Kelsey Grammer’s Dr. Frasier Crane is going back to his radio roots in a new trailer for the second season of the Paramount+ revival of the long-running NBC sitcom. It was previously revealed that the season would feature a Seattle-themed episode in which Frasier returns to KACL.

“This is Dr. Frasier Crane. I’m listening,” Grammer says in the trailer as he sits down in his old seat at the radio station with his friend and former producer Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) back in the booth.

He is later greeted by Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe (Dan Butler), who asks, “Is this your son?” as he meets Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), who replies “I used to listen to your show all the time as a kid, big sports fan.” Bulldog proceeds to look at Frasier and quip, “So not your son.”

The series, which will return on Sept. 19 with its first two episodes, follows Frasier in the next chapter of his life after he returns to Boston to face new challenges, forge new relationships and—with hope— finally fulfill an old dream or two.

In addition to Grammer and Cutmore-Scott, the show stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as Alan, Frasier’s old college buddy turned university professor; Toks Olagundoye as Olivia, Alan’s colleague and head of the university’s psychology department; Jess Salgueiro as Eve, Frasier and Freddy’s neighbor; and Anders Keith as Frasier’s nephew, David.

Apart from the return to KACL, the trailer features the main cast getting into various hijinx, including Alan and Frasier swapping out Eve’s son John for wine, and Eve and David eating the pair’s 18-pound Jamón Ibérico.

In addition to Gilpin and Butler, Season 2 guest stars include Edward Hibbert, who returns as Gil Chesterton, Harriet Sansom Harris, who returns as agent Bebe Glazer, Patricia Heaton, who will portray Holly, a Boston native who tends bar at upscale restaurants and events, as well as Yvette Nicole Brown, Greer Grammer, Rachel Bloom and Amy Sedaris.

“Frasier” comes from writers Chris Harris (“How I Met Your Mother”) and Joe Cristalli (“Life in Pieces”), who executive produce with Grammer, Tom Russo and Jordan McMahon. Legendary director James Burrows will return to direct two episodes.

The series, which is filmed in front of a live studio audience at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, is produced by CBS Studios in association with Grammer’s Grammnet NH Productions.

Following the premiere, new episodes will drop weekly on Paramount+ in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia. The new season will launch later this year in additional territories where the service is available.

Check out the full trailer in the video below:

After dozens of staffers at a Seattle museum walked off the job to protest an exhibit on antisemitism they claimed was “Zionist,” area Jewish groups and the museum all pledged that the exhibit would find a new home.

Months later, the Jewish groups are still planning to mount a version of the exhibit, called “Confronting Hate Together.” But they will do so without their original partners, the Black Heritage Society of Washington State and a museum dedicated to Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander heritage. Instead, the Jewish groups say the exhibit will be housed in a Jewish space.

The groups cited “circumstances out of our control” and said that the experience had left local Jews feeling isolated at a time of great need.

“Immense harm has been caused to the Jewish community by not being able to show the exhibit,” the Washington State Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle said in a joint statement. “Antisemitism today is at its highest levels in over 40 years, and more allyship is needed to help meet the moment.” 

The statement summarized a feeling that Jews in many quarters have expressed over the last 10 months, since Hamas attacked Israel and triggered an ongoing war that has induced tensions in countless museums, universities, cultural centers and workplaces. Many Jews have lamented not feeling the support they say they have shown to people from other backgrounds in the past.

“We need partners who are stakeholders in the safety and well-being of the Jewish people and who stand with us even when it gets hard,” the Jewish groups said. “Ironically, in an exhibit that was supposed to be about coming together to confront hate, hate has won. And, our community feels more alone as a result.”

Crafting the exhibit

The Jewish Historical Society had spent 18 months crafting the exhibit alongside the Black Heritage Society and Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum. Modeled after a World War II-era American Jewish Committee anti-hate campaign, the exhibit first opened at the Wing Luke in late May and included descriptions of how all three ethnic communities have experienced hate over the years.

But controversy quickly engulfed the project when 26 Wing Luke staffers walked off the job days later, claiming the parts of the exhibit that were focused on antisemitism contained material that “conveyed Zionist perspectives.” The museum promptly closed altogether, and the staff, declaring themselves “on strike,” launched a GoFundMe that has raised more than $11,000 to date. 

Museum leaders announced the exhibit would be reconfigured and presented to the public at a different venue later in the summer. The Wing Luke’s executive director, Joël Barraquiel Tan, in a piece for the Seattle Times, shared what he said were “lessons learned” from the efforts to restage the exhibit, including, “Our best work happens when we offer platforms for complex dialogue and vulnerability to inspire civility, grace and understanding across differences.”

The reason the Jewish groups decided to go their own way stemmed from challenges surrounding the search for a new venue, the Jewish Historical Society’s director, Lisa Kranseler, indicated to the Cholent, an independent newsletter covering Jewish Seattle. 

But the ultimate decision to pull back was the Jewish groups’, a representative for the Wing Luke Museum told the Cholent. “We are naturally disappointed that the Jewish Historical Society felt they needed to do that,” the spokesperson said. 

A spokesperson for the Seattle JCRC did not respond to repeated requests for comment. In its own statement, the Black Heritage Society seemed to take issue with the Jewish groups’ narrative of events, noting their statement “questions our allyship and tenacity for when times get tough.” 

“We have been good and tolerant partners,” the society’s president, Stephanie Johnson-Toliver, wrote. Johnson-Toliver concluded by thanking the Wing Luke museum and “the writers, editors, interns, consulting staff, and funders whose contributions have been great,” but did not mention the Jewish groups by name. (Asked for comment, the society directed JTA to the statement.)

In their objections to the original exhibit, the Wing Luke’s staff contingent, WLM4Palestine, cited portions that read “Today, antisemitism is often disguised as anti-Zionism” and spotlighted campus protests and the phrase “from the river to the sea.” Such passages, the staff allege on their GoFundMe page, “attempt to frame Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism as antisemitism.”

On Instagram, they further alleged that the exhibit “sets a dangerous precedent of platforming colonial, white supremacist perspectives and goes against the Museum’s mission as a community-based museum advancing racial and social equity.” 

Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat argued that the staffers’ anger was misplaced, and had the effect of abandoning Jews.

“What the exhibit is saying is, don’t take your anger about the Middle East conflict out on local Jews, who are independent, freethinking humans,” he wrote. “For a highly fraught subject, this is pretty basic stuff.”

While decrying the staff response as “fueled” by “anti-Jewish ideas and attitudes,” the Jewish groups added that they had made “adjustments and modifications” to the exhibit following the walkout. They said this was done “to help people better understand the exhibit by clarifying language regarding the exhibition’s intent to focus on confronting hate locally by three historically redlined communities.”

A digital version of the exhibit with the original partners listed, including content focused on the Black and Asian-American experiences, is viewable on the Jewish Historical Society’s website. An accompanying podcast, released shortly after the museum staff walkout and featuring guests including the mayor of Seattle, is also still accessible.

Kranseler told JTA that the Jewish Historical Society was “still working with our partners on two additional panels that will explain the genesis of our collaboration on this exhibit and provide additional information regarding the history of our three communities working together.”

The digital version still includes language the Wing Luke staff had walked out over, such as the declaration that “Today antisemitism is often disguised as anti-Zionism.”

Kevin Corbett, the CEO of Plus Investment (USA), waited over eight years for a master-use permit to build a 46-story residential tower near Pike Place Market. But he’s indefinitely paused the construction over the Seattle crime crisis.

“Unfortunately, I don’t see us going vertical anytime soon with the continued public safety concerns in the neighborhood,” Corbett told the Puget Sound Business Journal. “Open-air drug markets are still visible day and night on Second and Third Avenue. I know the city needs more resources, but I don’t see much new downtown commercial development happening until there is a stronger crackdown on these illegal activities.”

The Pike Towers project was slated to be two glass towers, one 46 stories and the other 16 stories. A rendering of the project, per the Real Deal, suggests ground-level retail.

More from Jason Rantz: Prominent Seattle business leaders fed up with crime plaguing city as major Starbucks shuts down for safety

Why did the developer pause a massive construction in downtown Seattle?

It’s not surprising that a developer would pause a project in the downtown core. While tourism is recovering thanks to cruise season, the area can still feel like a ghost town with many workers still remote. Perhaps “ghost town” is less appropriate than zombie wasteland where fentanyl addicts waste away near the most used metro and light rail stops downtown. It’s fueling the area’s crime crisis.

Homeless addicts openly buy and use their drug of choice, usually fentanyl but sometimes meth, across the downtown core. Some stand tall, swaying back and forth, stuck in their high. Others have bodies contorted into shapes and positions you didn’t think possible. Others are so blissfully high, they don’t even notice the oozing, festering wounds on their arms or legs.

There’s trash everywhere. The smell of urine near on 3rd between Pike and Pine is so pungent you can taste it in the back of your throat. It’s what tourists first experience if they walk to Pike Place Market or take the light rail from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Locals don’t want to even walk near the area. Why would they want to live there?

Is there a plan to address Seattle crime?

The residential project already had to pivot because of the deteriorating conditions in downtown. Originally slated as condominiums, the project switched to rentals. But now the project is paused, leaving needed housing units off the market because of city mismanagement from the mayor’s office.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell has prioritized building more housing in the downtown core. Rather than address concerns from developers like Corbett, however, Harrell seems more interested in transforming offices — vacant because of the crime crisis — into housing. They’re “practically begging” developers to take on these office-to-housing conversion projects by offering incentives that they should be offering all developers. It’s a foolish plan that will only further stall downtown’s resurgence.

About a third of offices remain either empty or available for sublease in the downtown core. By replacing the office space with housing, you’re ensuring the downtown core won’t be able to attract businesses again. This effectively displaces businesses to other Seattle neighborhoods where they won’t have the same access to the metro or light rail for commutes. Worse, it could encourage businesses to stay remote.

More from Jason Rantz: Seattle restaurant owner ‘lost all faith’ in city after 23rd break-in

Where’s the media coverage?

Normally, news of such a high-profile project being put on pause would generate media coverage. For this one, not so much. It’s been relegated to business and real estate outlets.

Local media, like The Seattle Times, have gone out of their way to not blame the crime crisis for the problems in downtown Seattle.

Reports in The Seattle Times in June painted grim pictures of the commercial and residential real estate market in downtown Seattle. One article pointed to astonishingly low price tags for previously pricey commercial buildings, including the near-empty Pacific Place Mall and the Downtown Hilton. A second article noted the price of homes downtown is trending lower than the costs citywide.

Other reports noted that downtown housing prices took a nosedive and are now cheaper than the citywide average.

But these reports blamed COVID-19, not even mentioning the Seattle crime crisis.

More from Jason Rantz: King County Public Defender director aims to stop many prosecutions, pay criminals instead

Sounding the alarms over Seattle crime

It’s not just projects that are quietly put on pause that should worry locals. High profile business leaders have been sounding the alarms about downtown as well.

Jeffery Judson-Baker, Investment Manager at Lake Union Partners, recently penned an open letter about the conditions downtown. He blamed the crisis on “misplaced compassion” that left “addicts to rot in doorways and the mentally ill to suffer on the streets.”

“I’ve had these conversations for a long time, kind of behind closed doors,” Judson-Baker explained on “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH. “Business leaders are often doing things behind the scenes, lobbying with local groups. Those are all things we certainly do, and at a certain point, me and my peers have just gotten fed up.”

‘This person’s fully naked, running around the street, screaming at six in the morning’

Judson-Baker said a recent walk from his home in Pioneer Square to a business meeting prompted his letter.

“I get up early in the morning and I wake up to somebody having a manic episode right outside my door, screaming at nothing,” he explained.

An hour later, it happened again.

“This person’s fully naked, running around the street, screaming at six in the morning,” he said.

He said his walk to a light rail station was a tour of human misery.

“Every person I see is either folded in half, looking for drugs, having a mental breakdown or asking for money to go, who knows,” he recalled. “And I finally get to the Third and Cherry light rail station, and there’s human waste in front of it, needles, people sleeping directly in front of the escalator, as you’re watching all of these commuters that are coming to the CBD core, which is dying actively. You see office occupancies way down.”

He called the area a “war zone.” And he’s speaking up because he loves his city and doesn’t want to see it continue to deteriorate. Now, he’s waiting for more local leaders and the mayor’s office to act.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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