| Cheers: The Complete Ninth Season, like every season of the great NBC sitcom, is graced by a number of very funny episodes involving the going-nowhere denizens of a Boston bar. The year begins with Cheers' multi-millionaire owner Robin Roger Rees heading to a probable term in jail, selling the bar back to Sam Ted Danson and putting its manager, Rebecca Kirstie Alley, who also happens to be Robin's girlfriend, out of work. But what's really interesting is the onset of Sam and Rebecca's intimate relationship at the same time, which ceases soon after it begins but leaves such a residual level of caring that Sam invites Rebecca to come back and work at Cheers when her fortunes flag. In the wonderful "Rebecca Redux," Sam hires an assistant Bryan Clark with a mythic all-American grin and such a good, positive thought for everyone that a near-mutiny develops among Cheers' customers when Rebecca replaces him upon her return. While the Rebecca-Sam-Robin relationship dynamic works itself out over the season, other perennial storylines pick up their threads from previous years. "Cheers Fouls Out" is the latest in a long line of mind games between Sam and the unfortunately superior Gary, owner of a rival bar that annually kicks Cheers' behind in a basketball game. This time, Gary comes up with a couple of redwood-tall ringers to go up against the likes of Norm George Wendt and Woody Woody Harrelson, but Sam has a secret weapon: Kevin McHale of the Celtics. Not that Sam's luck can be expected to improve even with the odds seemingly in his favor. Sam's gullibility rears itself in another episode, "Pitch It Again, Sam," in which failed Red Sox pitcher "Mayday" Malone is goaded into taking the mound once again in a duel with a veteran hitter. Hoping for the redemption of his dim, major league reputation, Sam encounters an unexpected challenge to his decency at the last moment. The hilarious "Rat Girl" finds Frasier Kelsey Grammer concerned when his psychiatrist wife, Lilith Bebe Neuwirth, grieves so deeply following the death of her favorite lab rat that she carries its little corpse around in her purse. "Uncle Sam Wants You" begins an understated story thread about Sam's desire to be a father, while "Carla Loves Clavin" puts cynical barmaid Carla Rhea Perlman in the horrifying position of having to be nice to one of her favorite targets, blowhard Cliff John Ratzenberger. Cliff's mom Frances Sternhagen, by the way, shows up unexpectedly in the painfully funny "Ma Always Liked You Best," prodding at Cliff's newfound independence and stoking her son's jealousy by lavishing Woody with attention. "Bad Neighbor Sam" initiates Sam's long-running feud which never works in Sam's favor with the owner of a restaurant above Cheers. "Woody Interruptus" sees poor Woody upset by girlfriend Kelly Jackie Swanson returning from Europe with a boyfriend, while Cliff babbles on about having his head cryogenically frozen. It's life as usual at Cheers, and as always the show's community of misfits is a joy to behold. --Tom Keogh |
