Keep Chugging Along the Top 5s: Top 5 Episodes You'd Show Someone to Introduce Them to [Show]?
For apgeeksout, I am doing Top 5 episodes to introduce someone to whatever show I choose. I struggled on what show to pick. I'm a big believer in watching a show in order to get the full development of the story. Almost all of my favorite shows had very strong first seasons. If they didn't, I would have dropped them- a show needs to be good for at least three seasons, until I slavishly follow it even when it starts sucking.
So, I decided to go with sitcoms. They're rarely discussed on LJ. And with sitcoms- even the character based, serialized ones that I enjoy, you don't have to watch every ep to enjoy the show. In particular, I landed on Frasier for now.
I had fun with this challenge so I may hit Sex and the City and/or Curb Your Enthusiasm and/or Community next. I'm not sure what sitcoms apgeeksout watches or much of my Flist watches and I wanted to pick ones that people know. Although, these lists *do* work as recommendations for two of my favorite sitcoms)
So, my introductory eps for Frasier. Which may actually be helpful. I love Frasier. Piece of my childhood. It's a big piece of TV history. One of the most Emmy winningest sitcoms. However, it's LOOOONG. It ran for 11 seasons. And a bunch of eps are duds. Season 7 through 10 have a lot of duds. It's also aged. IMO, Frasier and to a lesser extent, Sex and the City, paint a very prosperous, rosy 1990s picture of America.
So if you want to check out Frasier without the big commitment of wading through everything, I recommend the following eps. Frasier works well by just picking and choosing good eps. It has some serialization. It actually pioneered more serialization than past sitcoms engaged in. However, most eps are stand-alones. If you can deal with confusion created by Daphne's, Roz's, and Frasier's changing hair, you're golden to watch the series out of order. Granted, I could be biased with this whole thing. *I* watched Frasier out of order because I was too young to watch it from the beginning but I got into it as a child on cable syndication before DVDs of TV shows and certainly Netflix on demand was a thing.
1. The Good Son: SUCH A GOOD PILOT. Especially for a '90s sitcom but I don't even need to grade on a curve. Basically every element of the show is introduced hilariously. It packs a lot of exposition in twenty minutes. It pretty much covers that Frasier's moved to Seattle, all quirks and sundry in Martin and Niles and Daphne, Frasier's job as a radio host, foreshadows how bad Niles's marriage is with Maris, and how the Frasier/Martin/Daphne household came to be.
Frasier: My study? You expect me to give up my study, the place where I read, where I do my most profound thinking?
Martin: Use the can like the rest of the world!
2. Especially for Cheers fans, I'd pick The Show Where Lilith Comes Back. However, I don't think that non-Cheers fans should be deprived of Lilith Sternin's awesomness.
3. The heart of the show is the Niles/Frasier relationship, IMO. So, I'd jump ahead from S1 to S6 and show The Dinner Party. I can do that because basically, the entire ep is just one big fight between Niles and Frasier about the particulars of a dinner party that they intended on hosting to impress the opera committee to the point that their bickering and waffling effectively derails the entire party. They alienate their favored guests, lose their favored caterer, etc. It's a perfect distillation of Frasier/Niles's flaws- without requiring history. Because with Frasier/Niles, "How Lose Friends and Alienate People from Snobbery and Social Incompetence With Delusions Ace Social Climbing" is a history that repeats itself. LOL
It's one of the ultimate Bottle Episodes. You know, other than Community's LITERAL Bottle episode to be a meta on all TV Bottle episodes and West Wing's 17 People which drove major plot forward in a self-contained argument on one set.
4. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire: I wouldn't be properly introducing Frasier if I didn't include an ep with Bebe Glazer, Frasier's phoney, cut-throat agent. She's always a highlight and this is among her best ep. (Other than the one where Kristen Chenowith played her assistant but then The Cheno stole the show as she's wont to do.)
5. Room Service: I'm definitely showing my fan biases by cherry-picking by *two* Lilith eps. It's out of proportion to how often she appears on the show. Although, one of the key comedy mainstays of Frasier is revolving doors of misunderstandings and secrets. The first four eps that I picked didn't really reflect that. However, this ep is the Pinnacle of the trick. I picked it last so that my hypothetical has the most familiarity with the show- the Frasier/Niles dynamic, Lilith, the show's blending of psychiatric analysis with comedy, etc. However, it's actually my *favorite* ep on this list and in my top three Frasier eps. The story is outrageous- Lilith looking for sex to Frasier to get over her unfaithful second husband ends up sleeping with his brother, Niles, and then Frasier comes to Lilith's hotel just after she and Niles slept together looking to have sex. It's ready-made hysterical premise and the actual execution really delivers.
Lilith: If you could look at this rationally for one moment: we didn't actually do anything wrong.
Frasier: [incredulous] What? You didn't do anything wrong?
Niles: I'm a little unclear on that myself, but I'm willing to go along with it.
Niles is my darling.
So, I decided to go with sitcoms. They're rarely discussed on LJ. And with sitcoms- even the character based, serialized ones that I enjoy, you don't have to watch every ep to enjoy the show. In particular, I landed on Frasier for now.
I had fun with this challenge so I may hit Sex and the City and/or Curb Your Enthusiasm and/or Community next. I'm not sure what sitcoms apgeeksout watches or much of my Flist watches and I wanted to pick ones that people know. Although, these lists *do* work as recommendations for two of my favorite sitcoms)
So, my introductory eps for Frasier. Which may actually be helpful. I love Frasier. Piece of my childhood. It's a big piece of TV history. One of the most Emmy winningest sitcoms. However, it's LOOOONG. It ran for 11 seasons. And a bunch of eps are duds. Season 7 through 10 have a lot of duds. It's also aged. IMO, Frasier and to a lesser extent, Sex and the City, paint a very prosperous, rosy 1990s picture of America.
So if you want to check out Frasier without the big commitment of wading through everything, I recommend the following eps. Frasier works well by just picking and choosing good eps. It has some serialization. It actually pioneered more serialization than past sitcoms engaged in. However, most eps are stand-alones. If you can deal with confusion created by Daphne's, Roz's, and Frasier's changing hair, you're golden to watch the series out of order. Granted, I could be biased with this whole thing. *I* watched Frasier out of order because I was too young to watch it from the beginning but I got into it as a child on cable syndication before DVDs of TV shows and certainly Netflix on demand was a thing.
1. The Good Son: SUCH A GOOD PILOT. Especially for a '90s sitcom but I don't even need to grade on a curve. Basically every element of the show is introduced hilariously. It packs a lot of exposition in twenty minutes. It pretty much covers that Frasier's moved to Seattle, all quirks and sundry in Martin and Niles and Daphne, Frasier's job as a radio host, foreshadows how bad Niles's marriage is with Maris, and how the Frasier/Martin/Daphne household came to be.
Frasier: My study? You expect me to give up my study, the place where I read, where I do my most profound thinking?
Martin: Use the can like the rest of the world!
2. Especially for Cheers fans, I'd pick The Show Where Lilith Comes Back. However, I don't think that non-Cheers fans should be deprived of Lilith Sternin's awesomness.
3. The heart of the show is the Niles/Frasier relationship, IMO. So, I'd jump ahead from S1 to S6 and show The Dinner Party. I can do that because basically, the entire ep is just one big fight between Niles and Frasier about the particulars of a dinner party that they intended on hosting to impress the opera committee to the point that their bickering and waffling effectively derails the entire party. They alienate their favored guests, lose their favored caterer, etc. It's a perfect distillation of Frasier/Niles's flaws- without requiring history. Because with Frasier/Niles, "How Lose Friends and Alienate People from Snobbery and Social Incompetence With Delusions Ace Social Climbing" is a history that repeats itself. LOL
It's one of the ultimate Bottle Episodes. You know, other than Community's LITERAL Bottle episode to be a meta on all TV Bottle episodes and West Wing's 17 People which drove major plot forward in a self-contained argument on one set.
4. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire: I wouldn't be properly introducing Frasier if I didn't include an ep with Bebe Glazer, Frasier's phoney, cut-throat agent. She's always a highlight and this is among her best ep. (Other than the one where Kristen Chenowith played her assistant but then The Cheno stole the show as she's wont to do.)
5. Room Service: I'm definitely showing my fan biases by cherry-picking by *two* Lilith eps. It's out of proportion to how often she appears on the show. Although, one of the key comedy mainstays of Frasier is revolving doors of misunderstandings and secrets. The first four eps that I picked didn't really reflect that. However, this ep is the Pinnacle of the trick. I picked it last so that my hypothetical has the most familiarity with the show- the Frasier/Niles dynamic, Lilith, the show's blending of psychiatric analysis with comedy, etc. However, it's actually my *favorite* ep on this list and in my top three Frasier eps. The story is outrageous- Lilith looking for sex to Frasier to get over her unfaithful second husband ends up sleeping with his brother, Niles, and then Frasier comes to Lilith's hotel just after she and Niles slept together looking to have sex. It's ready-made hysterical premise and the actual execution really delivers.
Lilith: If you could look at this rationally for one moment: we didn't actually do anything wrong.
Frasier: [incredulous] What? You didn't do anything wrong?
Niles: I'm a little unclear on that myself, but I'm willing to go along with it.
Niles is my darling.