Let’s talk about families. For most of us, we have a mother and a father and a whole lot of siblings (or perhaps just a few) who all love and adore us. Eventually, we’ll all get married and have some pretty cute children and they will have children, etc. etc. etc. It’s all very intact and immediate and regular. Right. I have one of those families and I love those type of families, but I don’t really like watching them on television. Something about family dramas bore me to some angry, unhappy degree and I therefore tend to stay away from them. I blame the fact that I actually like my family (damn you, Schmidts!). Instead, I’m all about the unconventional, we-made-this type of families where show runners throw together a whole lot of lonely people who have no one in the world to turn to besides each other. The current platonic ideal of unconventional family is NBC’s Community. Its cast of characters could not be any more different, but in the end all they have is each other and Jeff’s inspirational speeches to get them through life.
So Cheers, or at least the first five seasons of it, was going to be a winner from the start. In the end, every story plot and twist involves a bunch of people who have found home and family in a Boston bar. For example, when Carla learns that she’s pregnant (for the fifth and not the final time) the bar promises the worried single mother that they will all act as the child‘s father. Or there’s the episode entitled “Thanksgiving Orphans” where all of the principal cast realize that they have no one to spend the holiday with except for each other. When Diane feels left out at the bar, everyone gets together and goes to the opera with her, and when Woody and his girlfriend break-up it’s the people at Cheers that come up with a way to get him through it. You grow used to the family dynamic and that’s why it’s so jarring when Diane leaves.
In the five seasons of Cheers that Sam and Diane exist in, the two leads are more violent towards each other than most sitcoms would ever imagine being. Sure, the “I hate you but actually love you” relationship has been around forever, but at times Sam and Diane really seem to hate each other. Somehow, however, the show runners make it all come off as alright; we fight for the relationship even when nobody else does. The clues of their relationship’s inevitable failure is littered across season five, and I wonder if without prior knowledge of Shelley Long’s soon-to-be permanent absence, I would have been able to guess that the season finale. I mean, John Cleese himself tells the couple that it ain’t going to happen and I always listen to my John Cleese.
This is all to say that the show is at its best when it is the most subtle. Sam’s quiet awe at the beauty of the painting at the end of season two. Diane’s look of regret when she realizes that she’ll never be a dancer. Or the fact that the end of Sam and Diane doesn’t come with a violent nose war, a long fight about their respective pasts, or even fears that they aren’t ready. Instead, it ends with Diane blindly believing six months won’t ruin them and Sam letting her go, knowing that they will. The relationship ends as it finally grows up-Sam has finally learned what it means to sacrifice something you want for someone you love. More than half of the episode is taken up with Sam daydreaming about his possible future with Diane--a future where they have smart and successful children, where the folks at Cheers still come over to say hello, where Woody has taken over the bar as Sam’s heir. It’s a life of no regrets and a whole lot of love. But he knows that it’s a life that isn’t meant to be. So after Diane leaves, not knowing that this is really goodbye, Sam lets himself daydream one, last time. The show ends season five with the haunting image of the joy and happiness of a life that will never be lived and of two people safe in the arms of the soul mate they will never have.
Sam and Diane, especially in the early seasons, tend to hog the screen; however, other characters increasingly (if not temporarily) take the spotlight. Cliff, who was supposed to be a background character, grows into the know-it-all that actually knows nothing. His best moments are when he talks about Florida…over and over and over again. His best friend, Norm, acts the suffering husband who with an impossible and demanding wife but deep down he loves her more than anything in the world. His greatest disappointment is not being able to give her a child. Fraiser eventually stops mourning his break-up at the altar with Diane and becomes one of the guys who sits around drinking beer in the middle of the day (a point his own sitcom supposedly forgets).
Coach’s absence (the actor died during season three) is quickly covered up with Woody, a character that at times seems a younger clone of the old bartender. Woody is the surrogate son none of the main characters have. Thy all in their own ways look out for him and preserve his innocence. As their lives continually fall to piece, the people at Cheers all want to make sure that Woody, at least, can be happy. Coach, for all the appearance of innocence, knows life’s harsh realities. In no point is this more clear than the beginning of season three. Sam has gone off the wagon and once again become “Mayday” Malone to the delight of all of his bar friends--they have the ultimate partier. Only Coach realizes the implications of Sam’s drinking because he’s seen it all before. As everyone else celebrates, the wise fool is the one to take action and help his friend.
Sometimes its easy to forget that Cheers is actually a comedy about a bunch of people that drink a whole lot. Throughout its first five seasons the small family has to deal with break-ups, an attempted murder, the loss of loved ones, homosexuality, racism, motherhood, and alcoholism. It’s actually amazing how many times Sam ends up with a gun pointed at him. However, above these sometimes quite serious undertones is some fantastic and unique comedy performed by some fantastic actors. With Shelley Long’s departure the entire family dynamic of Cheers changes, who knows if it will be for the better (I’m a little worried), but you know that despite it all the little family at Cheers will still return to the place where they can put all their worries aside and know that everybody knows their name.
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