When the season premiere of Frasier aired on this night in 1997, I have to admit to feeling a bit odd.
You see, when the season ended a few months earlier, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) had been on the receiving end of some phone messages that had been intended for someone else. They were from a woman who sounded like a perfect match for Frasier so when one of her messages provided details about when she would be arriving at the Seattle airport, Frasier decided — on a whim — to go to the airport and offer her a ride to her destination rather than let her sit there and wait for a ride that would never come.
Only about eight months earlier, I did kind of the same thing. I hadn't been the unintended recipient of phone messages; in fact, I had become acquainted with a young lady online and she told me she was going to be getting a connecting flight at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport. I agreed to meet her there — and we passed a pleasant hour together as we waited for her next flight. There had been no expectations or commitments made — in fact, we haven't been in touch for many, many years — but I could relate to the thrill Frasier felt in doing something impulsive.
It turned out she wasn't perfect for him after all. Primarily she was married, but she did seem to be his type. And he admitted to her that he had liked the sense of adventure he felt when he drove to the airport.
Even after he saw her off, Frasier was still on that adventure buzz and decided to tag along when he met a beautiful woman bound for Acapulco.
That is where the season–opener that aired 20 years ago tonight — "Frasier's Imaginary Friend" — comes in.
Frasier had a few misfires on the plane. The woman he had followed was creeped out when she found out why he was there and quickly switched seats; then Frasier thought he had found a substitute only to realize she, like the one he had met at the airport, was married.
Both were quite attractive — but not as beautiful as the third woman to cross his path. (As inept as Frasier was at relationships, I always admired his ability to at least get things started with beautiful women.) She turned out to be a supermodel (played by Sela Ward), and Frasier managed to strike up a real relationship with her that appeared to be more than a temporary one.
Ward's character was modeling to pay for her education at the University of Washington, where she was studying zoology, but she was also in a relationship with a professional football player. She was in the process of breaking up with him, but she asked Frasier to say nothing about it. Given the work they did, they were in the public eye, and Ward's character preferred to keep the situation private "for now." Frasier agreed to say nothing.
But that promise created problems for Frasier.
Back in Seattle, his family and friends presumed that he had struck out on his excursion to Mexico, and Frasier desperately wanted them to know the truth — that he was in a relationship with a supermodel who was studying zoology and had been dating a professional football player but was leaving him to pursue a relationship with Frasier.
What was so hard to believe about that?
Anyway, when Frasier learned that she had been invited to participate in some zoological work in the Galapagos Islands for a couple of months, Frasier realized it would be difficult for him to persuade his family that she wasn't a fantasy.
So after they made love and Ward was sleeping, Frasier tried to take a selfie of himself in bed with her, but the camera malfunctioned, and Ward woke up and discovered what was going on. She stormed out of the apartment.
No sooner had she left than Niles (David Hyde Pierce), their father (John Mahoney) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) arrived, and Frasier tried to tell them that his supermodel girlfriend had just been there. They still didn't believe him.
But then she returned, chewed him out and left. Frasier's family stood there silently with their mouths hanging open.
It was all the proof Frasier needed that his trip to Mexico had been successful.
I thought it was a funny episode, but the ending was bit too forced, all for the sake of the punch line:
"What do you think of me now?"
