So far, one supporting character hasn’t been the focus of any major storylines. Relative newcomer Anders Keith plays David Crane, the son of Niles and Daphne who also attends Harvard. Up until episode eight, David has just been just sort of … there. Despite Keith’s admirable efforts, David has remained somewhat unlikable mostly due to the fact he’s just been there to deliver outdated sitcom one-liners and exist as a barely amusing doppelganger for his father. Now, however, the writers have tried to flesh out the character a bit.
In the episode, David is crestfallen to have been given a B grade on his latest paper by none other than his own uncle. The show then attempts to give David a humanizing storyline in which he buckles under the pressure of the Crane family’s high expectations, begging for a redo of the paper and ultimately delivering an overwrought monologue about what it means to be a Crane and why he deserves an A.
Unfortunately, the story does little to make David, or the other characters for that matter, any more likable than they have been so far. There’s an interesting subplot that explores Freddy’s hidden intellectual talents that’s actually a lot more interesting than David’s dilemma or Frasier’s attempts to woo the Provost of Harvard in order to gain professorship. But the writing and Cutmore-Scott’s hammy performance just undermine what could have been a genuinely humanizing storyline that explored why Freddy felt the need to “obfuscate his wit,” as Frasier puts it. Meanwhile David’s storyline just kind of makes him slightly less likable for putting his uncle’s life in jeopardy when he refuses to hand over his epi-pen after Frasier is stung by a bee.