'Frasier' bounces back with a nod to the past in season 2

LOS ANGELES – In its second season, “Frasier” will welcome Peri Gilpin back to the fold as Frasier Crane’s friend Roz.

Other regulars will make guest appearances and, if star Kelsey Grammer gets his way, “Cheers’ co-star Shelley Long will guest to address the Frasier/Diane relationship.

“The whole idea of going back to Boston was the fact that Frasier had some things he still had to button up,” Grammer says. “He left there with his tail between his legs and there were some relationships that didn’t quite pan out that he needed to resolve.”

Jim Burrows, one of the co-creators of “Cheers,” advised the new team against revisiting that show’s bar. “That bar is closed,” he told Grammer.

Bringing in regulars, however, was entirely possibly.

“One of the amazing things about getting to continue the story of Frasier Crane is that we have such a world to draw from, both in Seattle and Boston,” Executive Producer Chris Harris says. “We are excited to bring in more people and catch up with some of the other people that are legendary.”

Ted Danson, Long’s original co-star, is a likely guest, too. “We have a couple of ideas about a Ted show,” Grammer says.

Still, the new edition of “Frasier” needed to find its own rhythm so that it wouldn’t be a one-man show.

Giving the new cast (including Jack Cutmore-Scott as Freddy Crane, Frasier’s son; Nicholas Lyndhurst as a fellow university professor; Anders Keith as his nephew David Crane; and Toks Olagundoye as the head of Harvard’s psychology department) a chance to shine took a few episodes. Once the new “Frasier” clicked, Grammer had an opportunity to exhale. “It’s just an extraordinary experience," he says.

Now on Paramount+, a streaming network, “Frasier” doesn't have to wrap up its stories in 20-some minutes. It has the luxury of letting a story play out.

“We would always reduce down the size of (the original) ‘Frasier” to 22 minutes when it was on network,” Grammer says. “What’s fun (about the new length) is it allows laughs to develop a little bit longer. The show is really taking off in this new kind of configuration. I don’t want to see it cut to pieces. It’s lovely this way.”

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While Grammer has decades of familiarity with Crane (he’s one of the longest-running characters on television), he wasn’t intent on crafting the new story.

“Actors should trust the people around them enough to know that they’re going to show up with the goods,” he says. “My job is to bring this guy to life in the moment and, when I direct, to make the show work. But you’ve got to trust everybody, and everybody here is fantastic.”

Grammer let production designers decide what Frasier’s new home might look like (it’s very “academic”) and how he honors the past.

More important, he says, the series could help bring back the multi-camera format. “All the great shows, they’re multi-cams: ‘Cheers,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Frasier.’ Those are the ones we remember. Those are the ones that people stood around waiting for.”

Gilpin says it’s great to be back and, like, Grammer, looks to embrace the new cast of “Frasier.”

“They’ve been great to me and Nick (Lyndhurst) truly is the funniest person on the planet,” she says.

While Patricia Heaton will have a recurring role as a Frasier love interest (she plays a Boston native who isn’t impressed by his past), she won’t nudge the regulars.

“Part of the reason people go back to some of these shows is they’re like family,” Harris says. “That’s why some of these shows with the longer runs are still there.”

The second season of “Frasier” will premiere in September.