November 22, 2015

Analytical Episode Review:Frasier, “A Lilith Thanksgiving”

Wow, I haven’t done one of these since my Super Bowl article. Yikes. It is hard to pick episodes that I hope people will be familiar with. Since it’s Thanksgiving I decided to single out a Thanksgiving episode. I covered all the Roseanne episodes two years ago and did a Cosby episode last year. Not to mention listing ten episodes I loved in a very early article. In fact it seems I’ve mostly talked about episodes I like. Are there Thanksgiving episodes that drive me crazy? Oh my yes, the one I wanted to discuss today comes from a little show called:






 




There were two Thanksgiving episodes involving Lilith. One called “The Apparent Trap” was pretty good. This one….ugh. Let’s discuss it.




“A Lilith Thanksgiving”
4x07-A-Lilith-Thanksgiving-frasier-19821904-720-540
Aired Nov 26,1996



Plot Synopsis:Frasier and Lilith go to extreme lengths to get Frederick into one of Boston’s most exclusive boarding schools.



Best Line:”Do you remember the year I plopped that big wedge of pumpkin pie in front of her, and we all laughed? Then I put a big scoop of whipped cream on top of it and we laughed some more! Then her eyes welled up with tears and we all knew it was time to stop.”…Niles talking about Maris



Nitpick of the Episode:During the first meeting Frasier accidentally destroys a valuable chair. This leads to..nothing. There is no payoff to this making it a pointless moment. It does get a callback in the closing credits which…still leads to nothing. This episode feels like it should have been a lot longer.



Standout Character:Niles, David Hyde Pierce is just hilarious in this preparing the turkey, especially after Frasier and Lilith steal the turkey (oh we’ll be discussing that!)



Syndication Edit:Some lines were cut about Lilith and Maris from the opening scene



Episode Fun Fact:It did bug me that they were in Boston and Cheers never even comes up! Why was Frasier such a jerk about visiting his friends? Even the one time he does in a later episode it was by accident.



Final Thoughts-I know what people will say. I’m being to hard on the episode, that Frasier and Lilith are acting perfectly in character. They are snobs after all not to mention totally self absorbed. Yeah I know but this time it pisses me off, maybe because Frederick is involved.

The episode starts fine enough, we find out that the Crane’s planned Thanksgiving is cancelled so Frasier can join Lilith at an interview for a prestigious boarding school. Ok, so far so good. The scenes when they first arrive in Boston is fine, especially the family interacting with Lilith (who I always felt fit in really well). Then we get to the interview..and the aggravation begins.

The stupidity starts after the interview, which actually goes just fine.But then the two start to over analyzing things. Even though they know the headmaster is dead serious and doesn’t put up with nonsense, Frasier and Lilith decide to go back and make sure the headmaster knows they love the school and it’s their first choice.  It’s such a dumb idea that Niles mentions what dumb ass idea it is! Of course they’re so transparent in their deception that it turns the headmaster off. Why would they do that? I just don’t get it, what would make them think going back under false pretenses would ever work? One could argue “to make the episode longer”, but I don’t buy excuses like that. The interview was a success why mess with it!

But then it gets worst. There is a subplot in the episode about Frederick playing with Martin and getting more and more hurt as he does. This is ok, we’ve seen gags like this a million times in TV shows. It’s basically here to give Martin and Niles something to do in the episode. Until the scene when Frasier and Lilith are discussing how they blew their chances with the school, and ignore Frederick entirely. The third time they go back with a donation for the school thinking that will curry favor. It just pisses the headmaster off and makes their chances even less likely. Then the headmaster notes that his turkey is not close to done thanks to the two interrupting him. So what do Frasier and Lilith do? Yep they take the turkey Niles was cooking right out of the kitchen. Not enough to ignore Frederick but now they are taking food from him also.

So how does this stupid episode end? The Frasier and Lilith arrive at the school for the fourth time. Before they do, it’s established that the headmaster has two families  there for dinner. One, the kid got into the school. And the other the kid did not get into the school. But the two families have mended fences. I bet you can’t figure out where this is going? Yeah Frasier and Lilith end up causing the two families to start fighting again. And that’s when the dumbest thing comes up.

The headmaster has grown so flabbergasted he decides that the only way to get Frasier and Lilith to stay away is to admit Frederick to the school. However, he will be expelled if either Frasier or Lilith visit the school at all…for recitals, plays, even the graduation. So to sum up in his episode Frederick is ignored by his parents, injured by his grandfather and uncle, and will grow up feeling neglected when every school activity will be missing his parents. Yeah, they did a great thing! As long as the kid gets into the school, what else matters?

I HATE THIS EPISODE!! It just goes a little to far for me. If they had shown Frasier and Lilith regretting their choices at the end I may have been less hard on it. Heck even a final scene at the house where they explain what happened to the turkey, something! Instead the two are so smug with victory, no matter what harm that victory may cause Frederick, and as Psychologists they should really know better. It’s one things when they complicate things for themselves, which they do on this show every episode, but when you involve the kid that changes things a bit. They come off looking like bad parents which later episodes which show is not the case.

One final thought, this was on of Frederick’s earliest appearances on the series which shows since he’s basically a plot device. Later on the character would be fleshed out and episodes involving him were usually really good. I think if this had been a season 10 episode it would have been done differently.





Grade-C, Not a bad episode really, but the story pisses me off

No comments:

Post a Comment