Like a “Boss”, Kelsey Grammer’s New Show is Serious Business

Frasier has gone to the serious side.  The uber talented Kelsey Grammer will flex his acting chops in the new Starz series “Boss”.  Yeah, I know – “Starz”..it’s not necessarily NBC, but NBC isn’t really NBC these days either.  With cable TV shows increasing in quality, viewership and the ability to draw ad dollars Starz is not such a bad thing.

Grammer, now at age 56 started his career as a serious actor so this is a throwback to his roots.  He explains to a group of media critics,

“It has always been in my mind to play a more serious role. I didn’t start out as a comic actor. I started out in classical theater, playing tragedies. That was my first love…”

“This particular role couldn’t have taken place directly after ‘Frasier’. It would have been too big of a jolt,”

His role will be extremely complex and if done right should offer up some critical acclaim.  He is playing the mayor of Chicago who is quietly suffering from a degenerative brain disease.  The political implications of his friends and enemies would be disastrous to his professional as well as personal life.  With a premise like this and a talented actor like Grammer this show could have legs.  Hopefully he can break the post-Frasier curse.  “Back to You” and “Hank” were his first two failed attempts before he decided to do Broadway’s La Cage aux Folles. 

Kelsey Grammer in the failed show "Hank". He portrayed a failed CEO.

You might not realize it, but he has been the Frasier character for 20 years! 

“I spent the next several months looking at my own life and I cast my imaginative net over the next 30 or 40 years, and I decided I didn’t want to have that story (“Frasier”) be my last story and so I decided it was time to make changes that involved my career as well as my personal life,”

“Boss” will air on Starz on October 21^st this fall.

-Cosmo