Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening
up a file that I think is... Well, it's going
to surprise a lot of people. Oh, definitely.
I think it really will. Because, you know, when
you and I, and really when anyone looks back
at classic television, specifically sitcoms,
we tend to view them as these static things.
Right, like they just existed in this vacuum
of success. Exactly. Like they were great, they
were funny, and they just sort of existed. But
today we are looking at a specific season of
television that was basically a high wire act
without a net. Yeah. We are talking about Cheers,
season four. Broadcast from 1985 to 1986. It
is, without a doubt, the most pivotal season
in the show's entire 11 -year run. Yeah. If you
look at the history of television, there are
very few shows that face the kind of, I guess
you'd call them existential threats, that cheerers
face going into this season. Right. And they
come out not just surviving, but actually becoming
a ratings juggernaut. Exactly. It's the season
where the show really grew up. I mean, look at
the stakes here. We're talking about a show that
had critical acclaim, sure, but it wasn't exactly
a ratings monster yet. Nowhere near it. And then
tragedy strikes. They lose a beloved main cast
member. They have to introduce a new character
who is basically an unknown. A total unknown.
Right. And they have to figure out what to do
with Kelsey Grammer, whose character was supposed
to be long gone by now. Yeah, his arc was technically
over. And somehow in the middle of all this chaos,
they produce what some critics called the funniest
season yet. So our mission today for everyone
listening is to really explore how Cheers pulled
off this magic trick. It really was magic. How
did they survive the death of Coach, integrate
a future movie star in Woody Harrelson, and cement
their place in the must -see TV era? It is a
study in resilience and creative pivoting. We
have a huge stack of sources here to go through.
We really do. We're looking at production notes,
deeply detailed episode summaries, cast lists,
and some really fascinating contemporary reception
data, like the Nielsen ratings and awards from
that time. Yeah, pulling all that together gives
such a clear picture. And the narrative arc we're
going to trace from these sources is just fascinating.
It's not just about jokes. It's about how a sitcom
handles genuine lies and evolves its ensemble.
We are going to look at the aftermath of Sam
and Diane's disastrous trip to Italy, the arrival
of Woody Boyd, and the absolute deconstruction
and reconstruction of Frasier Crane. So much
to unpack there. So let's jump right into the
deep end, the production pivot. You simply cannot
talk about season four without talking about
the massive hole in the cast. No, you can't.
Nicholas Colasanto, who played coach Ernie Pantuso.
That's right. Colasanto had passed away from
a heart attack during the filming of the previous
season. Yeah. And this presented the creators,
so that's the Charles brothers and James Burroughs,
with a nearly impossible choice. Because Coach
wasn't just a character. He was the heart of
the bar. Absolutely. He was the father figure
to Sam. The confidant to Diane. He was the grounding
wire for the whole show. And the production decision
they made is really interesting based on the
notes we have. And honestly, it was pretty brave.
for 1985, they decided not to recast him. No,
and that was a crucial decision. They realized
that the audience's connection was to Colosanto
as much as it was to the character of Coach.
You couldn't just swap him out. Right. Putting
another actor in that role, you know, doing the
old Darren Stevens switcheroo from Bewitched,
it would have shattered the illusion. It would
have felt so cheap. Exactly. So in the season
premiere, which is titled Birth, Death, Love,
and Rice, they address it head on. They reveal
that Coach has died. And here's what really stands
out to me in the episode summaries. They don't
explain how. Exactly. It's a very respectful,
very human choice. Yeah. In the dialogue, there's
no melodramatic explanation of a medical event
or a car crash or anything like that. Right.
It's just the acknowledgement of the loss. The
characters are just mourning a friend. It grounded
the show in a reality that most sitcoms completely
avoid. It gave the season premiere a weight that
anchored everything that followed. You see Sam
Malone, who is usually this completely unflappable
guy, clearly dealing with a massive void in his
life. But you can't have a bar without a bartender.
Right. And you can't have cheers without that
specific dynamic of the, well, the dumb guy behind
the bar. Right, the comedic engine. So enter
Woody Boyd. Enter Woody Boyd. And just think
about the risk here. They are replacing a beloved,
senile, fatherly figure. And who do they bring
in? A complete unknown. Woody Harrelson. This
was his television debut. His absolute debut.
The production sources mentioned he was an understudy
in a Broadway play, Biloxi Blues. And he had
done a movie called Wildcats that hadn't even
come out yet when the season started. So nobody
knew who this guy was. Nobody. He was a blank
slate to the audience at home. He was a ghost.
The way they introduced the character was brilliant
in its simplicity. They connected him directly
to Coach to bridge that emotional gap for you
as the viewer. Which was so smart. Woody Boyd
arrives in Boston as a pen pal of Coach. Which
is such a Coach thing to have. A pen pal he's
never actually met. Precisely. It immediately
tells you that this kid operates on the exact
same wavelength as Coach did. Yeah. Woody is
this naive... farm boy from Hanover, Indiana,
or at least small town Indiana, as the source
notes very slightly on the specific town name
in the dialogue. But the essence is strictly
the rural Midwest. Right. He's a country boy.
He comes expecting to finally meet his friend,
only to learn Coach has passed away. And Sam,
seeing a bit of Coach's spirit in the kid, offers
him the job right there. I love the insight we
can pull from the production notes regarding
the comedy mechanics here. Oh, it's fascinating.
It's a similar dynamic, dim -witted but lovable,
but the energy is totally different. Completely.
Coach was slow because he was old and, as they
joked, had taken too many fastballs to the head.
Woody is slow because he's just innocent. He's
incredibly literal. It's the difference between
senility and naivety. And that freshness completely
revitalized the bar. It allowed the other characters
to react to him differently. Right, the dynamics
shifted. Sam has to be more of a big brother
or a mentor to Woody, whereas he was more of
a surrogate son to Coach. Yeah, that's a huge
shift for Sam's character. It shifted the power
dynamics in a way that opened up entirely new
joke avenues. Woody brought this golden retriever
energy. He's just happy to be there, whereas
everyone else in the bar... is pretty miserable
or cynical. Although looking at the contemporary
reception data, it is worth noting that critics
mentioned the character wasn't always well integrated
immediately. No, it took a minute. It took a
few episodes for the writers to really nail Woody's
voice. It did. You can see in those early episode
summaries that they're still figuring out if
he's just Coach Junior or if he's his own thing.
Right. But episodes like Woody Goes Belly Up
really helped solidify him as a distinct entity.
He wasn't just dumb. He had this weird, dark,
rural backstory that would leak out occasionally
in the dialogue. Speaking of shifting dynamics,
let's talk about the character who I think undergoes
the most radical change this entire season. Frasier
Crane. Oh, absolutely. Frasier. If Woody was
the replacement, Frasier was the happy accident.
Yeah. You have to remember, if you're looking
at the cast list from earlier, Frasier was brought
in during season three, essentially just to be
a roadblock between Sam and Diane. He was the
wrong guy. Exactly. Usually in sitcom logic,
once the wedding is called off, that character
just disappears. Right. They go back to their
home planet and are never spoken of again. But
Kelsey Grammer stuck around. He did. He is listed
as a recurring guest star in the credits for
most of the season. Though the remastered prints
of Cliffy's big score actually show him in the
opening credits. Officially, he isn't there until
season five. Good catch. But yeah, he was just
too good to let go. And in season four, we see
the writers figuring out, OK, if he's staying,
who is he? Right. And the answer they came up
with is dark. hilariously dark the jilted arc
i mean talk about kicking a man when he's down
it is brutal we learned from the premiere summary
that sam went to citadel to stop the wedding
but failed but then the twist diane jilted fraser
at the altar and the consequences for fraser
are catastrophic the sources detail that he loses
his dignity his teaching tenure in his entire
practice in italy he comes back to boston essentially
A broken man. Completely broken. There's that
specific episode, The Triangle, episode 15. This
really feels like the turning point where Frasier
goes from guest star to essential cast member.
It is the fulcrum of his character development.
In The Triangle, Frasier has deteriorated into
full -blown alcoholism. Yeah. He has zero interest
in psychiatry. He's basically just wallowing
in the bar all day. So Sam and Diane, feeling
guilty naturally, concoct this scheme. Right.
Sam decides to feign symptoms, to pretend he's
having a breakdown, just to boost Frazier's confidence.
Which is such a classic sitcom setup, the fake
sick routine. Right. But the payoff here is totally
different. Because the payoff is psychological.
Frazier, even in his drunken state, is actually
a good psychiatrist. Right. That's his core competence.
Exactly. He realizes it's a charade. He calls
them out on it. But instead of just being angry,
he has this moment of clarity. He declares himself
out of their triangle. He tells them. Point blank.
You two are still in love. And he decides to
go back to practicing. And that's the moment.
Right. That's when he stops being a plot device
for Sam and Diane and becomes Frasier Crane.
Exactly. He becomes an independent observer of
the human condition, specifically the human condition
of the people in that bar. Yeah. He becomes the
Greek chorus, just with a lot more vocabulary
and a huge bar tab. He stops being a victim.
and starts being an active participant. And we
have to mention, this season plants the seed
for the rest of his life. Episode 17, second
time around. Enter Lilith. Enter Dr. Lilith Sternen,
played by the incredible Bebe Neuwirth. It's
wild to think she only appears once in this entire
season. Just once. When you look at the cast
lists, it's a single credit. Frasier has a bad
date with her. It's completely unsuccessful.
They bicker. They're freezing cold to each other.
Yeah. But the chemistry was so undeniable, the
writing was so sharp, that even this single appearance
set up a major future arc. It's fascinating to
see the comedy contrast immediately. Frasier
rebounds from Lilith by dating Candy Pearson.
Played by Jennifer Tilly. Right, who is the complete
opposite of Lilith. Oh, Candy with an I. Exactly.
Ditsy, fun. not intellectual at all, and he almost
marries her. Which just shows you how desperate
he was to find some stability after Italy. But
it's that one interaction with Lilith that really
signaled where his future was going. It showed
that the show could sustain highbrow intellectual
humor right alongside the bar slop. Definitely.
Okay, let's unpack the engine that really drives
the car, Sam and Diane. The eternal will they,
won't they. Season four had to hit the reset
button hard. Season three ended with them apart.
Season four starts with them miles apart, both
physically and emotionally. The premiere gives
us the explanation for what happened in Italy.
And honestly, reading the summary, it is one
of the most absurd things the show ever did.
It really is. Sam explains he was arrested and
purchased by a landowner. It's completely farcical.
He was working on a farm, essentially as an indentured
servant. Meanwhile, Diane is found in a convent.
doing penance for a spree of decadence. It's
so dramatic. It's over the top, but it serves
a narrative purpose. It strips them both of their
pretenses. They both failed in Italy. They both
come back to the bar humble. Well, as humble
as Sam and Diane can be, Sam gets her to leave
the convent, she returns to work at Cheers, and
the dance begins all over again. But the dynamic
feels different this season based on the episode
plots. It's less about romantic longing and more
about jealousy and competition. It feels spikier.
That's a great observation. It's a total power
struggle now. They're both trying to prove to
the other that they're over it. Right. You see
this in episodes like Someday My Prince Will
Come, where Diane dates a cultured man named
Stuart, who turns out to be really unattractive.
And she's just relieved when he dumps her. Exactly.
Or The Barstoolie, where Sam dates Claudia, this
very classy woman. And Claudia dumps Sam for
being too aggressive. Right. And then in a great
twist, she befriends Diane. It's this constant
game of one -upmanship. Diane wants to prove
she's evolved, and Sam wants to prove he's happy.
I love that shift in power. And then there is
Don Juan is Hell, where Diane actually writes
a term paper on Sam. A brutal takedown. Yeah.
She describes him in the paper as a pathetic,
aging sexist. Wow. It's an academic dissection
of his entire lifestyle. And Sam, being Sam...
Initially thinks it's a huge compliment until
he actually hears it read aloud. Of course he
does. This constant push and pull. Sam trying
to prove he's happy. Diane trying to prove she's
intellectually superior. It drives the comedy
for the bulk of the season. It's almost like
they are siblings fighting rather than lovers
courting for a lot of these episodes. Until we
get to the finale arc. The Strange Bedfellows
trilogy. This is where things get really serious
again. This is the first time we see a truly
formidable rival for Diane. Janet Eldridge, played
by Kate Mulgrew. Yes. She's a city councilor
running for reelection. She's smart. She's powerful.
She's successful. She is everything Diane thinks
she is. But Janet actually has the real world
career to back it up. And the conflict is so
sharp. Diane accuses Janet of using Sam for votes.
Right. And Janet admits she actually likes him.
Janet wins the election and suddenly Sam is dating
a winner. And this leads to the ultimatum. Janet
sees the dynamic clearly. She's not blind to
what's going on in that bar. Yeah. She tells
Sam, fire Diane. Yeah. She knows that as long
as Diane is working there, she's the third wheel
in her own relationship. But Diane resigns before
Sam can even do it. And the scene at the press
conference that follows, it's iconic slapstick.
It really is. Diane humiliates Sam with a squirt
gun. Squirt gun. He gets his tie stuck in the
door. It's physical comedy manifesting the emotional
mess they are in. Yeah. But the result is genuine
heartbreak. Janet dumps Sam. Not because of the
squirt gun incident, but because she realizes
he is still entirely obsessed with Diane. She
realizes that Sam actually liked the drama. And
that leads to the cliffhanger. The season ends
with Sam on the phone. He calls someone. He proposes
marriage. But we don't know who. And the audience
went wild. There was a telephone survey at the
time, which is just a great piece of historical
data. Yeah, the contemporary reception notes
have that. 140 callers guessed he proposed to
Diane and 60 guessed Janet. That's a huge margin
for Diane. It was a massive water cooler moment
for the culture. It kept the audience completely
hooked all summer long. It was a master class
in serialized storytelling. Before that was really
the norm for network sitcoms. I want to zoom
out a bit to the rest of the ensemble. Because
while Sam and Diane are doing their incredibly
complicated dance, the rest of the bar is really
fleshing out. Absolutely. You have Cliff Clavin.
We get a real look into his background in the
bar stoolie. We meet his estranged father, played
by Dick O 'Neill. Right. And true to Cliff's
miserable luck, his dad turns out to be a total
fraudster who runs out on him again. Poor Cliff.
He just wants to be respected by someone. And
he's also trying to break world records this
season, walking backwards. Yes, and I will gladly
pay you Tuesday. He's walking backwards to break
a record and ends up backing into his mother's
curling iron. That is just perfect. It's that
blend of bizarre ambition and total incompetence
that makes Cliff work so well. And we also see
his pathetic romantic life. highlighted in Cliffy's
big score, where it tries to score with Diane.
He practically tries to bribe his way into a
date with her. He really does. Yeah. But then
he ends up stranded. It deepens his character
from just being the annoying fact guy at the
end of the bar to a lonely guy who invents a
world where he matters. Then there's Carla Tortelli.
She's dealing with a lot this season based on
the summaries. She is. She gives birth to Ledlow.
Named after Frazier's mentor, which is a really
nice nod. Yeah. But she also deals with her son,
Anthony, marrying incredibly young in the Groom
or Clearasil. It shows the generational cycle
of the Tortelli family drama. Right. The key
moment for Carla's growth, I think, is in Save
the Last Dance for Me. The Nick Tortelli saga.
Right. Her sleazy ex -husband, Nick, played by
Dana Daya, comes back. Yeah. He wants her to
help him cheat on his new wife, Loretta. And
Carla outright refuses. It's a small moment.
But it shows significant moral growth. She hates
Loretta, but she won't be the other woman. She
has a code. It makes Carla more than just a mean
spirit. She has real integrity. Exactly. And
we can't forget Norm Peterson. We almost see
Vera. So close. In The Peterson Principle, he's
hiding a co -worker's affair to save his own
dignity. Norm is often the moral center of the
show in his own quiet beer drinking way. Right.
And then there's the neighbor drama in Love Thy
Neighbor. Yes. Norm and a neighbor suspect their
spouses of having an affair, which, of course,
is proven completely false. But the real lore
building moment for the ensemble this season
has to be. From beer to eternity. Oh, the birth
of Bar Wars. Yes, the bowling competition against
Gary's Old Town Tavern. This establishes the
long -running rivalry that fuels so many future
episodes, and it gives us a great Woody moment.
He refuses to bowl due to a past maiming accident
back in Indiana. Which is just fantastic backstory.
The pins, they were everywhere. Exactly. And
then Diane has to step in as the ringer. It unites
the entire bar against a common enemy. It solidifies
that us -against -the -world mentality of the
Cheers gang. I want to take a second to highlight
a few of the standalone episodes because there
are some genuinely weird ones in season four.
Like, Fear is my co -pilot. Oh, that is a fascinating
anomaly in the run. Diane travels with a guy
named Jack Dalton, played by Joseph Whipp, on
a small plane. And the pilot dies at 20 ,000
feet. It turns into this crazy disaster movie
spoof. But the twist at the end... She wasn't
dead. Right, he was just practicing Tibetan meditation.
Totally absurd. But it won an Emmy for outstanding
sound mixing. That's wild. It shows the writers
were willing to break the standard bottle episode
format of the bar and go really high concept.
And then there's Diane's nightmare. A full dream
sequence episode. We see Andy Schroeder, the
ex -con, return. Yeah. But the highlight of the
summary is Sam appearing as Diane's upper class
ideal. He's blowing soap bubbles from a pipe.
That is hilarious. It's a glimpse into Diane's
subconscious fantasy that she can somehow fix
Sam. And turn him into a proper gentleman. And
another great standalone is I Will Gladly Pay
You Tuesday. The Hemingway book. Such a classic
sitcom premise. Diane buys a first edition of
The Sun Also Rises. Yeah. And Sam completely
ruins it by dropping it in the bathtub. It's
simple, it's physical, and it's totally character
driven. Right. It plays on Sam's total carelessness
and Diane's extreme reverence for literature.
The perfect distillation of their core conflict.
without needing a massive multi -episode plot
arc. So we've got all this incredible content.
Let's look at the cultural context, the must
-see TV landscape. This is crucial for understanding
why season four matters so much. In 1985, NBC
creates this monster lineup on Thursday nights.
The golden era. You had The Cosby Show at 8 -0,
then Family Ties, then Cheers at 9 -0, followed
by Night Court and Hill Street Blues. That is
just an insane lineup of television. You just
didn't change the channel all night. It's the
absolute murderer's row of TV. And Cheers benefited
massively from that flow. The ratings boom they
experienced was significant. Yeah, the Nielsen
data says they gained 33 % in ratings from the
previous season. They became a top five show.
They had a 23 .7 rating and a 35 share. And they
were top three among female viewers. Which is
really interesting given how much of the Sam
and Diane dynamic is based on, you know. toxic
gender politics at times. Right. But it proves
that the show wasn't just viewed as a guy's bar
show. It had incredibly broad appeal. It was
airing again, Simon and Simon on CBS and the
Colby's on ABC. And it was just destroying the
competition. And the critics absolutely noticed
the shift. We have a note here that Rick Sherwood
called it the funniest and most intelligent since
the debut. Though, to be totally fair to all
viewpoints in the reception data, looking back,
some modern reviews, like from DVD Talk, find
it a bit episodic compared to the serialized
nature of what we expect from modern TV. Sure,
standards change. And the coach critique was
very real at the time. Some critics felt the
unexplained nature of his death in the script
was a low point or a missed opportunity for narrative
closure. That makes sense from a traditional
writing standpoint. But overall, the accolades
really speak for themselves. Rhea Perlman won
an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress. Shelley
Long won a Golden Globe for Best Actress. And
practically everyone was nominated, right? Yeah,
all the cast members except Harrelson and Grammer
were nominated for Emmys that year. So what does
this all mean for you listening when we look
at season four as a whole complete package? I
think it means that Cheers proved it was indestructible.
It proved that the core concept of the bar was
stronger than any single cast member. Yeah. It
proved that they could pivot under extreme pressure.
If they hadn't nailed the Woody transition so
perfectly, or if they had botched the Frazier
integration and let Kelsey Grammer go, the show
likely would have just fizzled out. But instead,
they built the foundation for another seven seasons
of dominance. Exactly. It really is the season
where the ensemble solidified into its final
legendary form. Frasier found his distinct voice.
Woody found his place behind the bar. And the
bar just kept serving. And it leaves us with
a final provocative thought to chew on. Okay,
let's hear it. Consider the alternate reality
for a second. If the showrunners had taken the
easy route and just recast Coach instead of creating
Woody. Oh, wow. Or if Frasier had remained a
short -term guest star and just vanished after
Italy, would Cheers have survived all the way
to season 11? Probably not. And would it have
spawned Frasier? one of the most successful spinoffs
in television history. Season 4 proves that sometimes
the biggest obstacles, like tragic cast deaths
or seemingly dead -end plot corners, they force
the creative pivots that actually lead to true
longevity. That is a fascinating what -if to
think about. It's amazing to think how different
television history would be right now if they
had made the safe choice instead of the bold
one back in 1985. Well, that wraps up our dip
dive into Cheers Season 4. Whether you're a longtime
fan of the show or you're just curious about
television history, I hope this gave you a brand
new appreciation for what really went down at
the place where everybody knows your name. Thanks
for listening. Thanks, everyone.