From his grandsons, in honor of Martin Crane

As you may have seen, John Mahoney, the actor who played Martin Crane on Frasier, passed away after a battle with cancer. I was surprised at how blue it made me, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. Frasier is one of my all-time favorite shows, one that was a highly formative influence on my sensibilities— of comedy, of drama, and of how one writes and puts together a character. Its influence can be found all over my work in small ways. In my preference for humor in the form of low-key dry wit. In how the relationship between Nathaniel and Justin is very much inspired by Frasier and Niles. And in refusing to put characters on pedestals, but instead to relentlessly challenge and even humble them, particularly the ones I love best.

I was also quite choked up by Kelsey Grammer's simple tribute to him on Twitter: "He was my father. I loved him." Kelsey Grammer's a pretty fucked up guy, honestly. But given his horror show of a life, that is quite a tribute.

I more or less finished my script for the idea I'm calling "The Cousins Crane." It's a pilot for a spinoff series centered around the next generation of the Frasier cast— Frasier's son Freddy, Niles and Daphne's son David, and Roz's daughter Alice —as adults. I starting scribbling it to fill out 31 Plays in 31 Days 2016, then actually put the thing together. I guess it wasn't the best use of my time, as fan fiction I can't use for anything is probably not what I should be writing when I have so many other projects I ought to be working on, but I did it just for the hell of it.

Structurally, I think I did a good job. The concept and plot I came up with were very solid. Freddy, a fussy intellectual like Frasier and Niles, is kind of adrift in life because he didn't really become anything as special as his extremely gifted childhood suggested. David, his younger cousin, is a much more normal college-aged kid who does not fit in with his snooty family. David shows up on Freddy's doorstep in a personal crisis, and Freddy has to kind of get over his own bullshit in order to be there for the kid. They conflict because they're so different, but they both need one another and have the possibility of actually being really good for each other.

I was pretty pleased with myself for how I evoked the spirit of the old Frasier show without copying it directly. I envisioned a main cast of four— Freddy, David, Alice, and a new character I created called Leah. She's a coworker of Freddy's, and she's Asian-American to bring some diversity to the cast. No one character is a direct analogue to any of the originals, but each one is combinations of all of them. Leah, for example, brings outside perspective like Roz did, but is also a bit of Niles to Freddy's Frasier because she's his intellectual equal. Freddy being a refined intellectual and David being a down-to-earth bro mirrors the dynamic Frasier and Niles had with Martin, while the nature of the problems they have with each other also likens to the conflicts between the brothers. The first scene has Freddy speaking to Leah (an adjunct psych professor) as if she's a psychiatrist, which creates a thematic sort of torch pass. I even came up with a fairly inventive analogue to Martin's chair, in the form of a moth-eaten taxidermy black bear called Brody, which David drags into Freddy's apartment against his will. I think it makes the show a spiritual successor without feeling too repetitive.

It's not in perfect shape, though. The biggest problem is that it's not as funny as I'd like. There are definitely some good lines, but it should be funnier throughout, and I haven't really been able to punch it up. It's probably doable, but I haven't managed it yet. Also I confess I stole a joke or two from the original. (Wouldn't be the first time I nicked a good one from them, if I'm honest.) For example, "Time has no meaning in the grading circle of hell," is a direct adaptation a Frasier line. Though they could likely be excused as the characters having absorbed turns of phrase from their parents.

I also didn't do a great job of making the setting feel meaningfully in the future. I needed David to be nineteen, and since the character was only born in 2004, it necessitated setting the story in 2023. But it basically reads like the present day. It even has a few references that are decidedly topical, like Pokémon Go. It's probably fixable, but again nothing particularly jumped out at me.

Part of me wants to subject it to a reading dinner, like I do with other scripts I write. But again, as it's fan fiction, it seems a bit pointless, masturbatory even. Still, I would like some suggestions for punching up the jokes and maybe the futuristic nature of the setting. But I don't think I have enough friends who are interested enough in Frasier to want to give perspective.

I've started posting it to my profile on An Archive of Our Own. I'm posting one scene a week until it's done. If you'd care to check out the most recent version of this script, you can find the link here. Again, not sure I have that many friends who care enough about Frasier. But consider it my tribute to John Mahoney.

Grandpa, your boys are going to be okay.