You know, there is this there's this really pervasive
myth in television. And honestly, I think in
business in general. Oh, the idea that quality
just instantly finds an audience. Exactly. Yeah.
We like to believe that if you build a better
mousetrap or in this case, if you write a smarter
joke, the world is just going to beat a pass
to your door immediately. Right. The cream rises
to the top theory. It's a comforting thought,
you know, a true meritocracy. If you're good,
you win. Yeah. But then you look at the actual
data. You look at the history books and you find
these anomalies that completely shatter that
worldview. Oh, absolutely. And for this deep
dive, we're looking at perhaps the most famous
anomaly in sitcom history. We're looking at a
show that by all conventional metrics of 1983
should have been dead. Buried and totally forgotten
before it ever got a second chance. Dead, buried
and largely unwatched. We are, of course, talking
about Cheers season two. And it's interesting
you frame it that way, because when we look at
the source material for this deep dive, specifically
the Wikipedia article covering the production
history between September 1983 and May 1984,
it's not just a story about a funny show finding
its legs. No, not at all. It's really a case
study in corporate patients. Yeah. Which is honestly
something we rarely see anymore in media. It's
the miracle renewal. That's the headline everyone
knows. But I really want to peel back the layers
on why that miracle happened. Yeah, let's get
into it. Because we are just talking about a
show avoiding cancellation. We are talking about
a major cultural pivot point. We're going back
to a time when Ronald Reagan is in the White
House. The Internet is basically just a rumor
in some computer lab somewhere. And NBC is well,
NBC is in serious trouble. Trouble is putting
it lightly. NBC was the basement network at the
time. They were really struggling. So our mission
today for you listening is to dissect this pivot.
We're going to look at how Cheers went from the
absolute bottom of the Nielsen ratings to the
top tier in just a single season. A massive jump.
And we're going to unpack the evolution of Sam
and Diane. Because looking at the notes, season
two is really where that dynamic stops being,
I don't know, cute and starts getting psychologically
complex and honestly a little dark. And toxic,
let's be honest. Looking at it through a modern
lens, it's a very messy relationship. It's definitely
not a fairy tale. Incredibly messy. We'll get
to the nose -pinching violence later. And of
course, we have to talk about the literal fire.
The fire at Paramount, that is such a wild story.
A massive fire that destroyed sound stages, but
somehow completely missed the bar. We have a
lot to cover. But let's start with the numbers,
because I was looking at the starting position
for season two, and it is bleak. It's not just
bad. It's pack your bags bad. It's abysmal. To
set the stage for you, we are looking at September
29th, 1983. Season one has just wrapped up. Now,
critically, the show is a total darling. It just
swept the Emmys. Literally four days before the
season two premiere. Right. They win five Emmys,
including Outstanding Comedy Series. So the industry
is basically screaming, this is the best thing
on TV. The critics are writing these glowing
love letters. Right. But the American public,
they are screaming, what is this? Or rather,
they aren't screaming anything because they aren't
watching at all. The show finished the previous
season dead last among renewed shows. It was
ranked 74th out of 77 shows on television. 74th?
That is a ghost town. Oh, completely. In today's
climate, or really even in the 90s climate, that
show is canceled before the wrap party. You do
not get a season two with those numbers. You
barely get a back nine of season one. So this
is where I want to push on the narrative just
a little bit. The standard story is that NBC
executives, you know, Grant Tinker and Brennan
Tartikoff, were these benevolent geniuses who
saw the artistic value of Cheers and kept it
alive out of the goodness of their hearts. Right.
The artistic champions. But looking at the context
of NBC's lineup in 1983. Did they actually have
a choice? That's the cynical take, but it's probably
the accurate one. You have to remember, NDC in
the early 80s was the distant third network.
CBS and ABC were just crushing them. They didn't
have a bench of hits waiting to take Cheers'
place. If they canceled it, what were they going
to air? Another failed melodrama, another variety
show that nobody wanted. Right. Sometimes retention
is just a lack of better options. It's not that
they loved Cheers so much. It's that the alternative
was literal dead air or a test pattern. Exactly.
They needed content. But then something unprecedented
happens between season one and season two. The
sources refer to it as the summer of reruns.
And this is really the business lesson of the
whole era. Explain this to me. Because today
for us with streaming, reruns basically just
means I forgot to pause Netflix or I'm engaging
in some comfort viewing. But in 1983, the summer
rerun cycle was usually a complete dead zone,
wasn't it? It was just garbage time. Completely
dead. Usually networks would just burn off failed
pilots or air, really generic content because
they assumed everybody was outside and nobody
was watching television. But NBC made a strategic
decision. They kept Shears in the slot. They
aired the pilot again. They aired the key episodes.
They basically forced the audience to look at
it. And because the competition was also in rerun
mode, the barrier to entry was lower for new
viewers. It's the scarcity of attention principle.
People were flipping channels and remember physically
walking up to the TV to turn the dial and they
stumbled onto the show. Yeah. And because Cheers
is serialized, you really need to know the characters
to get the inside jokes. That repetition allowed
people to catch up without the pressure of a
brand new season moving too fast for them. The
data really backs this up. Right. By mid 1983,
during the supposedly dead summer months, the
reruns started cracking the top 20. That is a
massive leap from 74th. Which is completely un
- heard of. It's like a band playing to an empty
stadium. And then suddenly, without releasing
a new album or anything, the stadium just fills
up simply because they kept playing the same
songs. So they enter season two with this weird
momentum. They have the shiny Emmys on the shelf
and they have this summer buzz. But now they
actually have to perform. September 1983 rolls
around. Does the summer of reruns actually translate
to the fall season? Or was it just a fluke? It
wasn't just a translation. It was a total explosion.
The turnaround was immediate. In the first seven
weeks of season two, the show posts an average
rating of 17 .6. Okay, pause there. Yeah. 17
.6. For you listening, if you haven't looked
at a Nielsen chart since 1995, we need to contextualize
that number. Because in the streaming era...
We count views in the millions, but a rating
is a percentage, right? Correct. A 17 .6 rating
means 17 .6 % of all television -equipped households
in America were tuned in. But the even crazier
number is the share. They had a 27 share. Meaning,
of the people who actually had their TV turned
on at that exact moment, not just owning a TV
but actively watching it, more than one out of
every four was watching Cheers. Exactly. Imagine
that today. Imagine one out of every four people
watching TV right now is watching the exact same
thing. exact same scripted comedy. It just doesn't
happen. The Super Bowl gets those numbers. The
Oscars used to. But a sitcom on a Thursday night,
that is dominance. That is absolute monoculture.
And it's not like they had an easy path either.
I was looking at the schedule grid for Thursday
nights in 83. This wasn't a cakewalk where they
were the only game in town. No, Thursday was
a complete war zone. NBC was trying to build
this must -see TV block, though they didn't really
call it that quite yet. But you had Give Me a
Break. And Mama's Family leading in. Mama's Family.
A classic in its own right, but a very different
tone. much broader sketch comedy vibes very different
yeah then we got it made then cheers then hill
street blues but look at the competition they
were up against cbs was airing simon and simon
which was a juggernaut at the time a massive
hit a detective show action mystery very easy
to watch you didn't need to know what happened
last week to enjoy simon and simon right very
episodic and abc was throwing everything at the
wall shows like It's not easy in Trauma Center.
Trauma Center sounds like a show I've definitely
forgotten. Was that a medical drama? It was a
short -lived medical drama, yes. Just one of
the casualties of that time slot. But Simon and
Simon was the real threat. It's fascinating because
it represents the old guard of TV. Procedural,
episodic, safe. Cheers was the new guard. Serial,
character -driven, highly neurotic. And Cheers
won. Or at least it survived and thrived. It
finished the season in 35th place from 74th up
to 35th. That is the very definition of a breakout.
The notes mentioned that other shows weren't
so lucky. Taxi, which is arguably just as brilliant
as Cheers, maybe even more acclaimed critically,
couldn't survive this exact lineup. Taxi is the
tragic counterexample here. It was also on NBC's
Thursday lineup for a bit, but it just couldn't
hold the audience. It got booted to Saturdays.
Fame got pushed to syndication. It really highlights
that Cheers had something highly specific that
clicked at that exact cultural moment. Why? What
was the X factor? We have a critic here in the
notes, Steve Sonsky, who described Cheers as
comic exaggeration built on a grain of truth.
Is that it? Is it just truth? I think truth is
definitely part of it. The bar setting is universal.
Everyone knows a norm. Everyone knows a cliff.
But if we are being honest, looking at the trajectory
of season two, the engine wasn't the setting.
It wasn't the beer. It was the friction. You're
talking about Sam and Diane. I'm talking about
the central conflict. Season one established
the tension. Season two is where they decided
to just let that tension drive the car off the
cliff. It's interesting you say that because
usually the golden rule in TV is don't get them
together. The moonlighting curse, right? If the
couple gets together, the sexual tension evaporates
and the show dies. But in season two, they actually
are together. They are together, but the writers,
Glenn and Les Charles, and the director, James
Burroughs, they did something brilliant. They
realized that being together didn't have to mean
being happy. They completely subverted the romance
trope. The notes describe their status in season
two as having fulfilling casual sex, but little
else in common, which is a very polite way of
saying it was a total train wreck. It was a disaster.
Let's dissect the anatomy of this train wreck
because we have two very specific archetypes
here. Ted Danson as Sam Malone. The jock. The
recovering alcoholic, the guy who coasts on charm
and physical prowess. He's street smart, but
he's deeply insecure about his lack of formal
education. He's a man who used to be a hero on
the mound, and now he's serving drinks to people
who just remind him of his glory days. And Shelley
Long as Diane Chambers. The pseudo intellectual.
She's working as a waitress. But she acts like
she's an anthropologist observing the lower classes.
Yes. She is pretentious, verbose, honestly often
quite cruel. She validates herself by making
Sam feel small. And in season two, instead of
the will they, won't they dance, we get the they
are. But. It's a mess reality. It's the definition
of dysfunction. And the show doesn't shy away
from it. In fact, they open the season with it.
The premiere episode, Power Play. Oh, this is
the one with the door. The door scene is iconic,
but let's break down the psychology of it. Sam
and Diane are looking for a place to be intimate.
They go to her apartment, which is rare, by the
way. We almost never leave the bar in this show.
True. It feels claustrophobic in the bar. So
leaving should feel liberating. But it doesn't.
It feels invasive. Sam immediately starts mocking
her. He makes fun of her stuffed animals. He's
looking at her personal space and treating it
like a joke. Which, to be fair, if you bring
a date home and your bed is completely covered
in stuffed animals, questions will be asked.
But Sam isn't asking questions. He's actively
attacking. He is. So Diane throws him out. Now,
a normal couple, they cool off. They talk the
next day. Maybe they apologize. Sam alone doesn't
cool off. No. He goes back to the bar, gets terrible
advice from Carla, who actively wants to sabotage
them, by the way, and he marches back. He literally
kicks the door open. He breaks in. Let's just
call it what it is. He breaks in and kisses her.
It's that old Hollywood trope, right? Aggression
equals passion. If you push hard enough, she'll
like it. It is. And in 1983, the studio audience
cheered. It was seen as romantic determination.
But look at Diane's reaction. She says, I've
called the police. A completely logical response
to a break -in. It is. And Sam immediately backs
down. He realizes he crossed a major line. He
apologizes. But then Diane reveals she was bluffing.
She didn't call the cops. And they embrace. It
establishes the baseline for the whole season.
Deceit, aggression, power plays, and impassion.
It's a vicious cycle. It's a completely dopaminergic
cycle. High highs, low lows. And the writers
knew that this instability was so much more interesting
than domestic bliss. There's another episode
that flips the script on this, dealing with the
intellectual gap, Sumner's Return. Oh, this is
the War and Peace episode. Yeah. This is one
of my absolute favorites because it's just so
painful to watch. It is painful, and this is
crucial for understanding Sam. Diane's ex -fiancee,
Sumner Sloan, the guy who dumped her in the pilot,
comes back to the bar. He is everything Sam isn't.
cultured, literate, sophisticated. Sam feels
incredibly threatened. Oh, deeply threatened.
He feels small. He feels like just a bartender.
So he decides he's going to read War and Peace
to prove he's on their level. Which is, that
is not a light beach read. That is a massive
commitment. He spends five days on it, no sleep.
He's struggling with the Russian names, the history.
He's essentially torturing himself to be worthy
of her world. And the real tragedy is the payoff.
Or the total lack thereof. Right. He finishes
the book. He sits down at dinner ready to debate
Tolstoy. He's practically vibrating with knowledge.
And Diane and Sumner just wave it off. They say,
oh, that old thing. It's too well known to discuss.
It's banal. That is gut wrenching. Yeah. It's
elitism weaponized. It's basically saying your
greatest, most agonizing effort is our boring
Tuesday. It is. It totally humiliates Sam. But
notice what happens next. Sam confesses. He admits
he read it because he was jealous. He shows genuine
vulnerability. And that is what Diane responds
to. She chooses him not because he's smart, but
because he tried so hard for her. It seems like
season two is constantly asking the question,
can these two people actually change each other?
Or are they just sharpening each other's worst
edges? That's the core question. And sometimes
the answer is genuinely violent. we need to talk
about Homicidal Ham. The title alone tells you
we are veering way out of standard sitcom territory.
This episode is bizarre. Diane has an ex -date
named Andy. He's a convicted criminal, but he's
also an aspiring actor. As one is. He comes to
the bar, tries to rob it, but the climax of the
episode actually happens during a local theater
production of Othello. Because nothing says sitcom
hilarity like Othello. Andy is playing Othello.
Diane is Desdemona. And on stage, during the
famous strangulation scene, he decides to actually
strangle her. Real -life blending with the play.
And Sam has to rush the stage to physically save
her. It's slapstick, yes, but the stakes are
literally life and death. It highlights how Cheers
was willing to go into these much darker, almost
thriller -like modes, but wrap it in a joke so
you didn't quite realize how dark it was. Speaking
of dark, we have to skip to the end of the season,
the finale. I'll be seeing you. Because if the
season starts with a breaking and a kiss, it
ends with a portrait and a slap. The ultimate
disintegration. This episode is so painful to
watch if you're invested in them. Diane commissions
a portrait by an artist named Philip Semenko.
Sam hates him. He's pretentious. He's arrogant.
He's basically a male Diane, but more successful.
Exactly. And the whole relationship just unravels
over this. Diane calls it a contest of wills.
She realizes they aren't partners at all. They're
combatants. And the critics at the time... They
were pretty divided on this, right? I have a
note here from the Gazette, Mike Boone. He thought
the romance lasted too long. Boone thought it
spoiled the bar's atmosphere. He wanted the ensemble
comedy back. But then you have Harry Stein from
TV Guide who went even further. He called the
relationship destructive. He argued it completely
failed to model trust and moral values. Which
is funny because usually we don't look to sitcoms
for moral instruction. Yeah, we don't. But Stein
has a point. If you look at this relationship
through a modern lens. The A .V. Club did exactly
that. They reviewed the finale years later. There
is a scene where Sam and Diane are physically
fighting, pinching noses, slapping faces, twisting
arms. Three stooges -esque is the quote from
the source. Right. In 1984, that was comedy.
Today, the A .V. Club called it troubling. They
noted the subtext of violence. It really begs
the question, were we laughing at abuse? That's
the real tension of revisiting these classics.
You have the warm nostalgia, but then you have
the realization that Sam Malone creates a hostile
work environment every single day. Every single
day. And yet we still root for him. We do. And
we root for the people around him. Because while
Sam and Diane are sucking all the oxygen out
of the room, the rest of the cast is quietly
having their best season ever. The ensemble.
This is the season where the supporting cast
really stops being just support and starts being
the structural pillars of the show. Specifically,
the mailman, Cliff Clavin. John Ratzenberger.
This is absolutely his breakout year. I didn't
actually realize he wasn't a main cast member
in season one. He was just a guest star. He was
literally just the guy at the bar. But in season
two, he gets promoted to the opening credits.
He becomes the Cliff we know the know -it -all,
the blowhard. And we find out he's Norm's best
friend. Which anchors him emotionally. Yeah.
But the episode that really defines him this
season is Cliff's rocky moment. Is this the karate
episode? It is. Cliff gets challenged to a fight
by a patron named Victor. Cliff is terrified.
He's a total coward. He leaves town to avoid
it. But then he comes back and he decides to
bluff. He claims he actually knows karate. The
deadly hands of the United States Postal Service.
Exactly. He sets up this elaborate demonstration
where he's going to break a solid brick with
his head to prove how dangerous he is. And knowing
Cliff, this goes very poorly. Well, surprisingly,
he actually breaks the brick. The crowd cheers.
It's his huge moment of glory. And then he faints.
He just passes out cold. It's the perfect encapsulation
of his character. He succeeds. but in the most
embarrassing way possible. And there is a really
sweet moment where Diane helps him keep the secret.
It adds a whole new layer of vulnerability. We
realize Cliff isn't just annoying. He's incredibly
lonely and desperate for any kind of respect.
Then we have Carla Tortelli. And this is a case
of life imitating art in a very literal way.
Yes. Rhea Perlman was pregnant in real life.
She gave birth in March 1983, so the show just
wrote it in. Carla is pregnant for most of the
season. Which is pretty brave for a sitcom back
then. Usually they hide the actress behind a
giant laundry basket or a conveniently placed
fern. Right, the classic sitcom tricks. But they
leaned into it. And it gave us the episode, La
Cicerdote Cha, Carla Goes Into Labor. And we
finally meet her sister, Annette. Also played
by Rhea Perlman. A double role. And it's brilliant
because Annette is the anti -Carla. She's polite.
She's demure until she's not. She turns out to
be incredibly flirtatious, especially with Cliff.
Poor Cliff. He never stood a chance. It completely
breaks his heart. But it really showed Perlman's
range as an actress. And we also see a rare moment
of maturity for Carla in the episode Battle of
the Exes. This involves Nick. Her infamously
sleazy ex -husband. Nick and his new wife, Loretta.
Carla and Nick share a vulnerable moment, a kiss.
They think maybe the spark is still there, but
then they pull away and realize, nope, it's gone.
It's completely dead. That's a heavy realization,
to realize that the hate you've been holding
onto doesn't even have passion behind it anymore.
It's just exhausting. It is. It's a very adult
moment in a show that is usually full of rapid
-fire jokes. And speaking of adults, let's talk
about the coach. Ernie Pantuso, played by Nicholas
Colasanto. The absolute heart of the bar. He
really is. He's the father figure for Sam and
Diane. He's not book smart. But the show always
emphasized his deep wit. He sees the emotional
truth of a situation even when he doesn't fully
understand the vocabulary being used. But season
two gave him some real edge. Manager Coach is
a fascinating episode. Coach takes over a Little
League team. And he turns into an absolute monster.
A total tyrant. He's screaming at kids, benchmarking
them, acting like it's the seventh game of the
World Series. It's so jarring to see the sweet
coach yelling. It is. But it reminds us that
he was a professional athlete. He was a highly
competitive guy. Sam has to step in and remind
him of his own past to snap him out of it. It
added so many layers to a character who could
have easily just been a one -note cartoon. And
sometimes he was just the obstacle. And Kochi
makes three. The ultimate third wheel. He's lonely,
so he starts hanging out with Sam and Diane everywhere
they go. He's ruining their romantic moments,
just sitting there on the couch, completely oblivious.
It's funny, but it's also deeply sad. It speaks
to the profound loneliness of these characters.
You can't forget Norm. Norm? The man, the myth,
the bar tab. Season two is interesting for Norm
because we really dive into his professional
failures. He's a semi -unemployed accountant.
He is. And in No Help Wanted, he actually starts
working at the bar. Briefly. Very briefly. He
washes dishes at Melville's upstairs first, and
then Sam hires him to do the bar's taxes. It
seems like a great idea. Friends helping friends
out of a jam. Until it isn't. Norm finds out
Sam didn't actually trust him. Sam filed completely
different tax forms than the ones Norm prepared.
That's a huge betrayal. It's basically telling
your friend, I love you, but I think you're totally
incompetent. Exactly. Norm nearly quits the bar
entirely. It leads to this highly emotional reconciliation
between them. And we also see his marriage arc
progress. He separates from his unseen wife,
Vera, then reconciles. In Norman's conquest,
he even seriously considers cheating with a client.
Which is very dark for Norm. We usually think
of him as harmless and jovial. He considers it.
But he realizes he loves Vera too much. He hides
that affection constantly behind his old ball
and chain jokes. But season two shows us that
he really does care about her. He's not just
a punchline. He's a guy trying to make a marriage
work while feeling like a total failure in his
career. It's amazing how much depth they gave
these characters in just 22 episodes. But shifting
gears a bit, we tease this in the intro. We have
to talk about the disaster, the fire. This is
one of those truth is stranger than fiction moments
in Hollywood history. August 25, 1983. Cheers
is filming at Paramount Studios and suddenly
a massive fire breaks out on the lot. Just how
bad was it? It was catastrophic. It destroyed
two or three full sound stages. It wiped out
four outdoor sets. We are talking about millions
of dollars in damage. It looked like a war zone
on the lot. Did the Cheers bar burn down? That
is the absolute miracle. The fire raged all around
it. But the Cheers production set, the bar itself,
was totally unharmed. It completely survived.
That is unbelievable. It's like divine intervention
for a sitcom. It certainly felt that way to the
cast and crew, but it had a very real impact
on the season itself. Because of the extensive
damage to the lot, the production was severely
constrained. They couldn't film outside easily
because the outdoor sets were literal ash. So
they contributed to the claustrophobia we talked
about earlier. Exactly. Diane's apartment in
season two was the first location outside the
bar that we see since the premiere. They were
incredibly limited in where they could physically
go. So the show became even more about the rapid
fire dialogue, the facial expressions, the tension
inside that one single room. The fire practically
forced them to double down on the writing. And
the writing held up beautifully. The production
team, Glenn and Les Charles, James Burroughs.
They stuck to their guns. They did. They had
a very clear philosophy. Les Charles admitted
that Sam and Diane had strong chemistry but fundamentally
incompatible backgrounds. They knew, even then,
that their relationship was never meant to last
forever. They weren't writing a fairy tale. They
were writing a collision course. And the industry
rewarded them for it. We mentioned the Emmys
before the season started, but they won during
this era, too. Yes. For the 1983 -84 season,
they received 12 nominations and won four more
Emmys, including... Outstanding Comedy Series
again. Rhea Perlman won Outstanding Supporting
Actress. They were validating the sheer quality
of the writing and acting, even as the ratings
were just starting to catch up. I want to dive
into some specific episodes that maybe aren't
this huge season -defining milestones, but really
define the specific flavor of season two. The
deep cuts, if you will, because sometimes the
best stuff is just sitting right in the middle
of the season. Oh, let's do it. I love the deep
cuts. Fortune and Men's Weight. This one involves
a fortune -telling machine. This is a quintessential
sitcom plot, but done with that specific cheers
twist. Coach buys this old antique fortune -telling
scale for the bar. Everyone gets a card. And
Norm gets a good one. Norm's fortune says, your
most troublesome problem will soon be solved.
He assumes it means money or work. But it's Vera.
It leads to an accidental date with her. He thinks
he's meeting a stranger he met through the classifieds,
and it turns out to be his own wife. It's incredibly
sweet. It reinforces that they really are meant
for each other. But for Sam and Diane, the fortune
is much darker. It predicts deception. Which
leads to a massive fight, naturally, because
they are always looking for reasons to fight.
Naturally. Diane has a platonic male friend she
hasn't bothered to tell Sam about. Sam feels
totally betrayed. They're on the verge of breaking
up again, and they decide to let the machine
decide their fate. They ask it for the future
of their relationship. They put the penny in.
The machine runs out of cards. The message just
says, machine empty. Order more fortunes today.
That is brilliant writing, just leaving it completely
up to ambiguity. It is. It's the writers basically
saying, we don't know either. Another really
great one is. Where there's a will. This is the
one with the dying man, right? Malcolm Cramer.
Yes. A dying man comes into the bar. He leaves
$100 ,000 to the friends he made at the bar in
his will. And suddenly all that warm camaraderie
evaporates. Everyone gets incredibly greedy.
Even coach. Everyone. It turns into this complete
frenzy of avarice. They are planning how to spend
the money before the guy is even buried. And
Sam decides to play moral arbiter. Which is rich
coming from him. He burns the will. He burns
$100 ,000. Well, he burns a piece of paper. He
claims he burned the will to stop the greed.
Diane is actually relieved. She's happy the madness
is over. She praises him. But then Sam reveals
he just burned a copy. He still has the real
one hidden. Classic Sam Malone. He wants the
credit for being moral, but he definitely wants
the money too. Exactly. Diane berates him for
tricking them. So in front of her eyes, he burns
the paper again. But then Diane suspects he's
tricked her again. She warns him about the guilt
he's going to feel. And finally, just infuriated
by her constant moralizing, Sam reluctantly burns
the actual will. It's a fascinating study of
morals versus money. Diane shames him into doing
the right thing. And Sam absolutely hates her
for it. It shows that her influence does make
him a better person but it also makes him totally
miserable. One more spotlight episode. Snow Job.
This is a prime example of their endless cat
and mouse games. Sam wants to go on a ski trip.
Not to ski, obviously, but to seduce women. Obviously.
So he lies to Diane. He tells her he's going
to a funeral for Uncle Nathan in Vermont. Uncle
Nathan. Not the most creative lie he's ever come
up with. Right. Diane isn't buying it for a second.
She says she's going to check the obituary. Sam
spends the whole episode sweating, trying to
cover his tracks. He eventually breaks down and
admits the funeral is totally fake. And Diane's
reaction. She reveals she knew he was lying the
entire time. She never checked the obituaries.
She just wanted to watch him squirm until he
admitted it. She played him like a fiddle. It
shows that she is often one step ahead of him
intellectually, but he is constantly trying to
outmaneuver her anyway. It's a power struggle.
Pure and simple. It is. And that intense power
struggle is exactly what kept people tuning in
week after week. So we have looked at the ratings,
the romance, the ensemble, the fire, and the
episodes. When we look back at the overarching
legacy of season two, how does it stand up today?
It stands incredibly tall. The critical reassessment
over the years has been very kind. DVD Verdict
gave the story a 90 % rating. TV Guide named
the episode How Do I Love Thee? Let me call you
back a classic. That's the one where Sam tries
to say I love you and just fails miserably. Yes.
He says ditto instead. It's painful and hilarious.
But getting back to the legacy, when the DVD
came out in 2004, it included all these special
features analyzing the characters. Things like
strictly top shelf and cliff notes, the wisdom
of Cliff Clavin. It solidified the idea that
season two is where Cheers truly became Cheers.
It's the season where they finally secured the
audience. They jumped from the bottom of the
barrel to the top 35. And eventually, of course,
they would go even higher. Exactly. It set the
stage for the next decade of television dominance.
It proved that a show about a bar with a smart,
sophisticated and very messy dynamic at its center
could win over mainstream America. So as we wrap
up this deep dive, let's try to synthesize all
of this. What is the big takeaway from Cheers
season two? I think the main takeaway is that
season two is the year of definition. It defined
the characters. Cliff became the Cliff we know.
Norm became Norm. And it defined the will -they
-won't -they trope for generations of sitcoms
to follow. Shows like Friends, The Office, New
Girl, they all owe a massive debt to the blueprint
laid down by Sam and Diane in this specific season.
It's the season where they stopped being a critically
acclaimed flop and started being a cultural classic.
Precisely. They prove that you can respect the
audience's intelligence and still get the massive
ratings. Now, before we sign off, I want to leave
you listening with a provocative thought. We
talked about the modern criticism of Sam and
Diane. The shouting, the deception, the physical
altercations like the nose -pinching fight. Right.
It's very hard to ignore when you watch it today.
If Cheers Season 2 aired today, exactly as it
was written in 1983, would we view Sam and Diane
as a romantic comedy? Or would the internet label
it a toxic tragedy? Was there undeniable chemistry
enough to mask behavior that today we might find
completely unacceptable? Or was it purely a product
of its time, relying on the immense charm of
Ted Danson and Shelley Long to make the unpalatable
palatable? That is the big question. Does the
charm excuse the dysfunction? Or is the dysfunction
the only thing that actually makes it interesting?
Someone for you to mull over. If you haven't
seen it in a while, go back and watch the season
two finale. I'll be seeing you. With this deep
dive in mind, see how it hits you now. It's definitely
worth a rewatch. Just maybe don't model your
own relationships after it. Very sound advice.
Thanks for listening to this deep dive into Cheers
Season 2. We'll catch you on the next one.