WE TWO KINGS, Nov 14, 2005

Reviewer: Cake for Brains from Manchester, UK

Ever since I can remember I’ve always adored festive television and I’ve always been perhaps a little to overexcited when it comes to Christmas. In the past I have particularly enjoyed the yuletide episodes of Frasier, and find that I can watch them at any period during the year and not just in December. In fact the Season 11 episode ‘High Holidays’ is my all time favourite Frasier episode, whilst the brilliantly clever Season 5 gem ‘Perspectives on Christmas’ is definitely in my Top 10. You can probably tell then that I am somewhat biased regarding Christmassy episodes of Frasier, which is probably why I enjoyed this episode so much. Although Patricia Breen’s debut script for the show doesn’t quite achieve classic status, there is much to enjoy. It was nice to have a spot of sibling rivalry between Niles and Frasier (something we haven’t seen nearly enough of lately) and there were some nice moments as a consequence, especially Niles ‘I didn’t say anything about your Christmas village because it was laid out so poorly!’ and of course, their battle to win Martin’s affections in order to bribe him to spend Christmas at their own house.

However this episode did contain several flaws, which I feel I should elaborate upon. Firstly I didn’t really care for the Roz (helping out at the mall as an elf) fancies Father Christmas subplot, although it did produce the best line of the episode. Frasier says ‘elf-esteem’, which is something he’s wanted to say to Roz for two days, which amused me! I found Daphne very annoying spouting endlessly unfunny phrases, that had double meanings such as ‘Ho, ho, ho’, which I found really stupid to be honest. My only other complaint was that both Kelsey Grammer and John Mahoney were guilty of some serious overacting, such as Martin’s (as he learns that Frasier threw his dancing Santa off the balcony): ‘What did he ever do to you? All he ever did was dance and make people happy?’

It transpires that Martin, sick of his sons’ constant and petty squabbling has agreed to work a shift all through Christmas, which leads Frasier and Niles to hatch up a scheme that works very well on screen. They engineer a plan to swap the fake presents under the Christmas tree in the security office, with the presents under the tree in Frasier’s apartment, meaning that everyone can still spend Christmas day together. The best scene was when Niles and Frasier were swapping the presents around, and they kept getting them all mixed up, which was a great piece of visual comedy.

The episode reached a somewhat satisfying conclusion that saw Martin cancelling work on Christmas Day and the Crane clan being unable to get to their presents. I think it says a lot about the kind of programme Frasier is because of the unsympathetic, uncompromising and scrupulous ending, and I’m sure a lesser sitcom would not have attempted such a bittersweet ending to a festive show. However I did feel a bit sorry for them all though. In conclusion then, this a nice simple festive episode that will guarantee a good chuckle, even if it is one of the weaker Christmas episodes in the show’s history. It’s still an above average episode of Frasier, and well worth a watch.

Rating: 80%

'We Two Kings' review, Oct 07, 2005

Reviewer: Jocelyn from London, UK

This lively Christmas episode - the first since Season 8's lacklustre 'Mary Christmas' - marks the writing debut of Patricia Breen, who holds the distinction of being the last person to join the writing staff of 'Frasier'. It's another in a long line of seasonal episodes which see the Crane clan at each other's throats, this time due to Frasier and Niles bickering over whose apartment should have the honour of hosting Christmas dinner, with their attempts to bribe their father resulting in a fed up Martin deciding that he will instead go to work on Christmas Day. All this makes for some enjoyable one-upmanship between the brothers and their eventual solution to the problem - to bring the Christmas presents to Martin's workplace - results in an amusing sequence where they attempt to replace the presents under the tree in the apartment with fake ones containing bricks, only to get them all mixed up. This also leads to a rather sad ending where Martin changes his mind and spends Christmas day at home after all, leaving the family unable to open their presents which are now locked away at Martin's workplace, which closes the episode with a clever line from Frasier about not being able to throw a brick through the glass. The only real downside is the lame subplot concerning Roz's working as an elf for an instore Santa leading her to realise that she's actually in love with Santa Claus, which culminates in a dire sequence at Nervosa where Daphne is taunting Roz with a series of dreadful puns. Ultimately though, it's only a minor low point in what is otherwise a fun little episode.

Rating: 78%