Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
doing something a little different for you. We
really are. We are stepping into a time machine,
basically setting the dial for September 1989
and landing right in the middle of a, well, a
cultural phenomenon at the absolute peak of its
powers. Oh, absolutely. We are talking about
the eighth season of the American sitcom Cheers.
It really is a fascinating moment in television
history to look back on. you have a show that
is entering its eighth year on NBC occupying
that coveted Thursday night slot. Right. Back
when must -see TV actually meant the entire country
was watching the exact same thing at the exact
same time. Exactly. And yet, instead of resting
on its laurels or, you know, just coasting on
the chemistry of the cast, the show decides to
completely reinvent itself. That is the thing
that really struck me while reviewing the source
material for this. Usually by season eight, a
sitcom is running on fumes. They definitely are.
Maybe they had a cute kid. Maybe they do a shark
jumping stunt. But Cheers did something almost
unheard of. They basically turned a bar comedy
into a serialized corporate thriller. It is a
massive pivot. And that is really the mission
of this deep dive today. Yeah. We want to unpack
for you how a show that had been on the air since
1982 managed to stay so fresh as it moved into
the 90s. Right. We're going to analyze how they
introduced a serialized storyline about corporate
takeovers, insider trading, and, I mean, international
espionage, all set in a basement bar in Boston.
And we cannot forget the other major hurdles
they cleared this season. They had to deal with
the death of a significant returning character.
Which is always a tonal minefield for a comedy.
Oh, for sure. Yeah. And they produced what might
be the single most famous moment in the history
of the show, maybe even the history of sitcoms,
involving a certain postal worker and a certain
game show host. We have a really great stack
of sources to help us navigate this too. We were
working from production notes, detailed episode
summaries, critical reception data from 1989
and 1990. and the award history specifically
for season eight. So let's set the scene for
you. It is September 1989. The Berlin Wall is
about to fall. Tim Burton's Batman is huge. And
on Thursday nights, Cheers is just an absolute
juggernaut. Juggernaut is the perfect word for
it. We are talking about a show that is consistently
landing in the top three of the Nielsen ratings.
It is battling it out every week with The Cosby
Show and Roseanne. Heavy hitters. Very heavy
hitters. But creatively. The show is in an incredibly
interesting transition period. The dates are
critical here. September 21st, 1989 is the premiere.
And if you were tuning in back then, the dynamic
in the bar felt, well, it felt wrong. Or at least
very different. Sam Malone was not the owner
anymore. That is the crucial context for everything
that happens in Season 8. We have to remember
that Sam sold the bar to the Lillian Corporation
back in Season 6 so he could sail around the
world. Right, he came back, but he came back
as an employee. Yes. So for this entire season,
the guy whose name is synonymous with the bar
is basically just a bartender. He's punching
a clock. He's trying to scrape together enough
money to buy back his identity. And his boss
is Rebecca Howe, played by Kirstie Alley. Right.
And Rebecca is desperate. She is clawing her
way up the corporate ladder, terrified of being
sent back to some branch in the Midwest. That
desperation is really the engine that drives
the major arc of season eight. Which brings us
to the introduction of one of the most interesting
villains the show ever had. We have to talk about
the Robin Colcord arc. The corporate thriller.
This is where the season finds its narrative
spine. It starts with the introduction of Robin
Colcord, played by the absolutely incredible
Roger Rees. He is an English multimillionaire,
seemingly perfect, incredibly wealthy. He is
the anti -Sam. In a lot of ways. He is sophisticated.
He is European. He deals in high finance. His
role in the story is very specific. He owns the
competitor to the Lillian Corporation. Which
owns Cheers at this point. Exactly. So he is
the enemy of the company that owns Cheers. But
he does not act like an enemy. He acts like a
suitor. I found this really interesting in the
production notes. Roger Reese gave an interview
in November 1989, right in the middle of the
season airing, where he described exactly what
the character was designed to do. He called him
a Philip. A Philip. A boost or a stimulus? Yeah,
I totally had to look that word up. He said Robin
was there to drive Sam Malone crazy. He described
him as dashing, sexy, irritating, and a megalomaniac.
That word megalomaniac is key because while he
is charming, Rebecca, there is a deep ruthlessness
there. There is actually a fascinating detail
in the source material regarding who this character
might have been based on. Oh, this is where it
gets really interesting given the timeline. Now,
we are just looking at the production. history
here, reporting what the sources say. But the
comparison is explicit. It is. In that same interview,
Roger Rees explicitly compares his character
to Donald Trump. He mentions that Robin Colcourt
has a helicopter fleet and an airline, and he
says, quote, It is very much Donald Trump. That
is wild to think about in the context of 1989.
You think of Cheers as this timeless bar show,
but it was very much reacting to the greed is
good era of the 80s. It really was. Now, to be
fair to the historical record, later in January
1990, Rees walked that back a little bit. He
claimed he did not base the character on anyone
specific. Probably to avoid legal trouble or
just to be polite. Likely, yes. But the parallels
were clearly there in the writing. The flashy
wealth, the hostile takeovers, the obsession
with branding. And Rebecca Howe falls hook, line,
and sinker for this guy. She really does. And
this is the tragedy in the comedy of Rebecca's
arc this season. She has spent years trying to
get noticed by headquarters. Now she is dating
a billionaire. She thinks she has finally made
it. She thinks she is part of the ultimate power
couple. But the audience knows something she
does not. That he is playing her. Worse than
playing her. He is using her to destroy her own
company. It is actually quite dark for a sitcom.
He is essentially a corporate spy using his girlfriend
as a mole, and she has absolutely no idea. There
is this incredible reveal in the two -part finale,
Cry Hard. We find out that Robin has been accessing
classified information about the Lillian Corporation,
and the way he got that access is just... It
is heartbreaking and hilarious at the same time.
The sweet baby hack. Sweet baby. Yes. It turns
out Robin guessed Rebecca's password to the company
computer system. Her password was sweet baby.
And the source material notes that he had been
using this since the day after they first made
love. That is cold. That is ice cold. It is incredibly
cold. Think about the manipulation there. He
sleeps with her, learns her vulnerabilities,
guesses her password, which... Let us be honest,
he has terrible cyber security even for 1989.
Go worse. And then he uses it to orchestrate
hostile takeover. That is a level of villainy
you do not usually see in a sitcom. Usually the
bad boyfriend just cheats or is rude to the friends.
This guy is committing federal crimes. And it
all comes to a head in that finale. The climax
of this arc is practically a spy movie. You have
Sam and the gang finding the evidence. Right.
They find the papers in his apartment while moving
furniture. Which, again, is a classic Cheers
way to solve a mystery. They are not detectives.
They are movers. And Robin comes back and he
realizes he is caught. The walls are closing
in. And what does he do? He pulls the ultimate
distraction. He proposes. He proposes marriage
to Rebecca while simultaneously shredding the
evidence of his insider trading with a portable
shredder he just happens to have. The visual
of that is so perfect. It sums up the entire
1980s corporate culture in one image. Would you
marry me were I love you were he is literally
destroying his past while promising her a future.
And poor Rebecca accepts. She is so blinded by
the diamond and the status that she ignores the
fact that he is destroying the evidence of his
crimes right in front of her face. It shows just
how deep her delusion goes. She wants the fairy
tale so badly she will ignore the shredder. Yeah.
But the law catches up to him. He gets indicted
for insider trading and this leads to the lowest
point for Rebecca. Robin bails out jumps on his
private. jet and flees the country. He jumps
bail. And she gets a fax. The goodbye forever
fax. Yes. Can we just pause on the brutality
of getting dumped via fax? That is so 1990. It
is the 1990 equivalent of a breakup text, but
slower and much louder. It is devastating. She
is fired by the Lillian Corporation because they
suspect she was in on it. Right. Because of her
password. Exactly. Yeah. She loses her career.
She loses her billionaire boyfriend and she is
left with absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing.
She has Sam. And that is the resolution to the
arc. Robin actually returns at the very end of
the season. He comes back from hiding because
he realizes, in a massive twist, that he actually
does love Rebecca. But when he gets to the bar,
he finds her back in the office with Sam. It
is a full circle moment. It reestablishes the
core dynamic of the show. But speaking of Sam,
while Rebecca is dealing with international espionage
and romance, Sam is dealing with something very
different. He just wants his bar back. That is
the engine driving Sam Malone throughout season
eight. We want to establish for you that for
Sam, Cheers is not just a business. It is his
living room. It is his life. It is his identity.
And answering to a corporation and specifically
answering to Rebecca is killing him. He tries
so many schemes this season to get out from under
their thumb. It is like watching a caged animal
try to pick the lock. It really is. Early in
the season, there is the episode A Bar is Born.
Sam tries to buy this dilapidated bankrupt bar.
Oh, right. The one that is falling apart. The
roof is caving in. It smells terrible. Completely
falling apart. But Sam sees it as his ticket
to freedom. But Robin Colcord gets involved here,
too. Robin puts this idea in Sam's head that
he could develop the whole block. He gets Sam
dreaming big. Right. He gets him thinking he's
going to be a real estate mogul. And then what
does Robin do? He buys the block himself. He
steals the idea and takes all the credit. It
is another example of Robin just casually crushing
Sam like a bug. It shows the difference in their
levels. Sam is playing checkers. Robin is playing
4D chess. Speaking of games. The rivalry between
them gets incredibly petty. It is not just about
business anymore. It is about alpha male dominance.
Oh, the indoor fun with Sammy and Robbie episode.
This is a classic. Robin has a day off and he
decides to slum it at the bar and compete with
Sam. They play darts. They play pool. And Sam
wins those, right? Because that is his turn.
Exactly. Sam is the king of bar games. He's an
athlete. So Robin, being the intellectual snob,
challenges Sam to chess. The chess match. I love
this detail from the episode summaries. Sam obviously
does not know how to play chess at a grandmaster
level. He probably thinks the horse piece actually
gallops. Probably. Yeah. So the entire bar conspires
to help him. They set up this elaborate system.
They are feeding the moves into a computer in
the back office. Again, big clunky 1989 technology.
So great. And then they have a system of signals
to tell Sam where to move his pieces. It is like
a heist movie, but for a game of chess. It is.
And it works until the computer crashes. But
Sam, through sheer dumb luck or intuition, manages
to make the winning move anyway. But Robin knew?
Robin knew the whole time. He reveals he knew
Sam was cheating. And in a moment of ultimate
condescension, he gives Sam a penny. A penny.
A single penny. It is Robin saying, I let you
win. You are beneath me. Here is your allowance.
It is so demeaning. But Sam does not let up.
We have to talk about the boat race. Sam, ahoy.
This is where the show really leans into that
darker... Almost cartoonish villainy of Robin.
Robin lends Sam his sailboat for a race with
a $10 ,000 prize. Sam needs that money for the
buyback fund. So Sam takes Carla and Norma as
his crew. Which sounds like a recipe for disaster
even without a villain involved. It is a disaster
waiting to happen. But then they find a time
bomb in the refrigerator. A time bomb. Like with
a ticking clock and red wires. A literal time
bomb. And the radio is broken. And there are
sharks. circling the boat and the lifeboat has
been sabotaged wait was robin actually trying
to kill them or is this just a really extreme
prank it is ambiguous but it certainly looks
like he set them up to fail spectacularly if
not die it borders on wildly coyote behavior
they barely escape to shore before the boat explodes
wow and when robin shows up later He just casually
offers Sam some insurance money to sign a release
form. It really emphasizes how powerless Sam
is against this guy's money. Until he isn't.
Exactly. That is why the victory, when it comes,
is so sweet. It is earned. In the finale, Cry
Harder, Sam is the one who holds the cards. He
finds out about the insider trading. He drops
the dime. He does. He tells the Lillian Corporation
executives that Robin is the culprit, protecting
Rebecca in the process. And the executive is
so grateful and probably just wants to wash his
hands of the whole mess that he offers to sell
Cheers back to Sam. For one dollar. One dollar.
And the best part is Sam does not even have a
dollar on him. He has to scrounge up 85 cents
from the rest of the gang. And the executive
just accepts it. Close enough. So after an entire
season of high stakes corporate maneuvering,
helicopter fleets, insider trading and time bombs,
Sam Malone buys back his life for 85 cents. It
is the perfect sitcom reset. The universe corrects
itself. Sam is the owner again. The balance is
restored. Now, while Sam and Rebecca are caught
up in this corporate thriller, Carla Tortelli
is going through something that, well, honestly
sounds like a fever dream. We have to move to
the tragedy and dark humor of the season. The
death of Eddie Lebec. Eddie Lebec, the hockey
goalie, Carla's husband. He had been a pretty
big part of this show for a couple of years.
And then in season eight, he is just gone. He
dies in the episode Death Takes a Holiday on
Ice. And the way he dies is, well, it is uniquely
Cheers. It is a perfect example of how the show
refused to be sentimental. He gets run over by
an ice resurfacer. Yes, an ice resurfacer, a
Zamboni type machine, while saving an ice show
performer. It is tragic, but it is also completely
ridiculous. You cannot hear run over by an ice
resurfacer and not laugh a little bit. And that
is the tightrope the show walks. This is a beloved
character's husband. Carla is devastated. But
the cause of death. is inherently funny in a
dark way. It keeps it from getting too heavy.
Right. It prevents the episode from becoming
a very special episode where everyone learns
a lesson. Instead, it stays a comedy. And just
when you think it cannot get any crazier, we
get to the funeral. This is where the bigamy
twist happens. Right. So they're at the funeral.
Everyone is mourning. The priest or the announcer
calls for Mrs. Lebec. Carla stands up, obviously.
But so does another woman, Gloria, played by
Anne DeSalvo. It turns out Eddie Lebec. The goofy,
superstitious hockey player was living a double
life. He married Gloria while he was still married
to Carla. And Gloria is pregnant. Pregnant with
twins. Just like Carla had twins with Eddie.
It is a complete mirror image. Eddie was not
just cheating. He was replicating his life. And
they get into a brawl at the funeral. A full
-on brawl. It is chaos. But it is also brilliant
character work for Carla. Because if Eddie had
just died a hero, Carla would have had to soften.
She would have had to become the grieving widow.
But by making him a bigamist? It gives her permission
to be angry. It allows Carla to stay Carla. She
can be bitter. She can hate him. It fuels her
character's fire rather than extinguishing it.
But they do give her some closure, do they not?
It is not all just bitterness. They do. And it
is surprisingly touching. The man Eddie saved,
Gordy Brown, brings a letter to the bar. Eddie
had written it months earlier. And what does
it say? It confirms that Carla was the true love
of his life. He felt guilty about the double
life. It basically gives Carla the win over Gloria.
Which is all she really wanted. She just wanted
to win. Exactly. She wins the posthumous competition.
And later in the season, in The Ghost and Mrs.
Lebec, we see Carla trying to move on. She starts
dating a Red Sox player, Daryl Mead. But she
sees Eddie's ghost. She keeps seeing Eddie in
his hockey uniform. It is haunting her. She feels
guilty for moving on. So naturally, she hires
a psychic, Madame Lazora. And Frasier Crane,
the man of science, loves this, I am sure. Oh,
he hates it. He is practically vibrating with
rage. He calls it a sham. He is furious that
Carla is paying $250, which was a lot of money
in 1990 for a seance. But the show does something
interesting here. What is that? It validates
Carla's need. Frasier is tactically right. The
psychic is probably a fraud. But emotionally,
he's wrong. Carla pays the money. The psychic
tells her Eddie is at peace. And Carla feels
better. The transaction worked. It does not matter
if it is real. It matters that it allows her
to close the book. Precisely. It is a great moment
where the show acknowledges that sometimes superstition
and ritual are more useful than cold, hard logic.
Speaking of Frasier and logic, let us move to
the Cranes. Frasier and Lilith are having a very
big year. A huge year. Season 8 is really where
we see them grappling with parenthood. We have
the birth of Frederick Crane. In the episode,
the stork brings a crane. Great title. It happens
during the bar's centennial party. Which is chaos
to begin with. The bar is celebrating 100 years.
Everyone is drunk or excited. Total chaos. Lilith
goes into labor. They rush to the hospital. It
is a false alarm. They come back. She goes into
labor again. And ultimately, Lilith Sternen,
the most controlled, icy, composed woman in Boston,
gives birth in a taxi cab. I love the juxtaposition
of Lilith and a gritty taxi berth. It breaks
her composure in a way nothing else could. It
forces them to be messy. But the parenting struggles
that follow are where the comedy really shines.
For real men only, this is the episode about
the briz. Yes. The circumcision. This is a fantastic
exploration of their characters. Lilith wants
to follow tradition. Frasier, the psychiatrist,
the man who analyzes everything, is suddenly
squeamish. He cannot handle it. No. He sees the
graphic nature of the ritual. and flinches. He
cannot handle the physical reality of it. Lilith
has to insist that it continue. And where does
the bris end up happening? Because nothing in
Cheers happens in a normal place. In the billiard
room of Cheers, of course. During a wet t -shirt
contest? You cannot make this up. Rebecca is
hosting a wet t -shirt contest in the main bar
to liven up a dull retirement party and simultaneously
in the back room. There is a bris happening.
That is amazing. It is the sacred and the profane
colliding in the most cheers way possible. And
then there is the professional jealousy. Lilith
writes a book this season. Good Girls, Bad Boys.
And they go on a talk show to promote it. The
episode's severe crane damage. This is a painful
episode for Frasier. The host brings out Sam
as the example of the bad boy and Frasier as
the good boy. He effectively neuters Frasier
on live television. And Lilith, well, she reacts
in a way Frasier definitely did not expect. She
becomes infatuated with Sam right there on live
TV. She literally throws herself at him. It plays
on that deep -seated insecurity Frasier has always
had, that Sam is the cool one, the alpha male,
and Frasier's just the nerd. Seeing his wife
lust after Sam is his nightmare scenario. Before
we move off the cranes, we have to touch on a
continuity check. This is for the real super
fans, the ones who have watched Frasier the spinoff
a million times. Yes. This is a classic oops
moment in TV history. It happens in the episode
Two Girls for Every Boyd. Frazier says something
about his father. He claims his father was a
neglectful scientist who was dead. Dead. He explicitly
says his father is dead. But anyone who has seen
the spinoff Frazier knows that Martin Crane is
very much alive. He's a retired cop. He drinks
beer. He has a dog named Eddie. He's definitely
not a dead scientist. So what happened there?
It is just a case of the writers not knowing
the future. In Season 8, they needed a joke about
Frasier having a distant intellectual father
to explain why he is the way he is. They had
no idea that a few years later they would need
Frasier's dad to be a blue -collar ex -cop for
a spinoff show. So they just wrote the joke.
And then later they had to retcon it. Exactly.
In Frasier, they eventually explained that Frasier
lied about his dad being dead because he was
angry at him. It is a clever fix, but watching
Season 8 now, it really sticks out like a sore
thumb. All right. Let us get to the moment everyone
has been waiting for. We are moving to Section
5. Iconic standalone moments. And we have to
start with the big one. Maybe the most famous
subplot of the entire season. Cliff Clavin on
Jeopardy. The episode is titled What is Cliff
Clavin? Episode 14. It is legendary. So Cliff
gets on the show. And usually the joke with Cliff
is that he thinks he is smart. But he is actually
wrong about everything. But here. He dominates.
He absolutely destroys the competition. And the
writers did something brilliant here. They gave
him categories that are perfectly in his wheelhouse.
Civil servants. Stamps. It is like the board
was designed by God specifically for Cliff Clavin.
It was. He is buzzing in before anyone else.
He is correcting Alex Truebeck on pronunciation.
He is running the board. By the end of Double
Jeopardy, he has $22 ,000. Which is a huge amount
for Jeopardy in 1990. He has an insurmountable
lead. He cannot lose unless he does something
incredibly stupid. Enter the hubris. Final Jeopardy.
He bets it all. Every single penny. $22 ,000.
And the clue comes up Archibald Leach, Bernard
Schwartz, and Lucille LeSour. Now, if you are
a movie buff, you know this. The category is
movies. The answer is the real names of Cary
Grant, Tony Curtis, and Joan Crawford. Cliff
does not know it. He clearly has no idea. But
Cliff Clavin never admits defeat. So he writes
down an answer that has become immortal. Who
are three people who have never been in my kitchen?
It is arguably the funniest line in the show's
history. The delivery is so confident. And Alex
Trebek, who makes a cameo, has to deal with this.
The cameo is perfect. Trebek plays it completely
straight. He looks at the answer. He looks at
Cliff. And Cliff argues. He says, my kitchen,
Alex. He argues that it is technically a correct
question. Those three people have, in fact, never
been in his kitchen. And Trebek is just stunned.
Cliff loses everything. $22 ,000 gone in a second.
But the episode does not end there. We get this
amazing coda where Trebek comes to the bar. He
comes to cheers looking for Cliff. He tells him
that the judges overturned the ruling. They decided
his answer was acceptable. Cliff is vindicated.
But then, and here's the genius twist, Trebek
tells Cliff he is resigning as host. He says
he feels so guilty about misjudging Cliff that
he cannot go on. And Cliff, being the hero, saves
the day. He convinces Trebek to stay. No, Alex,
the world needs you. It is this noble sacrifice.
Cliff gives up the money to save Jeopardy. But
then Trebek walks away and reveals the truth
to Norm. Right. As soon as he is out of earshot,
he tells Norm, I just made that up to placate
him. That guy scares me. It is a master class
in sitcom writing. It gives Cliff his moment
of glory. He was right, in a way, but undercuts
it with the reality that he is just a terrifying
annoyance to the rest of the world. And it's
cemented Cliff Clavin as the ultimate know -it
-all who knows nothing. It is the definitive
Cliff story. Let us talk about Woody. Woody Boyd
has a big year, too. He does. He's really pursuing
his acting career and his romance with Kelly
Gaines this season. In Two Girls for Every Boyd,
he gets cast in Our Town. And we have a major
guest star alert here, Lisa Kudrow. Before she
was Phoebe on Friends. Before Friends, she plays
Emily. And the joke is that Woody has to do a
love scene with her, but he cannot make it believable.
He cannot act being in love because his heart
belongs to Kelly. It is sweet, but then the director
threatens to fire him. And suddenly, Woody is
terrified. He needs a job. And out of that sheer
terror, he grabs Lisa Kudrow and delivers a passionate
I love you. And his realization is fear is the
key. It is a great little comment on acting.
Woody is a method actor. But his method is panic.
But Woody also has his less dignified acting
moments. 50 -50 Carla. Oh no. This one makes
me cringe just thinking about it. Woody gets
cast in a revival of Hair, the musical famous
for its nude scenes. And Woody is a farm boy
from Hanover, Indiana. He is terrified of being
naked on stage. We see scenes of him practicing
being topless in the bar trying to get comfortable.
But on opening night. He goes out there. The
music swells. He drops the robe and realizes
he is the only one naked. The director changed
the concept. Or Woody missed a memo or the other
actors chickened out. Either way, he is standing
there in his birthday suit, spotlight on him,
totally alone. It is quintessential Woody Boyd
earnest, committed, and totally wrong. And we
cannot forget Norm Peterson. He has his own schemes
this season. The Anton Kreitzer arc. This is
in The Two Faces of Norm. Norm invents a fake
partner, right? He starts his own painting business.
But Norm is a people pleaser. He cannot bear
to be the bad guy. He cannot tell his employees
to work harder or deny them raises. So he invents
Anton Kreitzer. The silent partner. The tyrannical
silent partner. Norm gets to be the good cop.
He blames everything on Kreitzer. Oh, Kreitzer
wants you to work late. Kreitzer says no raises.
It works perfectly. Everyone loves Norm and hates
Kreitzer. Until the crew decides they want to
kill Kreitzer. They get so angry they want to
beat him up. So Norm has to fire his own imaginary
partner. The scene where he does this is hilarious.
He is in a back alley filled with garbage, pretending
to yell at an empty office window, You were fired,
Kreitzer! And his crew is cheering him on. It
speaks so deeply to Norm's desperate need to
be liked. He would rather invent a person to
hate than have anyone be mad at him. Let us zoom
out a bit. Section 6, Critical Reception and
Production. We have talked about the stories,
but how was the show doing in the real world?
It was sweeping the floor. The 42nd Primetime
Emmys were a huge night for Season 8. Ted Danson
finally won. He did. Outstanding lead actor.
This is significant because he had been nominated
seven consecutive times before this. He was always
the bridesmaid. Season eight is where he finally
took home the trophy. Why do you think he won
for season eight specifically? I think it is
because he showed a different side of Sam. Playing
the loser, the employee, the guy trying to claw
his way back, gave him more depth than just playing
the Playboy owner. He was vulnerable. And Bebe
Neuwirth? Outstanding supporting actress for
Lilith. which is well -deserved given the range
she showed this season. We saw her give birth
in a cab, have a breakdown on a talk show, and
to deal with a bris in a bar. She was incredible.
And the Golden Globes loved them too. Best series
for musical or comedy, best actress for Kirstie
Alley, and best actor for Ted Danson. They cleaned
up. And the ratings backed it up. Absolutely.
The source data is staggering. They were consistently
number one, number two, or number three. The
episode How to Marry a Mailman hit number one.
The season premiere drew 36 .4 million viewers.
36 .4 million. That number is hard to even comprehend
today. To put that in perspective, a hit show
today is lucky to get 6 or 7 million on broadcast.
Game of Thrones, at its absolute peak, was getting
19 million. Cheers was getting nearly double
that. It was a monoculture event. Everyone you
knew was watching Cheers on Thursday night. And
they were battling the Cosby Show. This is the
Clash of the Titans. Cosby and Roseanne were
the only real competition. But Cheers had a different
demographic. It was a bit edgier, a bit more
adult. It was the show for the people who went
to bars. So bringing it all together for the
outro, what does season eight represent in the
grand scheme of the show? I think season eight
represents the moment Cheers proved it was immortal.
It survived the loss of Diane Chambers in season
five. But in season eight, it proved it could
evolve structurally. It took on a high -stakes
serialized plot, the Lillian Court takeover,
without losing the episodic comedy. It balanced
the sitcom with the soap opera. Exactly. And
look at where the characters end up. Sam gets
his bar back. He reclaims his identity. Rebecca
is humbled. She is stripped of her illusions
about corporate life. But she is embraced by
the group. She is finally one of them, not a
supervisor. And the ensemble is tighter than
ever. They are a machine. The rhythm between
Norm, Cliff, Woody, and Carla is flawless by
this point. Now, here is a provocative thought
to leave you with, drawing on the notes we have
covered today. We talked about Robin Colcord
as the villain. He lies. He cheats. He commits
insider trading. He is objectively a criminal.
But is he not also the savior of cheers? Connect
the dots for me. Think about it. If Robin had
not come along, had not tried to take over the
company and had not been caught, Sam never would
have gotten the leverage to buy the bar back
for 85 cents. That is a fascinating point. Robin
Colcord is the catalyst. He's the bad guy who
strips the assets and causes the chaos. But his
destruction allows the universe to reset. He
burns down the corporate structure so that Sam
Malone can rise from the ashes as the owner again.
So in the world of Cheers, even the megalomaniacs
are just plot devices working to put Sam back.
behind the bar where he belongs. Precisely. The
bar demands a bartender owner and the universe
conspired using a British billionaire to make
it happen. That is deep. I love it. Thank you
for joining us on this deep dive into season
eight. If you do one thing this week, go find
the episode What is Cliff Clavin? And just watch
the final Jeopardy scene. And remember, who are
three people who have never been in my kitchen?
Classic. See you next time.