Frasier Premiere Recap: The Doctor Is In (Your Business) — Plus, Grade It!

Frasier is eager to get back into his son Freddy’s life in the new Paramount+ revival… but Freddy might prefer him in a different time zone.

Thursday’s premiere opens with Frasier arriving in Boston after attending his father Martin’s funeral in Seattle. (John Mahoney, who played Martin on the original Frasier, died in 2018.) He’s greeted at the airport by Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst), his old college pal who now teaches at Harvard, and he’s accompanied by Niles and Daphne’s son David (Anders Keith), a clumsy Harvard student who’s hopped up on espresso. Frasier just left a gig hosting a popular daytime talk show, and he also just got dumped by Charlotte (his girlfriend from the original series played by Laura Linney), so he’s in town to do a guest lecture at Harvard. But really, he’s here to patch things up with his son Freddy, who didn’t come to the funeral and has dropped out of Harvard.

Frasier drops by unannounced to see Freddy (now played by Jack Cutmore-Scott), but things are clearly frosty between them. Frasier is not impressed by Freddy’s apartment — “It reminds me of the sort of place one would wrestle a cartoon rat for a crust of bread” — but it actually looks kind of nice? Anyway, Freddy doesn’t appreciate Frasier’s judgment, and he’s defensive about his decision to quit Harvard and become a firefighter. They’re interrupted by a girl named Eve (Jess Salgueiro), who Frasier immediately assumes is Freddy’s live-in girlfriend, and Freddy goes along with it. He turns down Frasier’s invitation to dinner, and once Frasier leaves, Eve reminds Freddy that she’s not actually his girlfriend, adding: “He doesn’t know about John?” Hmmm…

Frasier’s guest lecture is a hit with the Harvard students, and psychology department head Olivia (Toks Olagundoye) wants him to teach there permanently. Frasier politely declines: He’s headed to Paris to research his next book. But he joins Alan and Olivia for a beer at a local watering hole — not Cheers, for the record — and she convinces him to push harder to reconnect with Freddy. She’s also intent on pushing harder to get Frasier to join the Harvard faculty, so when Frasier shows up at Freddy’s door with steaks and Scotch in hand, Olivia and Alan are close behind, with her offering to cook while Frasier and Freddy catch up. Alan, though, is just in it for the Scotch. It is Macallan 25, after all.

David tags along, too, helping Frasier sniff out what Freddy is hiding. We get a clue when Eve shows up… and she’s hiding a baby stroller in the hallway. So that’s John! While Frasier and David scour the apartment for clues, Freddy and Eve sneak the stroller right past them into a back room. Actually, this dinner party is getting chaotic: Olivia is drooling over Freddy’s good looks, David has a laminated card detailing his food allergies and Alan is just looking to sneak a sip of that Macallan. Eve is an actress, so she’s happy to pretend she’s a private investigator, rattling off some film noir-style banter for Frasier. But when Freddy tries to get rid of Frasier, Eve comforts Frasier by telling him what a great guy Freddy is: “He’s always been there for us.” Us, you say?

Frasier seizes on that verbal slip, and Alan realizes he recognizes Eve because she works at the bar and “had a baby with some fireman.” Frasier is stunned: He’s a grandfather?! He presses Freddy and Eve to come clean — and when he hears the baby crying, the jig is up. Freddy insists, though, that the baby isn’t his; Eve is just his roommate. He doesn’t want Frasier telling him how to live his life, leaving to a father-son heart-to-heart where Frasier asks him why he missed Martin’s funeral. (Among the things he missed: “Daphne’s toast! Bulldog’s ‘Ave Maria’!”) An emotional Freddy says he just couldn’t do it, revealing that the father of Eve’s baby was a close friend of his who died fighting a fire — and that Martin flew out to comfort him when his friend died. Frasier apologizes for not being a better father, and he gives Freddy a gift: a framed American flag that was flown over the state capitol in honor of Martin’s service as a police officer.

The next day, Frasier pops by Freddy’s apartment with Champagne and some news: He’s staying in Boston and teaching full-time at Harvard, and he got an apartment nearby. In fact, it’s right across the hall! Even better: He bought the whole building! He wants Freddy to move in with him while Eve stays in her apartment — and when he offers to let them both stay rent-free, Eve quickly agrees. Poor Freddy… he doesn’t even get a vote, it seems. (The episode ends with a sweet dedication to Mahoney’s memory as well; view it here.)

Time to pick your brains: Give the Frasier premiere a grade in our poll, and then hit the comments to tell us if you plan to keep watching.