Season 3 of Cheers enriched television history in a lot of ways, most notably by introducing Kelsey Grammer as psychiatrist Frasier Crane while also bidding an off-screen farewell to Nicholas Colasanto, the actor who played Coach. (Colasanto died near the end of the season, and while Coach's character was kept alive via outtakes for remaining episodes, he essentially disappeared from Cheers before the commencement of year 4.)

Grammer's beloved character, who remained on NBC for 20 unbroken years (including the long-running Frasier), is ushered into the Cheers family when he meets barmaid Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) in a very funny, Emmy-nominated episode suggesting the neurotic course of their future romance. Meanwhile, Sam (Ted Danson), having fallen off the wagon due to his own tempestuous love affair with Diane, has to endure Frasier's questions about how to be intimate with the brainy babe. Elsewhere in Cheers' sardonic community, Cliff (John Ratzenberger), in a sweet but barbed episode, meets a woman (Bernadette Birkett) at a costume party and is afraid of re-introducing himself later. Norm (George Wendt) becomes aware of his mortality and decides to move to Bora Bora, and Sam (in another Emmy-nominated show) has to explain how he got shot in his posterior. Other good things: "The Heart Is a Lonely Snipe Hunter," in which the men of Cheers cruelly initiate Frasier in the manly art of snipe-hunting, and "Bar Bet," starring Jacqueline Bisset as a woman Sam must marry before a certain date or lose the bar forever. --Tom Keogh

25 episodes and special features Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/10/2007 Rating: Nr

My favorite episode is off this season (The Executive's Executioner). Norm gets promoted to "corporate killer" at his job and is responbile for firing employees. Norm is hilarious in this episode. Sadly Nicholas Colasanto (Coach) passed away during this season. However this is also the season where Frazier is introduced. If your a Cheers fan, and don't have this season buy it. You won't be disappointed.

The finest season of all, all the cast are spot on and the scripts cut like a sarcastic knife. Never beaten by any comedy series .

Too much Sam and Diane. Get on with it. Otherwise, good stories and great casting makes each season worth the price.

Fully established as a sitcom powerhouse, the third season of Cheers would end in sadness. During filming, Nicholas Colasanto, who played the loveable Coach, discovered he was dying. Told he had only six months to live, he would pass away six weeks later, leaving a gaping hole in the cast. With three episodes left in the season, it was explained that Coach had gone on vacation. During it's orginal airtime, in the pre-title bumper joke of the final episode, an out-take of Colasanto was inserted as a farewell.

I do sympathize with reviews posted feeling the Featurette in memory of Coach should and could have been more extenstive.
For a character as beloved as Coach and an actor/director/producer so respected as Nicholas Colasanto, you'd think someone would honor him with more than a six minute blurb, most of time simply showing clips. Ted Danson and George Wendt talked briefly and emotionally about Colasanto, including the revelation to most that Colasanto directed a number of shows, including Columbo, Bonanza, Starsky and Hutch. Although I suppose the truest form of honor to his spirit is the fact that over 20 years later people are still enjoying his work.


However, the series continued to grow in the third season, with the addition of Dr. Frasier Crane as Diane's boy-friend / therapist. Kelsey Grammer's refined psychiatrist would become a major character in his own right, leading to the titular spin-off. Talk about a perfect fit ... Frasier seemingly effortlessly fits into the cast. His voice of reasoning fell on deaf ears in this screwball ensemble. The writing for his character through out the show is priceless.

Beginning with Sam drinking to excess again and ending with a wedding cliff-hanger, the third season is a notable year for the series, producing some of the best episodes in the show's entire 250 episode run.

Cheers has one of the funniest casts of all sitcoms. In most sitcoms there is at least one character that you just dispise but it Cheers the whole cast is perfect, amazing casting. Carla is hilarious with her witty remarks and insults and I love coach with his amazing comedic perfomance, to bad it was his last season. I love this show and everthing about it.