Fifteen years ago today, 52.5 million watched the series finale of Friends; one week later, 33.7 million people saw the series finale of Frasier. It marked the end of an era, in more ways than one: Friends and Frasier were two sitcoms that defined NBC's Must See TV lineup during the late '90s and early aughts -- and those rating totals are outrageous to the point of absurdity when viewed through the current prism of fractured viewership. Even Game of Thrones doesn't have 52.5 million people watching its final episodes; the Friends finale was bigger than the most recent Oscars and Emmys ceremonies combined. But what's even more mind-boggling than the eyeballs -- at least, anecdotally -- is that a lot of those viewers were the same people.
It didn't start that way: From the beginning, each show seemed to carefully target different audiences. Frasier, which premiered a year prior to Friends, had an audacious identity from the start: a spin-off built around the most elitist character from a working-class show (Cheers). Rather than watering down that concept, Frasier leaned in, making the character's pretension the source of show's conflicts. Frasier was set in a Seattle which, in the early '90s, stood for the cutting edge in style, pop culture, and music (it premiered on Sept. 16, 1993, five days before the release of Nirvana's In Utero), but the show was decidedly old school.
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Friends, which premiered a year later, was a populist creation from the start. Though it ostensibly took place in another cultural capital of the U.S. - New York City - it rendered that city pleasurably unrecognizable, a bouncy-castle version that was neighborly, affordable, and curiously coffee-centric. Its leads, from the arch (Chandler, Monica) to the naive (Joey, Phoebe) were basically goofballs all the way down. A decade out from their pilots, the two-hour-long finales proved that neither show had abandoned the core premises. A powerful moment in the Frasier episode consists of Frasier Crane finally disposing of a series-long symbol - his dad's worn, patched up chair - and restoring order to his clean, aristocratic apartment. In contrast, the friends on Friends also say goodbye to a symbolic piece of furniture - Joey's beloved foosball table. Chandler, the snobbiest of the friends, is not above giving each tiny player an individual high five of farewell. We needn't remark that such a lowbrow item's appearance in Frasier's apartment would have sent him into his trademark apoplexy. Frasier's finale is full of champagne flutes, references to German opera, and straight-up undisguised class anxiety (Niles frets that his child will resemble Daphne's boorish working class pickpocket family, rather than the effete Cranes). Frasier's climax is set to a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Friends' to Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter."
Kelsey Grammer, Frasier" data-image-credit="CBS Photo Archive, CBS via Getty Images" data-image-alt-text="Kelsey Grammer, Frasier" data-image-credit-url="" data-image-target-url="" data-image-title="Kelsey Grammer, Frasier" data-image-filename="180725-frasier.jpg" data-image-date-created="2018/07/25" data-image-crop="" data-image-crop-gravity="" data-image-aspect-ratio="" data-image-height="1380" data-image-width="2070" data-image-do-not-crop="" data-image-do-not-resize="" data-image-watermark="" data-lightbox="">For all its high-culture pretensions, this is not to say that Frasier's finale is superior. Both finales have tears, hugs, births, airports, passionate kisses, empty apartments. Both have newborn babies covered in fake blood. (Friends goes the extra mile with surprise twins; Frasier, not to be outdone, makes up for it with a birth AT a wedding.) Frasier actually goes heavier on the lowbrow jokes - including a boob joke, a "ball sack" joke, and some toilet humor.
For all of that window dressing, these are not two different genres. It doesn't matter that Frasier serves the dog paté instead of dog food - the dog still eats the wedding ring that falls in it. From 2019's vantage point, it's harder to see the contrast between the shows - they seem like two flavors of the same drink, with little cultural representation or diversity present in their narratives. Which raises some questions: If these shows aired today, would we still sip from the same well? What does it mean that Kelsey Grammer, who plays ultimate "elite" Frasier, is now one of Hollywood's most visible conservatives in a populist era? And how much more elite can you get than the Friends wrap party, held at the evocatively named Aniston-Pitt residence?
If there is any way in which the two shows truly embody their packaging, it may be glimpsed in the structure of the two finales. The Friends finale is a pro-wrestling bodyslam of pure drama, relying on the whoops and gasps of the studio audience to reflect and heighten its characters triumphs and disappointments. Despite the attention given to each cast member, there's no doubt what the main event is: the audience wants Rachel and Ross to be together. Any fan who's seen the show will remember the audience's reactions just as well as the famous lines they accompany: "I'm gonna go after her!" "I got off the plane." We are cheering for the star-crossed couple as if they were real people making live decisions: a testament to the show's power over its loyal, loving fans.
In contrast, the Frasier finale's most truly patrician move might be the way in which it wrings emotion out of its final moment: when Frasier chooses love, it is quietly, alone, without a laugh track, away from the studio audience, on a dark airplane set, in a twist that must be listened for, and which quickly fades away. Which ending you find more satisfying may depend on which show you wanted to be watching all along.
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Friends " data-image-credit="Danny Feld/NBCU" data-image-alt-text="Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer; Friends" data-image-credit-url="" data-image-target-url="https://www.tvguide.com/galleries/all-the-times-friends-made-us-cry/" data-image-title="Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer; Friends" data-image-filename="190213-friends.jpg" data-image-date-created="2019/02/13" data-image-crop="" data-image-crop-gravity="" data-image-aspect-ratio="" data-image-height="1380" data-image-width="2070" data-image-do-not-crop="" data-image-do-not-resize="" data-image-watermark="" data-lightbox="">Other Links From TVGuide.com FriendsFrasier