The Frasier reboot has been thrown into uncertainty after Paramount+ decided not to renew the Kelsey Grammer-led comedy for a third season.
The first two seasons of the sitcom revival aired on the streaming service in 2023 and 2024, respectively, receiving generally lackluster reviews from critics.
The reboot saw Grammer reprise his role as the titular therapist as he returns to Boston, where his son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) has just started college. Frasier originally aired for 11 seasons between 1993 and 2004, winning 37 Primetime Emmys.
Producer CBS Studios plans to shop the third series to other outlets, trade publications reported on Friday (January 17).
Possible alternatives include Prime Video and Hulu, which both carry the library of Frasier‘s original run, Deadline reports. Seasons one and two of the reboot will remain on Paramount+.
The Independent has contacted CBS Studios for comment.
Kelsey Grammer in Paramount+’s ‘Frasier’ (Paramount+)
The series also stars Anders Keith as Frasier’s nephew David, Jess Salgueiro as Freddie’s roommate Jess, Toks Olagundoye as Olivia, the head of Harvard’s psychology department, and Only Fools and Horses star Nicholas Lyndhurst as Alan, an old friend of Frasier’s who also teaches at the university.
David Hyde Pierce, who played Frasier’s younger brother Niles in the series, did not return for the reboot, much to the disappointment of Frasier fans.
“David basically decided he wasn’t really interested in repeating the performance of Niles,” Grammer said at the time.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hyde Pierce explained: “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.”
Hyde Pierce said that other work commitments, including the US series Julia, confirmed his decision, stating: “When we got into real talks about the reboot, I had just started on Julia and was working on a musical and going to do another musical. I just thought, ‘I don’t want to be committed to a show and not be able to do stuff like this.’”
He also said he thought “they don’t actually need me” as “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.”
Writing for The Independent in 2023, Louis Chilton opined that despite its faults, the world needs more shows like the Frasier reboot.
“The new Frasier seems almost cluelessly dated at points, like a somehow-even-less-hip progeny of The Big Bang Theory. And yet, despite its fusty atavism, there’s something spiriting about seeing a series like this get made in 2023,” he wrote.
“… The more cutting-edge modern comedies have borrowed from anything and everything – from European arthouse cinema (eg Master of None) to internet meme culture (The Eric Andre Show). But the symbiotic link between the screen and the stage was the backbone of TV comedy for decades, and it’s nice to see Frasier attempt to preserve this, however fumblingly.”
