Frasier

Two extremely entertaining sweeps-period episodes of Frasier explore the complex relationship between psychiatrist brothers Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Niles (David Hyde Pierce). In the first, the two collaborate on a book and end up rolling around on a hotel bed in their underwear (don’t ask; just watch). In the second, Frasier comes down with a case of the flu that leaves him weak and whiney (”Can I have the bendy kind of straw?” he whimpers to Jane Leeves’ Daphne). He prevails upon his sibling to take over his radio show for him, and the usually-shy Niles discovers he’s a plummy-voiced natural (”While my brother is a Freudian, I am a Jungian,” he says primly into the microphone, ”so there’ll be no blaming Mother today”). Niles even replaces Frasier’s radio tag-line-”I’m listening”- with his own, giddier one: ”Let’s get better!”

Well, Frasier just gets better and better-in addition to the brilliantly nuanced, deadpan work from Pierce, Grammer does a lot of funny slapstick here.