Death and the Dog

Infobox Television episode | Title = Three Days of the Condo
Series = Frasier
Season = 04
Episode = 12
Airdate = 11 February 1997
Production =
Writer = Suzanne Martin
Director = James Burrows
Guests = Željko Ivanek (Dr. Arnold Shaw)
Tom Lagleder (Dr. Stephen Kagen)
Patty Duke (Alice)
Prev = Three Days of the Condo
Next = Four for the Seesaw
Episode list = List of Frasier episodes (Season 4)

"Death and the Dog" is the twelfth episode in season 4 of American sitcom "Frasier".

Cast and characters

Main cast and characters

*Kelsey Grammer – Dr. Frasier Crane
*David Hyde Pierce – Dr. Niles Crane
*John Mahoney – Martin Crane
*Jane Leeves – Daphne Moon
*Peri Gilpin – Roz Doyle

Recurring cast

*Marsha Mason – Sherry Dempsey

Plot outline

During a slow day on his show at KACL, Frasier decides to tell a story about the aftermath of Eddie's recent trip to the vet. The episode then continues in flashback…

Eddie is not himself: he has lost his appetite, he is not sleeping, and seems generally listless. The vet says he is physically fine, so Martin worries that he may be depressed, and Daphne suggests taking him to a dog psychiatrist. Naturally, Frasier and Niles think the idea is not only absurd but dishonest; Frasier calls them “the very definition of charlatanism”. Despite this, they agree to be in attendance for the session, although they find it difficult to take the procedure seriously. The diagnosis is that Eddie senses depression elsewhere in the family, so they are encouraged to act positively when around him. After the session, they all start to wonder who could be the source of Eddie's depression.

The story is interspersed with a parallel narrative about Roz dating a new tenant in Elliot Bay Towers, who happens to be a gynaecologist with an impressive collection of professional equipment. Roz, unsurprisingly, does not appreciate Frasier telling this parallel narrative.

Episode Title Cards

*"Happy talk

Memorable Quotations

"Everyone is at Frasier's apartment, and they are all feeling melancholy and thinking about death"
Roz: When I die, I want it to be on my 100th birthday, in my beach house on Maui and I want my husband to be so upset that he has to drop out of college.

Niles: I've always liked the notion of meeting the great figures of history. But then I think: what if it's like high school and all the really cool dead people don't want to hang out with me? Mozart'll tell me he's busy but then later I'll see him out with Shakespeare and Lincoln!

Frasier: “I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker.”
Niles: T. S. Eliot.
Frasier: Dead.
Niles: “Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?”
Frasier: Plato.
Niles: Even deader.

Frasier: “We know for whom the bell tolls.”
"(A distant bell sounds, from the kitchen)"
Martin: Anybody else hear that?

Cultural references

Frasier's first quotation on death is taken from T. S. Eliot's poem, "". His second is by John Donne, from his in "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions". Niles' quotation is from Plato's dialogue "Phaedo" [cite book
last = Plato
authorlink = Plato
title = Phaedo
pages = 72c [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Phaedo+72c] ] , in which Socrates talks about the afterlife.

Notes