In reality, it's an ensemble show, with each character integral to its story. Niles, in particular, was a peek as to what his older brother would've been like had he not learned to mingle with the patrons of Cheers in Boston. Hyde-Pierce was amazing in the role, and was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards for his performance, winning four times. Some might even argue that he's the true lead of the show since he had a clear overall arc from start to finish.
There's a particular interest in Niles' romantic relationships. Unlike Frasier who didn't have a clear love interest throughout, it was quickly clear that his younger brother was smitten with Daphne Moon Jane Leeves — Marty's home carer. The problem was, Niles was still married to Maris. She had been regularly mentioned in the show and had opportunities to show up countless times, but she never did.
As Maris' character was sketched out via the other characters' descriptions, the show's producers changed their plans. According to Lee, they realized the character they'd established was too strange to cast. Given that she was capable of things like walking on snow and leaving no footprints, it makes sense. Therefore, the producers decided that Maris would never appear on screen. While viewers never saw her, they were given a vivid mental picture of Maris over the years.
She was always described as being extremely pale and thin. One episode midway through the show's run illustrates how Frasier visualized Maris without ever showing her. In the Season 5 episode, "Voyage of the Damned," Roz asked Frasier why Maris wore a black dress and a veil on a cruise. Frasier said she had no pigmentation and likened her skin to ahi tuna.
He said it would sear if she spent more than three minutes in the sun. On her return, Niles stands up to Maris and she kicks him out of the house, beginning a two-year separation. Maris eventually reunites with Niles, but immediately has an affair with their marital therapist, Dr. Bernard Shenkman. In Niles finally files for divorce.
In spite of the finalized divorce, Maris and Niles continue to be codependent for some time, until Niles finally breaks completely free, largely due to Daphne's aggravation. In Maris becomes romantically involved with a violent Argentinian polo player, Esteban de Rojo Victor Alfieri , whom Maris kills in self-defense. Consequently, she is jailed for a few months on suspicion of murder. In , shortly before her trial is scheduled to begin, she escapes to her family's private island from which she cannot be extradited, effectively stranding her for life.
It is an ending that is fittingly lacking in dignity for a character who was never given any. Whatever else Maris was, she was also correct. The assumption that informed nearly everything she did on the show, from her diets to her surgeries to her final escape, was that the world was not interested in who she really was. That it was, in fact, judgmental and impatient.
Her fears were founded. They made a running joke of her defining trait: her ability to disappear. More than 20 years later, the joke itself chafes. Frasier also aired in the early days of the digital revolution, and one of the ethics of the social-media age is the idea that authorship is its own kind of dignity. People, whoever they are, have a right to tell their own stories, on their own terms, in their own words.
Frasier , a show about a radio psychiatrist that aired on network television, is rooted in the logic of broadcast. Its notions of authorship are narrow and one-directional. Maris is a reminder of that, too.
She is a question with no answer, a rumor with no story. Maybe she really is just a joke. She is certainly just a fiction. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic.
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