The Good Son

Every time I watch this episode, and I can tell you that that is quite often, I believe for certain that as soon as it was aired, everybody would have known that they had something special on their hands. The acting is brilliant, with David Hyde Pierce perfectly capturing his very difficult character, and, of course, Kelsey Grammar bringing Frasier back to life. As well as the acting, I cannot praise enough the writing of the episode. The jokes are quick, genius, extremely humorous, sophisticated and brilliantly assembled. However, not only is the episode hilarious, but it also contains moments of emotion and passion, with the relationship between Frasier and his father sticking out. In fact, the writing deserves a special mention for the entirety of the 11 series, as to be able to be so consistently fantastic for so long is unmatched by any other programme, in my opinion. Having seen all 264 episodes, I can sincerely say that 'The Good Son' ranks as one of the best. If you only watch 3 of the 264, make sure they are this one, 'High Holidays' and 'Ham radio'.

Pilots are so hard to get right. Even when one's written well, it is usually dwarfed by later episodes and, therefor, hard to revisit. This is an example of the contrary; a stunningly well-written pilot which holds its own amongst all the other incredible, legendary episodes.

Frasier's long running success can be attributed to two factors. First, the cast was exceptionally well chosen. And second the writing on the series is extremely tight and well considered. Pilots-exceptionally for sit-coms-can be a bore. They often play like a checklist as they exist to largely set-up the dynamics of a show. Pilots for spinoffs are even drier as they are trying to put a familiar character(s) into a new setting. The writers here are full aware of that aspect and lean into for a couple of gags-it still manages to be clever after all these years. More to the point this episode really does a good job of setting the fundamentals of the show effortlessly. Only Niles' unrequited love of Daphne was withheld until the next episode.

Frasier moves to Seattle but he was slightly funnier in cheers

This pilot episode does all it needs to do in about 25 minutes. We are introduced to all the significant characters, not only by name, but we learn of their individual quirks. We know what Frasier does and his temperament. We know his brother is cowardly and controlled by his wife. We meet his father, who is dealing with a really difficult situation. And Daphne is going to be there as well.