What would happen if Frasier Crane—not new-Frasier Frasier, I don’t pay for Paramount Plus and remain in blissful ignorance of a show that looks meh from the ads, but old-school Frasier, from Frasier though, not Cheers—met Neri Oxman? I can think of little else.
What do we know of Frasier’s tastes? Well. He liketh the Jewish ladies, this we know. Lilith, then a bunch of other, more fleeting relationships, including the one whose mother he pretends to be Jewish for. His sexual ideal is Lisa Edelstein or rather a artist character she plays.
He appreciates a high-powered, high-achieving sort, preferably one who might appear in a glossy magazine.
And he likes ‘em credentialed. Credentialed and highbrow. We all know about Oxman’s MIT connections but wait for it wait for it:
Oxman tends to exist exclusively in the highbrow quadrant of culture. She listens to Beethoven, Schubert, and jazz. She watches old-school cinema. “Give me Fellini, and I’m on it,” she says.
Can you picture Frasier’s face when reading that part of the Elle profile? Can you see his giddy grin? It’s eerie but I feel as though somehow I already have.
What would the episode look like? Some speculation is already afoot:
Does it not write itself?
I cannot think of a woman in the world who would be more interesting to Frasier Crane than Neri Oxman. As in I imagine the character somehow escaping through the fourth wall to meet her, if only he knew she existed. If she weren’t real, the writers of Frasier would have had to invent her.
Would he be as devoted to her as her actual real-life billionaire husband is, with his essay-tweets to that effect? No—he’s Frasier, he’s a narcissist, he’d be something something the wine club. If they actually got together give it a month and the other characters would be sitting in the living room to which they are glued, making cracks about her, about how poor Frasier has to be with this woman who is flawed in so many ways, such that she is not good enough for Dr. Crane.
The conflict of the episode would be when Frasier inadvertently discovers that she's a plagiarist.
My first thought was "Andie MacDowell but way, way hotter".
And yes, I am also a neurotic gentile with a debilitating Jewish lady problem, although I'm closer to the hilljack side than to Dr. Crane's refined worldliness.