Earlier this year, Paramount+ gave the classic NBC sitcom “Frasier” a long-awaited reboot. One of the first things fans noticed was the absence of Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce), younger brother to Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer). While Pierce was extended an offer to return, he chose not to.
“I never really wanted to go back,” Pierce told the Los Angeles Times about this decision. “It’s not like I said, ‘Oh, I don’t ever want to do that again.’ I loved every moment. It was that I wanted to do other things.”
“When we got into real talks about the reboot, I had just started on the ‘Julia’ TV show and was working on a musical and going to do another musical,” Pierce explained. “I just thought, ‘I don’t want to be committed to a show and not be able to do stuff like this.’ And I also thought, ‘They don’t actually need me.’ Frasier has moved on to a new world. They have new characters. And I think I’m right. It’s doing great. And the new people they have are great.”
Considering Pierce garnered three Emmys for supporting actor in a comedy series for the role, it sounds like there were just new mountains for him to concur.
Co-writer Joe Cristalli explained earlier this year that they always planned to have Frasier and Niles join forces again. “For a long time, the idea was that Frasier and Niles were going to run a black-box theater, like how they bought that restaurant and brought it back to life,” Cristalli said. “But it’s hard for Frasier and Niles to run the theater when you don’t have Niles, so we had to step back from that.”
The “Frasier” reboot picks up several years after the original sitcom ended. It follows an aging Frasier as he moves back to Boston to reconnect with his firefighter son (Jack Cutmore-Scott). Despite Pierce not returning, Grammar is more than happy to keep the reboot going.
When asked if he’d like to see Pierce back, “I mean, we have Niles’ son on the show,” Grammer answered. “It would be nice to have that happen. We won’t force it; we’ll see what happens. We can certainly write to it. There’s arguably a lot of people in the world that have seen ‘Frasier,’ and would really sort of celebrate seeing him again.”
All 10 episodes of the first season of the “Frasier” reboot are currently available to stream on Paramount+. A possible second season still seems to be in limbo, mostly due to a poor critical reception. You can check out the trailer for the series below:
