Editorial
Frasier has left the building

NBC PHOTO Bill Gates appeared with Kelsey Grammer on an episode of "Frasier."

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Goodnight, Frasier. Farewell, good friend.

After 11 years, we'll miss you and the rest of the gang: Niles, "wee bit psychic" Daphne, Roz, Martin and Eddie.

Each week we could tune in to the doings at KACL and Cafe Nervosa, and enjoy that artistically compressed view of downtown and the Space Needle from your condominium. "Frasier's views," as uninitiated new arrivals to Seattle had taken to looking for.

There is something weird about life imitating art, as Times TV critic Kay McFadden described Thursday in her page one story, "Condo by condo, Seattle has become a lot like TV show."

Isn't it ironic that our economy seemed to parallel your TV ratings? Up, down, and maybe beginning to reignite? Real Seattleites, of course, remain loyal to our city through all its convulsions and permutations, and many of us remained loyal to you, if maybe more intermittently toward the end.

You arrived in Seattle from that bar in Boston where everyone knows your name. You came home, introduced us to your dad Martin, brother Niles, Daphne Moon and Roz Doyle, and exposed us to a host of neuroses and anxieties that some of us didn't even know existed. OK, well, maybe deep down we did.

You gave the country a glimpse of Rain City, the monorail (the old one), local celebrities and our over-caffeinated culture.

So what if the real city was mostly tieless, while you and Niles clung to your business suits? At least Martin dressed in plaid sensibility.

You did like opera, and so do we. And even if you could be pretentious and pompous beyond belief, you managed to tickle our funny bone, as Jack Benny did for an earlier generation. There always was an underlying layer of humanity in your character.

And through wars, scandals and a coarsening of American dialogue, you offered a reassuring, comforting thought:

"This is Dr. Frasier Crane. I'm listening."

We see from the trade magazines that you might resurface in another city, in another series.

Do we hear bidding war? Tax incentives?

Please say it ain't so. We'd rather remember you as you were in Seattle, through perpetual syndication.

But if you do move on, say, to Chicago, spare us a view out your condo — of Boeing's transplanted corporate headquarters.