Frasier: Season 9 (DVD)

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Consistency is what separates professionals from amateurs, and it's also the difference between good TV shows and great ones. And for the first five seasons, "Frasier" was so consistently witty, well-written, and superbly acted that it was honored with an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series each year. Kelsey Grammer won for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series the first, second, and fifth seasons, while his on-screen "brother" David Hyde Pierce won Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmys seasons two, five, and six. But by the seventh through ninth seasons, the only Emmys were going to guest actors Jean Smart, Sir Derek Jacobi, and Anthony La Paglia, and the show was finally starting to show signs of losing some of the consistent comic edge that kept it on top.

Of course, you couldn't prove it by fans, who stayed with the show as steadfastly as Dr. Frasier Crane's Seattle radio listeners. The show remained in the Nielsen Top-25, even during this ninth season, when the writers were finally starting to seem less than supermen. Classic episodes like "Bla-Z-Boy," in which Frasier accidentally destroys his father's favorite chair, exist alongside almost tedious ("droll," Crane might say) episodes about Roz's embarrassment over dating a garbage man or Frasier's conjuring up of old flames to help him get out of his current relationship hell. For the first time, there are almost as many so-so episodes as the ones that make you recall that "Frasier" was one of the top sitcoms of the '90s. But even "so-so" Frasier episodes are better than most TV sitcoms.

By the ninth season, you can tell that Grammer and Pierce aren't savoring their on-screen rivalry as psychiatrist brothers as much as in previous years. Maybe it was the material, because a number of the shows just don't seem as crisply written as the best episodes. Still, with Peri Gilpin as Frasier's producer, Roz, Jane Leeves as Daphne, and John Mahoney as Frasier's father, the show has plenty of characters we care about. Here are the 23 episodes from Season Nine, presented on four single-sided discs in the same fold-up cardboard-and-plastic cases as in previous seasons:

1) "Don Juan in Hell"--Frasier dumps Claire because he's having sexual dreams about Lana, the obnoxious woman he knew in high school, with visitations from Lilith, Diane, his mother and every woman he's ever dated.

2) "The First Temptation of Daphne"--Daphne gets annoyed when she learns that one of Niles' patients has a crush on him.

3) "The Return of Martin Crane"--Marty gets a job as a night watchman, the first meaningful work he's taken since a bullet ended his career as a police officer.

4) "Love Stinks"--Roz dates a garbage man in this episode that doesn't really go anywhere.

5) "Room Full of Heroes"--A sweet moment as Niles shows up at Frasier's "dress like your hero" party looking like his father is one thing that saves this episode.

6) "Bla-Z-Boy"--The anniversary celebration of Martin's moving in with Frasier goes up in smoke when Marty spills oil on Frasier's carpet, and the next thing you know . . . .

7) "The Two Hundredth"--The 200th episode of the show commemorates Frasier's 2000th radio broadcast, and Frasier gets to meet his biggest fan.