Frasier and Niles meet an old favorite actor of theirs, Jackson Hedley, who ends up revealing himself as talentless.
Tropes:
- Bad "Bad Acting": In the words of Frasier, Hedley "has no instincts — just stinks", as he immediately goes for more excess than even Shakespeare at its most dramatic calls for. When the boys tell Jackson's own father Cecil, who accompanies him to all his stage performances, that he's at the wrong theatre and they're performing CATS here, his reaction suggests that he wouldn't mind staying; he ends up ditching Roz to stay and catch the show.Jackson: [innocently] Do you know, I've never worked with producers who haven't wanted to pull the plug before the opening night?
- Casting Gag: Several.
- Sir Derek Jacobi as a talentless hack;
- Ray Porter - a performer for several years with the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival - as a geek fan who fails to connect Jackson Hedley with Shakespeare.
- Celebrity Paradox:
- Frasier and Niles were previously established as being huge fans of The Avengers to the point of dressing up as Steed. This episode sees Patrick Macnee, who played Steed, appear in a minor role as Jackson's dad (who comments off-hand that he's "got a predilection for brunettes").
- Frasier laments, with shuddering horror, that "no artist should have to endure" a role in such an undignified show as Space Patrol. About that
...
- I Am Not Spock: Invoked and parodied; the Crane brothers are distraught to think that Hedley's role as Tobor in Space Patrol has prejudiced the theatre against him, denying him the Shakespearean roles and highbrow acclaim he deserves, and leaving him "reduced" to unrewarding sci-fi schlock. Hedley himself seems to believe it as well ("the show became so popular, I can't get cast as anything but an android, a cyborg, or — when I get the chance to really spread my wings — a mutant"). It turns out that he's an incorrigible, blustering ham, and Tobor has given him more of a career than he'd ever have on the stage.
- Irony As He Is Cast: Sir Derek Jacobi as a tremendously awful actor.
- Large Ham: Frasier and Niles are horrified to discover that Jackson is a truly enormous ham. They assume he's just rusty from his years on low-quality sci-fi shows, but when they see a tape of the performance where they first saw him they learn he was always that bad, and that they were simply too young and unfamiliar with theater to realize it.
- Special Guest: Jacobi as Jackson Hedley (who won the 2001 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series) and Patrick Macnee as Hedley's father.
- The Show Must Go On: Despite slipping and seriously injuring his back Jackson drags himself on stage to perform anyway, much to the Crane boys' dismay.
- Theatre Is True Acting: Frasier and Niles are absolutely appalled to discover that somebody they remember from childhood as a great Shakespearian stage actor has been reduced in later life to playing a Mr. Spock expy on a TV show not unlike Star Trek: The Original Series. They consider this to be a huge fall and plot to restore his fortunes to place him where they think he should be — on stage. They are appalled to find out that to their more refined adult perceptions, their hero is a Large Ham.
