Everybody Knows Lance's Name

I'm a big Lance Mannion fan, maybe because he seems to come up with posts on unusual topics that you don't find many other places and usually they're unusual things I have a particular interest in. For instance, I've been a Nero Wolfe fan for decades, and guess who has an excerpt from one of the stories up right now? And for the last few days, as The Boy noted earlier today, Lance has had some thoughts on "Cheers" that are more than worth reading. Where else would you read in depth analysis of whether Shelly Long made the right career move in leaving the show?

As it happens, I agree with his answer, that she was right, not stupid, to leave the hit when she did. Her subsequent choices weren't shrewd, for reasons he goes into, but her Diane Chambers character had run out of room on the show and she was smart enough to know it. Like Larry Linville's "Frank Burns" and Gary Burghoff's "Radar" on "M*A*S*H*," she created a great character that had reached its logical conclusion. It was time to move on. (Note I said nothing about Maclean Stevenson or Wayne Rogers.) And Lance is right that "Cheers" was a funnier show with Kirstie Alley.

But I liked "Cheers" better in its Shelley Long days, and the reason was Sam. Beyond their extraordinary chemistry, with Diane on the scene, Sam from the very first episode saw a greater potential for himself. The "dumb" lifetime jock and cocksman really had a depth to him that she gave him a chance to out, even when he frequently didn't want to. To me, the show wasn't just about how Diane did or didn't change through her interactions at "Cheers"; it was also in those early years about how she challenged Sam to be someone new and better himself. As Lance notes, that was why Carla feared Diane so much. With Diane gone, Sam reverted to type far more often, frequently becoming a caricature of the guy of the five Diane years. It provided a lot of funny plots and new romances, but it was sad to see Sam lose what he might have aspired to, at least until the very last scene in the finale.

His last scene with Diane makes my point. The last two Diane "Cheers" are, while not the funniest, my favorites, and for the endings of both. In the first, you get to see what would (might) have happened if she and Sam had gotten married, with elderly Sam coming inside their house, seeing elderly Diane knitting or something, then offering his hand to her to dance, which she does, still in love and affection, the lust that filled their storyline transmuted into something very lovely. In the second, when she leaves their wedding to go get that novel finished before tying herself down, Sam reaches that sense of self-knowledge and what his future holds. It's not her. And he lets her go. "Have a good life," he tells her as he watches her walk up the outside steps and out of his own. I'm not proud to say that I got goosebumps just typing that. It was a special moment for a character and a show, and for tv actually, and it wouldn't have happened for any other actors than Ted Danson and Shelly Long as Sam and Diane. That bond made those five years special and would have made any more difficult to pull off with anything like the care and quality. Which is why she was smart to leave (and why her return in the finale was a slap at the entire history of the show, as Lance also more or less says).

So, yes, "Cheers" was funnier with Kirstie than Shelly. But I have the first two seasons of "Cheers" on DVD and may eventually get the fifth one. I won't buy any of Kirstie's.

And to The Boy, Lance was right about one more thing and there's no reason to doubt him. While Kirstie's legs were attractive, Shelly's were great. Case closed.