That new Frasier series

[Discordant Resonance]

Reboots rarely, if ever, succeed, though Picard did at least give the TNG crew an excellent send-off. Can't say this will be encouraging me to rush out for the Paramount+ subscription, however!

https://www.nme.com/news/tv/frasier-...reboot-3486825

[dddd]

Worth it just for this line:-

"Ahead of the show’s premiere, Grammer has said that he thinks the Frasier reboot “may even be funnier” than the original."

[Nocturnal Submission]

Oh, no!

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, though I'm not saying that it's a good thing either, but Nicholas Lyndhurst is playing one of the main characters.

[Sits]

It’s a no from me. I loved Frasier but know a lot more about Kelsey Grammer now than I did then.

[WOM]

I gave the That '70s Show reboot a full 3 episodes and it smelled like a rotting corpse. My hopes for this one are similar.

[Nocturnal Submission]

[Benjm]

Some of that trailer seems to have been cannibalised from a cheapjack 2020 action film called Money Plane that I watched the other day on Legend (formerly the Horror Channel). It certainly made one see why the Frasier reboot would have seemed an attractive option for KG.

[Patrick Thistle]

Yeah... I'm not sure what that trailer is trying to do

[Discordant Resonance]

It's a parody - given that we already know Niles and Daphne won't be in the new series.

[WOM]

I had my doubts about this 'boot when I heard David Hyde Pierce's less-than-convincing explanation for his not taking part.

[blameless]

Has Kelsey Grammer ever played Gerald Ford in a movie? And if not, why not?

[Ray de Galles]

I had my doubts about this 'boot when I heard David Hyde Pierce's less-than-convincing explanation for his not taking part.

What was that, I hadn't heard.

[WOM]

What was that, I hadn't heard.

Some mumbly-speak around 'we looked at the character and didn't know how much farther we could take him' etc etc. Like they're doing Hamlet. I read it as 'there was no money / the spec script was shite'.

[WOM]

That said...maybe a clean break from the old cast will work well in the same way it worked by not taking the Cheers cast to Seattle.

[WOM]

... but know a lot more about Kelsey Grammer now than I did then.

You and old Kelsey got history?

[Capybara]

You and old Kelsey got history?

I assume Sits is on about Grammer's politics rather than the fact that ex-Middlesbrough and Bristol City player Alan Walsh is his father-in-law.

[WOM]

Ah. Wasn't aware of his leanings.

[elguapo4]

Has Kelsey Grammer ever played Gerald Ford in a movie? And if not, why not?

Probably goes under " who'd want to see a movie about Gerald Ford?"

[caja-dglh]

A typical major network move - you can get younger people to Paramount through Sports and new shows that get buzz, but the real money is from getting all the old people on board. The old people want someone they recognize which is most easily achieved by overpaying for old reruns or a reboot.

Of course it will be dreadful.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Of course it will be dreadful.

Impossible to say. Depends on the writers.

I mean, why did Frasier succeed when The Tortellis didn't?

[caja-dglh]

It is a desperate reboot to try and rescue their streaming service, much like Disney is scraping around on.

It will be awful.

[Lang Spoon]

It's a parody - given that we already know Niles and Daphne won't be in the new series.

The only possible good thing would be no Daphne and especially no Daphne extended family.

[WOM]

Impossible to say. Depends on the writers.

I mean, why did Frasier succeed when The Tortellis didn't?

This. Frasier was sharply written with fully formed supporting characters. This is key. Cheers succeeded because, while it had stars, it had fully formed supporting characters rather than a collection of stock cliches.

[diggedy derek]

That trailer above. It's a parody, isn't it?

In the video description: parody.

It is, nonetheless, a minor masterpiece.

[Hot Pepsi]

It is a desperate reboot to try and rescue their streaming service, much like Disney is scraping around on.

It will be awful.

Disney has, more or less, six major "brands" - Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, Classic Disney Characters, Old Disney Animated Movies They Can Rehash In Live Action By Just Making the Lead Characters Not White*, and Old Disney Channel Stuff. Each of those is facing unique challenges, as we've discussed.

But at least they're occasionally doing some new stories in those established worlds. And Disney sort of has a plan, albeit one they don't quite know how to pay for. They're probably going to merge Hulu, Disney Plus and ESPN+ into one $20-$25 a month service. That's pretty much what they're already doing with the bundle.


But Paramount/Showtime/CBS is really taking the reboot thing to a whole other level. "Chicken-Shit Programming" is how it was described by somebody. I forget. For example, they plan to just keep spinning more of the Taylor Sheridan-verse on and on. They're merging Showtime into Paramount Plus and going to make a Millions (prequel) and Trillions (sequel) to Billions, a show that's still going despite running out of steam several seasons ago.

And they don't really have a plan. Their service just isn't getting the numbers so they'll probably have to merge with Comcast/Peacock or something like that.

The Summer Redstone administration mismanaged Viacom for years. Lots of terrible decisions. For example, they own Comedy Central but let the South Park guys do their own streaming deal because they figured "digital rights" didn't matter. So now the South Park archive is on Max. Those guys are rich beyond comprehension.



However, I have to say that their current Star Trek line-up is great. I thought Picard was great. The second season was a bit muddled, but I thought it was a noble failure, and the last season was a great send off for the TNG crew as well as a possible entre into another crew. Lower Decks is fun and I'm really liking Strange New Worlds. That could also all be described as chicken-shit programming insofar as there's no threat of a Star Trek show failing to find an audience, but at least they're doing it well.


* I'm all for representation, pissing off the "anti-woke" mouth-breathers, etc, but if the only new idea for a story is to just change the ethnicities or genders of characters then maybe it's not really worth doing. Just start over with a new story. (I know why that wouldn't work commercially, however).

BTW, the latest fake kerfuffle in that area is that the new Snow White will have a Puerto Rican actress as Snow White and the "dwarves" wont' be little people any more. They'll be some other kind of magical being. Idiots are trying to cancel Peter Dinklage over this because he, quite sensibly, has opposed portraying adults with with achondroplasia as funny little magical creatures.