Niles (David Hyde Pierce): I grant you she's comely, but don't you find her a tad — what would the polite euphemism be? — stupid?
Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): Niles, she is just unschooled, like Liza Doolittle. Find her the right Henry Higgins, she'll be ready for a ball in no time!
Niles: Leave it to you to put the "pig" back in "Pygmalion."
In the episode of Frasier that made its debut on this night in 1998, "The Ski Lodge," Roz (Peri Gilpin) won a weekend in a mountain ski lodge in a church raffle and traded it to Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) for a big–screen TV because Roz was pregnant and couldn't do much at a ski lodge except sit in front of a fire and stare out the window.
Niles (David Hyde Pierce), whose divorce was meandering through the system, wanted to go to the lodge if Daphne (Jane Leeves) was going to be there. But Daphne had agreed to spend the weekend with her friend Annie (Cynthia Lamontagne) because it was her birthday, and Annie had been lonely and depressed.
Daphne wanted to bring Annie along to the ski lodge. Frasier wasn't too keen on the idea — until he learned that Annie was a swimsuit model. After that he couldn't wait to get her up to that lodge.
What followed was a comedy of mistaken identity worthy of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" — except it was set in winter and it was no dream. Well, if it was a dream, it was more like a nightmare for all concerned.
Including the Olympic ski instructor (played by James Patrick Stuart) whose services were included in the prize.
Daphne had the hots for the ski instructor — who, it turned out, was gay and fancied Niles. Niles, of course, was infatuated with Daphne, and Annie was steamed up over Niles.
Lonely Frasier wanted Annie, and no one wanted Frasier — which he acknowledged at the end of the episode.
In short, everyone wanted someone he/she couldn't have, and the drama played out from bedroom to bedroom.
The writing, as usual, was top notch.
Most of the confusion in the story stemmed from Martin's (John Mahoney) hearing problem. He'd been suffering from a cold that had stopped up his ears. Because of that, he misunderstood questions and said things that led to confusion about who was attracted to who.
In one particularly delightful dialogue exchange, Frasier stumbled onto the ski instructor, naked in one of the beds. He had misunderstood something Martin had said, taking it to mean that Niles was gay, too.
"You're not the Crane I want," the ski instructor protested.
"You're not even the sex I want," Frasier retorted.
As one might expect, there were numerous double entendres
When Frasier first brought up the topic of the ski weekend, Daphne mused about "skiing all weekend, then warming up with a nice hot rum drink curled up under a blanket in front of a roaring fire."
"I can feel the steam rising off my toddy already," Niles said.
What was less clear was who would be warming up together.
It was no clearer when the episode ended.
