Everything we know about the new ‘Frasier’

Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane in "Frasier," streaming on Paramount+ Oct. 12. The first two episodes will also air on CBS.Pamela Littky

The upcoming “Frasier” reboot is a spinoff of a spinoff, to some extent. Kelsey Grammer’s character, Frasier Crane, originated on “Cheers” (1982-93), then had an 11-season run on NBC’s “Frasier” (1993-2004), which won 37 Emmy Awards. Here’s what we know about the new show.

• WHERE AND WHEN? It premieres on Thursday, Oct. 12, on Paramount+. On Oct. 17, CBS, Paramount+’s corporate sibling, will give the reboot a broadcast sampling of two episodes, to pique interest in the show and encourage fans to subscribe to Paramount+. The first season will be 10 episodes.

• CAN YOU GUESS WHERE THE NEW SHOW IS SET? Our fussy psychiatrist is coming back to Boston, the city where we first met him on “Cheers.” After “Cheers” ended in 1993, he moved to Seattle, where he lived with his father and spent time competing with his psychiatrist brother, David Hyde Pierce’s Niles.

• WHAT, NO NILES? Frasier will be surrounded by an entirely new ensemble. Early on, the plan was to bring back the cast from the original series (without John Mahoney, who died in 2018). But Pierce “decided he wasn’t really interested in repeating the performance of Niles,” Grammer said before production began. “It just took us to a new place, which was what we originally wanted to do anyway, which was a Frasier third act. It’s an entirely new life for him.”

• WHO’S IN THE NEW CAST? Jack Cutmore-Scott will play Frasier’s son, Freddy, who dropped out of Harvard; Nicholas Lyndhurst will be one of Frasier’s old college friends; Jess Salgueiro is Freddy’s roommate; and Anders Keith is Frasier’s nephew, David, the son of Niles and Daphne.

• WILL ANY ORIGINALS RETURN? Lilith, Frasier’s ex-wife, and Roz, his former producer, are going to make brief appearances, bringing back Bebe Neuwirth and Peri Gilpin in those roles, respectively. No doubt Frasier’s return to Boston is a bit of a trigger for Lilith, who is not excited to share the attentions of their son, Freddy.

• WHO’S DIRECTING? The legendary James Burrows, whose long resume includes 237 episodes of “Cheers,” is at the helm of the first two episodes.

• CAN I SEE TRAILER #1? The move to Boston is crystal clear in the first teaser, which shows the Seattle skyline of the original series become the Boston skyline, including the Zakim Bridge. It also gives us Grammer singing a new version of the “Frasier” theme song, “Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs,” complete with an updated last line: “Frasier has reentered the building.”

• CAN I SEE TRAILER #2? And this longer one tells a lot more about Frasier’s relationship with his son, which is comically fraught. As we learn at the end of the clip, our guy is still open to dating.

• WILL THE WRITERS IGNORE FRASIER’S PAST? Often, reboots erase or downplay elements from the original series if they don’t fit into the new set-up. But the writers are not going to ignore Frasier’s history, most notably his father, Martin, a retired cop. Martin is embedded in the premise of the show, as Frasier moves to Boston hoping to spend time with his son because he lost his own father. At the end of the new pilot, there is an emotional scene that pays tribute to Martin. And Frasier’s son, who is now a firefighter in his 30s, is not unlike his grandfather. “There’s a lot of Martin in Freddy,” James Burrows told Entertainment Weekly.

• WILL FRASIER GO TO THE CHEERS BAR? In another touching nod, the new “Frasier” doesn’t find Dr. Crane returning to the Cheers bar where we first met him. Instead he goes to a neighborhood spot, which has a familiar name: Mahoney’s.

• DO YOU NEED A REFRESHER? If you’re feeling your interest rising, and perhaps some nostalgia, you have plenty of time to revisit the original series, which is available on Paramount+ in its entirety. There are only 264 episodes.