And oh, what a journey it has been. I reviewed the first four seasons of Cheers here, as part of my year-end 2017 television review. The most remarkable thing about Cheers is how consistent the show really was. I largely expected a drop-off in the later seasons, but it never came. There were clunky episodes scattered throughout the series (for instance, I would not recommend the Season Ten episode "Madame LaCarla", in which Carla takes over for her psychic), but they were isolated problems. The comedy stayed fresh. It was funny even when it was predictable. You could anticipate many of Carla's disparaging one-liners or minor plot developments and they'd still be great because of how the actors delivered them.
Ted Danson (portraying Sam Malone) is particularly outstanding in that regard, especially the way that he reacts so resigned and calm when dealing with difficult and/or offensive people*. When Rebecca's father comes to town to try to bring her back to San Diego in Season 11, he reprimands Sam upon meeting him for trying to have a baby with Rebecca even though they aren't married. Later, Sam tries to convince him to let Rebecca stay...
Sam: (approaching Rebecca's father) "Excuse me for a minute, sir. You know, if you don't mind me saying so, I-I don't think you're being fair. You can't ask her to pack up and go just 'cause you don't think she made it."
Rebecca's father: "Was it that kind of persuasive arguing that got my daughter into trying to conceive your bastard child?"
Sam: (turning away, accepting defeat) "Boy, you-you really just can't see your way past that, can you?"*The exception is John Hill, the late-seasons' owner of Melville's, the restaurant upstairs, who seems to be the one person who can get under Sam's skin and drive him insane. Over time, John Hill's introductory trademark "Saaaaaaammmmm" became just as entertaining a gimmick as the bar yelling "Norm!" upon the barfly's entry. Final comment: John Hill getting left out of the finale is a damn crime.
The later seasons of Cheers are packed with tons of excellent moments. The annual "Bar Wars" episodes, which pitted Cheers against Gary's Olde Town Tavern in a never-ending prank war, were consistent highlights. The final episode of that subseries featured the return of con-artist Harry the Hat, my favorite (okay, maybe second to old Al) minor character from the early seasons. Then there's know-it-all blowhard mailman Cliff going on Jeopardy! and almost winning due to an assortment of favorable categories, then screwing it up on Final Jeopardy due to some combination of a poorly-worded question and his own incompetence. The two-part Season 10 finale featuring Woody's wedding was a blitz of fast-and-furious gags as the gang desperately tried to fix the many calamities (both self-induced and not) that all aligned perfectly with Carla's superstitious premonition that the day would be a disaster. I don't know that I've ever laughed harder at a sitcom episode.
At its best, Cheers could be more than just a comedy. The Season Five finale, in which Diane leaves Cheers (allegedly for six months) to pursue a writing career was punctuated by Sam saying aloud to himself with an air of acceptance, "Have a nice life." That's a moment that hits home after watching their relationship progress for five years. Despite Carla's repeated jabs at the other members at the bar, she has a lot of genuinely tender moments with Sam that make for one of the greatest platonic opposite-sex friendships ever seen on television.
And then there's the series finale, which is one of the greatest episodes of TV I've ever watched, and certainly a contender for best finale of all time. There's been mild spoilers in this post to this point, but I really don't want to ruin the finale for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I'm typing out my comments on the finale in black text below, so highlight it if you want to read it.
CHEERS FINALE:
Sam had been struggling with his place in the world for some time, even going to a sex addiction therapy session to try to get past his obsession with chasing women that, in his mind, has been inhibiting his ability to find true happiness. He thinks he needs a wife and considers Rebecca as something of a backup, but his words show that this isn't what he truly wants.
And then, Diane returns to Cheers. Sam, confronted by his own loneliness, decides to reboot that relationship and leave Cheers forever to be with Diane. When the bar's patrons (in part fearing the loss of their ringleader) point out that this is an awful idea, he calls them all out for their own stagnation, their dependence on the bar and himself, and how they never progress forward in life.
"You know, you should need more than this! I am not your mother! This is not your home! This is ridiculous."Sam eventually comes to his senses and returns to Cheers, wanting to smoke a celebratory Cuban cigar with his friends. However, one by one, his friends leave him, citing an excuse ("it's getting late", "gotta get home to Vera", "I have kids", etc.) that never seems to otherwise be enough to get these people to leave the bar. As Sam stands there, dejected, all of them open the door and come back, joking that they were tipped off by Diane and decided to have some fun with Sam.
The group sits around in a circle, discussing the meaning of life and appreciating the little family they've created for themselves over the years at Sam's humble bar. The phone rings and each of them worries that the caller is one of their family members. Frasier somewhat profoundly says,
"Say, you know what, wait, don't answer it. Just let whoever it is think that we're on our way."The group leaves the bar, but perpetual barfly Norm stays behind to deliver one of his rare-but-powerful serious moments in the series.
Norm: Sammy, I didn't want to say this in front of the others, but you know what I think the most important thing in life is? It's love. You want to know what I love?
Sam: Beer, Norm?
Norm: Yeah, I'll have a quick one.
...
Norm: I don't think it matters what you love, Sammy. Could be a person, could be a thing. As long as you love it totally, completely, without judgment.
....
Norm: Well, I'm off. But, um, Sammy, can I let you in on a little secret?
Sam: Sure.
Norm: I knew you'd come back.
Sam: You did?
Norm: You can never be unfaithful to your one true love. You always come back to her.
Sam: Who is that?
Norm: Think about it, Sam. (::taps on the door, and leaves::)Sam is left alone to look around his bar. He smiles and chuckles to himself.
"Boy, I'll tell you I'm the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth."Then, Sam runs his hand along the bar and taps on it, casually walking around, much like he did in the pilot episode. A prospective customer knocks on the door, and Sam utters the last line of the series:
"Sorry, we're closed."He walks over to the picture of Geronimo on the wall and straightens it (in a sign of respect for the late Nicholas Colasanto), and walks down the back hall, going full circle back to the pilot's opening scene before the cut to black.
Cheers is very clearly divided into the Diane years and the Rebecca years. I'm asked a lot which I prefer. I think that the quality of the show is about even through its two "halves" (sort of a misnomer, as there's a lot more Rebecca episodes), but that Rebecca is a better character than Diane. I sort of have issues with both, though. Diane often felt as jarring to me as she must have to the folks at Cheers and she was arguably downright evil in the later stages of Season Five. Rebecca didn't have a consistent personality throughout the years (compare strong-willed and composed Season Six Rebecca to the mess that she was at the end of the series) and whose flaws could be difficult to watch, but she was ultimately more interesting. That being said, Shelley Long was a much better actress than Kirstie Alley. Long was written as an irritating character, but she could sell emotion and comedy much better than Alley. For most of the second half of the series, I had to cringe whenever Rebecca "cried", because Alley was horrible at cry-acting and she was asked to do it a LOT. Still, Alley's voice had a good amount of bite to it and she was better for sarcastic humor.
Ultimately, Cheers is a show about several running themes. One of them is aging. Some of the strongest episodes of the series focus on Sam's acceptance that he's no longer the ladies' man he was in his early thirties and how his perspective continues to change over the course of the series as he gets older. Second, there's family. We get snippets of the core cast's family lives (most notably with Frasier, Lilith, and their son, Frederick, but also with Carla's kids, Cliff's mom, and Norm's nonexistent relationship with Vera), but it's clear based on where these characters choose to spend their time (particularly on the holidays) that they consider each other to be their true family.
Third, and most debatably, the show deals with self-acceptance. This is by and large a group of losers. Sam's an alcoholic who washed out of baseball and isn't notably good at anything besides attracting cheap women (and even that fades). Diane's so out of touch with non-intellectuals and normalcy that her presence is obnoxious and grating. Norm's a beer-swilling slacker who bounces from job to job and is perpetually content with the thought that his life is going nowhere. Cliff has no sense of self-awareness, is too unappealing to attract women, lives with his mother, and repeatedly over-inflates the importance of his humdrum career with the postal service. Carla is raising eight (mostly) degenerate kids as a (mostly) single mother on a waitress' salary due to a series of failed relationships. Woody's a farm kid in the big city whose slow wit puts him on a different wavelength than everyone else. Coach is an older version of Woody. Frasier's a pompous ass whose credentials don't translate to effective psychiatric work and whose sense of superiority over the other Cheers patrons is very clearly rooted in nothing. Rebecca fails at basically everything she does (which, as Carla is quick to remind you, is very little).
These people are content to never change year-in and year-out. You get the sense that they're no worse for the wear. Carla's content with being a mean-spirited person who doesn't let her considerable fertility affect her behavior with men. Norm's happy never doing anything productive or being a worthwhile spouse to Vera. Cliff won't cut the cord with his mom or accept criticisms about his irritating personality. Frasier won't get off his high horse, and so forth. Yet, we wind up loving them all exactly the way they are. Their stagnation isn't frustrating to watch; it's practically endearing. It's all part of the sense of the comfort the show creates. Both our world and that of the characters of Cheers keep changing, but this band of misfits and rejects stays the same.
In that sense, watching Cheers becomes a lot like what being at Cheers must feel like to Sam and the gang; it's retreating to a place that's familiar, pleasant, and filled with people you feel like you've known forever. That's basically what the famous Cheers opening theme is all about, and all it takes are those few opening piano notes to slip into that wonderful state of mind. I'm going to miss my almost-daily trips to this fictional place, and the only thing that isn't sad about this journey being over is the knowledge that I've now fully experienced the greatest live-action sitcom of all time.
Series Grade: A
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