Why Isn't Frasier Drinking At Cheers In The New Revival? The EPs Explain
Frasier is back in Boston in the new Paramount+ revival, but he has yet to set foot in the bar where everybody knows your name.
Thursday's premiere saw Frasier Crane return to his old stomping grounds of Boston to reconnect with his son Freddy and take a new job teaching at Harvard. (Read our full recap here.) But when he and his Harvard colleagues went out for a drink, they went to a bar called Mahoney's — named in honor of late Frasier co-star John Mahoney — and not to Frasier's former home away from home: the titular bar from Cheers, where Kelsey Grammer first debuted as Frasier Crane nearly 40 years ago. So why wouldn't Frasier grab a beer with Sam, Carla, Woody and the gang?
"Cheers is a Fuddruckers now," executive producer Joe Cristalli jokes. But seriously, "we would absolutely love to explore that," fellow EP Chris Harris tells TVLine. "What is the bar now? Are [the Cheers characters] still there? Does everyone know his name still?"
But Harris also notes that "there might be a reason why Frasier the character is holding back a little bit from going back there... [He] does not necessarily see it as the best time of his life. He had a lot of failures in romance, he had a lot of professional setbacks, he spent a lot of time at a bar. So he might have some hesitation at revisiting." (Indeed, Frasier muttered in the premiere that when he last lived in Boston, he "may have spent a little too much time at a certain bar.")
In fact, Frasier won't go to Cheers at all in the revival's first season, Cristalli reveals: "I think it's super telling, and by design, that he doesn't go to Cheers in that first season... He's got some unresolved issues somewhere that hopefully we'll get to explore." None of Grammer's Cheers co-stars are set to appear on the revival, either, aside from Bebe Neuwirth, who played Frasier's ex-wife Lilith on Cheers and later on Frasier's original run.
But Harris won't rule out a walk down those fateful stairs for Frasier Crane in the future: "Hopefully, he will" return to Cheers at some point, "and we can't wait for him to do that... As a fan, I can't wait to see the next part of that story."
Which Cheers alums are you most hoping to see on the new Frasier? Grab a barstool and let us know in the comments below.