Look who’s back

• Published date: 24 October 2023
• Publication title: Signal

IT would be ridiculous to claim that your personal happiness ever hung on the success of a television programme. But on the other hand, the heart wants what it wants. And this heart, along with that of every other devotee to a certain pompous but lovable Seattle shrink, has been strung to one desire since the reboot of history’s most immaculate sitcom was greenlit; that the new Frasier be great

The wait is over. The reboot is here. Frasier — played, though you hardly need me to tell you, by Kelsey Grammer — has relocated from his ‘‘eclectic’’ apartment in the Emerald City and returned east to Boston, where it all began. After 15 years of a successful TV series, he wants a quieter life and to be near his now grown-up son Frederick (Jack Cutmore-Scott) who still lives in Boston after — to his father’s profound bafflement — dropping out of Harvard to become a firefighter.

The first episode is a test of faith as backstories are filled in, pieces are arranged and new characters are introduced. There is Eve...