Frasier has left the building – again. The revived sitcom has been cancelled at Paramount+ after two seasons. Deadline reports that CBS Studios remains committed to the series, and will attempt to find a new home for it.
The series was the odd man out at Paramount+; like its predecessor, which ran from 1993 to 2004, it is the only original multi-camera sitcom on the streamer, and one of only two original half-hour comedies. However, unlike some streaming cancelations, both seasons will remain available to stream on Paramount+. Series star and producer Kelsey Grammer had the series in development for some time before it was picked up by the streamer in 2022; the first season premiered in 2023, while a second debuted last fall. Series co-creators Joe Cristalli and Chris Harris expressed uncertainty about the show’s future after the second-season finale, stating “we don’t really know much. We haven’t heard anything, but I feel like [with] the quality of the episodes and how the characters have grown and the scripts and the writing staff and everyone… I would argue that [this season is] better than the first.”
What is the ‘Frasier’ Revival About?
After the (offscreen) death and funeral of his father, Martin, Frasier Crane seeks to reconnect with his own son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), who’s now a firefighter in Frasier’s old stomping grounds of Boston. He moves in with Freddy, connecting with both him and his friend Eve (Jess Salguiero), who’s raising the daughter she had with one of Freddy’s friends who fell in the line of duty. Frasier takes a job at Harvard with his old friend Alan Cornwall (Nicholas Lyndhurst), under the watchful eye of neurotic dean Olivia Finch (Toks Olagundoye). He also gets to spend some time with his nephew David (Anders Keith), the son of Niles and Daphne who was born in Frasier‘s original series finale. Over the course of its two seasons, the series brought back a number of Frasier’s friends and family, including his former producer Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) and her daughter Alice (Greer Grammer), his ex-wife Lilith Sternin (Bebe Neuwirth), his diabolical agent Bebe Glazer (Harriet Sansom Harris), and his radio colleagues Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe (Dan Butler) and Gil Chesterton (Edward Hibbert).
While the original series had consistently excellent reviews, and a pile of Emmys to prove it, the critics were not so kind to the revival, finding that it failed to build the comedic ensemble of the original. Collider’s Chase Hutchinson called the first season “okay at best,” and Shawn Van Horn found that the second season “adds nothing new and has no reason to exist other than nostalgia, and with pretty much only Frasier himself coming back, there’s not even much of that.
The Frasier revival will not return for a third season at Paramount+; a new home is being sought for the sitcom. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
Watch on Paramount+
