Air Time/Date: Syndicated re-run. 7:30 pm, July 8th, 1999
Summary: Frasier is a situation comedy that typically portrays a radio psychologist, Dr. Frasier Crane interacting with his co-workers, and his extended family, a brother Niles also a psychologist but in private practice, his retired ex-policeman father, Frank, his father’s live-in physical therapist, Daphne, and their dog, Eddie. The typical plot revolves around the irony that even though both Crane sons are therapists and work with dysfunctional people, their interactions with each other, their co-workers, and their extended families are often more dysfunctional than many of their professional encounters.
Thesis Statement: In this episode of Frasier, the point of view or message expressed by the director is that choosing to become a parent is a complex decision, one that involves more than intellectual thought and a process that often occurs for the wrong reasons.
We can see the director’s point of view as described above expressed as we use evidence from each of the six scenes comprising this episode of Frasier. In scene one, nothing regarding the thesis message is revealed. Instead, we see Frasier at work being the bit of a condescending snob he can be. His producer, Roz, one-ups him on a radio caller, she tells him the “bowling” league mail he received she already threw out, and he will be meeting his father and Niles for dinner at Che Shrimp. After handing him a get-well card he mistakenly thinks is a birthday card for a co-worker, Frasier opens it up and a trite musical tune plays. The scene ends with him saying, “The pageantry never ends.” This scene is important from a writer’s/director’s point of view because it establishes the “mock-elitist” somewhat “snobbish” view of Frasier.
In scene two, we see Frasier, Niles and their father are riding in a taxi-cab home from the restaurant because Frasier’s Mercedes has broke down...