David Lee gives clever people time to make fools of themselves, and trusts us to keep up. Frasier is a fine family comedy, though its misunderstandings sometimes outlast the jokes.
Fi1m perspective
In Frasier (1993), John Mahoney’s Martin Crane can answer an elaborate display of cleverness with a few plain words and seem the more thoughtful man. We laughed at that deflation because Mahoney gives Martin’s replies consideration, rather than merely delivering the next joke. It is a useful way into David Lee’s work: sophisticated talk needs someone who can question it without being made to look slow. Lee shares the creation of the series with Peter Casey and David Angell, and its virtues are plainly collective.
Lee began writing alongside Casey on The Jeffersons (1975), before joining Cheers (1982) as a writer and producer in 1985. There, the pair helped develop Frasier Crane, but our affection for the programme extends beyond that character: its cast can make a bruised ego as funny as an insult. Wings (1990), co-created with Casey and Angell, came before Frasier made the family argument central. That family setting suits Lee’s preference for longer scenes, giving people who know each other’s weaknesses time to use them.
He favours extended, play-like scenes and cultural references that arrive without explanatory notes. In Frasier, that gives Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce room to use a pause, while Lee’s work as a director draws on the same appetite for ensemble farce. Jane Leeves’s Daphne Moon and Peri Gilpin’s Roz Doyle matter to the balance: their directness and confidence stop the programme becoming too deferential to Frasier. We admire the writing most when it allows these characters to answer back.
The patience has a cost. Some misunderstandings in Frasier continue after the last useful joke, and repeated quarrels in Cheers occasionally give the writers too little fresh work to do. The actors’ timing is a considerable pleasure in both programmes, but it cannot always make another round of the same argument worthwhile. Start with Frasier for the performances, and allow for the occasional misunderstanding that everyone except the characters has finished with.
Biography
David Clark Lee, also credited as David Lee, is an American television writer, director and producer. He grew up in Claremont, California, and attended the University of Redlands.
Lee co-wrote and co-produced episodes of The Jeffersons (1975) and Cheers (1982) with Peter Casey. With Casey and David Angell he co-created Wings (1990) and Frasier (1993) under Grub Street Productions; he also directed multiple episodes of Frasier and episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond (1996).
He has received nine Primetime Emmy Awards from eighteen nominations, along with Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America and other awards.
