his own dad.
I gotta go with Jamie on this one - Niles is Frasier amplified and reflected...and look where that got him (Maris).
Frasier's dad was all that he didn't want to be...but needed to understand and appreciate.
and Daphne embodied those elements (compassion, intuition, silliness) that Frasier needed to learn to be a whole person.
But of course, this being a comedy and all that didn't happen.
And yes, I have pitched a show (though not at a network)where we had two characters that performed the same function and worked extremely well together. They were twins and that was the point... they acted as one.
It was a running joke and we planned to deal with it about episode 10 by killing one of them...
I always assumed it was device to make characters that were a gay couple palatable in American primetime.
I will grant that it would be hard to know if Niles would work without the benefit of hindsight. But I think I was 12 when Frasier came out, and I got right away what Niles was doing on the show, and at least some network executives have to be as smart as a 12-year-old.
You know, it's kind of interesting that they're returning to 90210. Not that I ever watched it, but it makes me wonder what kind of approach they'll take.
Part of the reason Degrassi works is how they handled the older characters. They didn't just throw them in as cameos, but as actual characters with substance and storylines of their own that affected the new kids. They were integral. They weren't simply background objects appearing in an episode or two and then not being heard from again. And then the kids grew because of it, because you could relate to those characters. It made the world feel like there were real consequences to everyone's actions.
Handling so many characters is a careful balance. And with Degrassi, they managed that balance. It's not perfect, mind you, but I think the producers of the new 90210 could look at it to see how it should be done.
Oh yeah, another failed series comes to mind. Anyone remember Saved by the Bell: The New Class? New kids, same principal, yet the kids were basically carbon copies of the originals. Bomb.
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