Out with Dad

One of the funniest episodes of this series. While substituting for Niles at the Opera on Valentine's Day, Martin claims to be gay to avoid getting fixed up with the mother of a woman Frasier is interested in. Martin gets some comeuppance when Frasier's date then brings along her gay uncle as a match for Martin. Niles gets dragged into the charade, and David Hyde Pierce is at his best. When I first watched this episode, it reminded me of the Christmas episode from Season 6, where the Cranes pretend to be Jewish so as to not offend the mother of Frasier's new Jewish girlfriend. As luck would happen the Christmas episode aired as a syndicated rerun later that very night.

Out with Dad is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite Frasier episodes. Frasier has taken fancy to a woman who he meets at the opera regularly. To give him moral support Martin tags along with him. The woman brings her mother who takes a fancy to Martin and to avoid hurting her feelings he tells her he's gay. The mother then thinks that he would be ideal person for someone she knows to go out with. After Frasier manages to convince the woman he likes to come back to his apartment so Martin,the woman, her mother all go back to his apartment and the mother's gay friend tags along(following so far). The gay friend tries to hit on Martin and Martin is none the wiser. Then when it suddenly dawns on Martin what's going on he lies to the gay friend and tells him he's actually dating someone and at this point Niles walks into the apartment and for some inexplicable reason Martin declares Niles is his boyfriend, cue lots of hilarity Frasier style. It's episodes like this one that remind fans why they started following Frasier in the first place. Top notch episode from a top notch sitcom.

This episode is hilarious, thanks to the supporting cast. It is however another episode about frasier chasing a woman. It would have been nice if the writers had settled frasier down and expanded the character more, however from series one to the season final, frasier is a womaniser who's constantly chasing woman and finding ways to end things after he'd slept with them.. The episode before this one is frasier chasing his old crush and after he's slept with her, he ends things and in this episode, he is chasing another woman again. For me that is the biggest shame about the whole show in general.. Rather than watching the show grow and characters grow, they dragged out niles and daphne to long, they tried to make frasier seem lovably pompous and just a hopeless romantic at first but as the show progressed it became more apparent that he was just using woman for sex as he always ended things after sex.. Often chasing more than one woman or leaving one woman for another. I hope if they reboot the show, they have settled him down as its just a waste of talent. Roz started and ended the show single, same as frasier. Back to this episode tho, its very funny, Martin is the best in this one, he saved what otherwise would have been just about frasier chasing another woman..

This is another one of those episodes where someone lies, which leads to a bunch of misunderstanding and outrageous actions. Martin, in order to prevent a relationship with a woman, tells her he is gay. It snowballs from there and it forces people to act in ways they never would.

On the floor laughing with scenes in this gem. It has some similarities to the Season 2, episode 3's "The Matchmaker" in hilarity.

Basically, Marty does all he can to avoid the potential of a date with a lady he is introduced to at the opera. The outcome and all that follows is well out of the normal Marty character by John Mahoney. This is really what makes the episode so funny.

At this point in 2000 the characters are so mature in their roles that all of the dialog in this episode is timed well, flows and is gut wrenching. Marty and Niles pretty much make the episode.

If you own the box set or the season on DVD and you haven't come to this episode yet it is something to look forward to. I saw this episode on reruns before I ever even saw the series before and this prompted me to buy the full box set of all 11 seasons.