Will Shelley Long and Ted Danson Reunite for the 'Frasier' Reboot?

With Season 2 of Paramount+’s successful Frasier reboot finally here, fans are happily tuning in to follow new characters and storylines while eagerly anticipating more original cast appearances like those they enjoyed in the first season. 

Two characters, in particular, keep coming up—Ted Danson‘s Sam Malone and Shelley Long‘s Diane Chambers of Cheers, the long-running series that preceded Frasier and the setting where Kelsey Grammer made his debut as the beloved character. Frasier Crane was introduced in Season 3 of the show as a love interest for Diane, who had just broken up with Sam. 

Grammer recalled those days in a January 2024 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show. 

“When I first got the role, the key to Frasier for me was that he loved her with his whole heart, that he loved with all of his being. And that actually defined who he is. He’s been that way ever since. He just goes in wholeheartedly with everything—and that’s what makes him funny.”

Long previously appeared as Diane in three episodes of the first run of Frasier. In Grammer’s recent interview with Parade, he says the return of Diane and Sam to the reboot is on his “wish list.” 

Related: The Frasier Revival Is Back: The 15 Best Guest Stars from the Original Series

“I think it’s possible. We have some ideas around both of those characters and actors. But whether or not they’re going to happen, I can’t tell you. I don’t know. But it sure would be great,” Grammer says. “What we put together, in my mind, if I had my wish list, both would come back and do what I’d like them to do. But, then again, I’m not some evil mastermind. I can only pray that they’ll decide it’s a good idea.”

As for what he may have in mind for them, we can look back to when Parade asked him about it in February 2024. Grammer then said he feels it’s only fair that Frasier deserves a chance to “put something to bed” with Diane and “end up with a nice thing between them.”

He added Long’s return to the role would make sense for the character’s story arc in his modern era. 

“The [new] show ended up going back to Boston, in some ways because the legacy cast wasn’t going to return. So Frasier had to go back to figuring out how to bury some ghosts, how to put some things to bed. And he left the city of Boston with his tail between his legs, and he wants to figure it out, conquer it finally, become the man he was meant to be in Boston,” Grammer says. “And that was the young man that he showed up as, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and hoping that it all worked out for him there.

“So he’s got this script written that he still wants to fulfill. Shelley as Diane would be wonderful to be on the show, just because … so he could put that to bed. Just to say, ‘You know what? It was an important thing for me.’ Because he loved her so much.”

No clues as of yet on how Sam will fit into this picture if it happens. Season 2 of the Frasier reboot began streaming Sept. 19, 2024 on Paramount+.

Next, Where Are the Stars of Cheers Now?