We all face moments of reckoning in our lives – but rarely do they come while viewing a repeat of an American sitcom that originally aired two decades ago. And yet this was the situation I faced last week as, from the comfort of my sofa, I became increasingly discomfited at what I saw before me on the TV.
Frasier, the show in question, is patently one of the comedic greats. A rare example of a spin-off being better than the original, it ran for just over a decade from 1993, and has since been repeated almost as regularly as Friends. Oddly, those two powerhouses of US light comedy ran almost exactly concurrently: and while I adore both, one has aged much better than the other.
That’s not to say that there isn’t the odd wincey moment in Frasier, but much of the humour – a mix of brilliantly delivered lines and situational high farce – remains surprisingly fresh. And whereas in Friends the smugness is often unintended and now grates, in Frasier, it exists deliberately to be laughed at.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies