We Finish With Frasier

One of the comic situations which recurs in Frasier is the moment when another woman ends her relationship with him, usually because of some clumsy misdemeanour: he's accidentally dating two women and they find out about each other, or he calls his date 'mother' in a moment of intimacy, or he brags about his date's celebrity identity, losing her confidence in the process. Much of the humour depends on the way in which, as a psychiatrist, Frasier struggles to apply to his own life the insights he has, and those he ought to have.

In a final twist of plot, both my younger son and I have finished with Frasier, or rather with the eponymous series. After a year, probably two, spent watching each episode of each of the eleven seasons, we finally reached the last one.

We've enjoyed the ritual - sitting side-by-side on the sofa for twenty minutes of undemanding entertainment, which often had the satisfaction of a well-crafted line of script, or an exquisite moment of acting from David Hyde Pierce (Frasier's brother, Niles), or a great put-down from Roz, or simply the panoramic view of Seattle from Frasier's balcony: a backdrop to the series which is apparently not visible in this precise way from any actual apartment. Such was our commitment to the Crane family, that when John Mahoney (Marty Crane, Frasier and Niles' father) died earlier this year, we texted each other our sympathy. I felt gratitude for all the laughter  he (and his dog Eddie) gave us.

Although I didn't think I would be, we were both ready to finish with Frasier when we did. Those early seasons sparkled with wit and originality: by Season 11, the predictability of plot trajectories and the increasing unlikelihood of Niles and Daphne's long-going romance were not sufficiently balanced by wit. I grew tired of Frasier's ineptitude: of the inevitable moment when he would dim the apartment lights, flourish the remote control towards his high-end hi fi in an attempt to set the mood for yet another first date. It was becoming irritating - either he or I would have to move on.

The slow decline eased the ending. And so it was that we finished with Frasier without regret - or maybe, in the end, it was Frasier who finished with us.