Niles Crane - Role in The Series

Role in The Series

Niles is Frasier's constant companion and rival. The tensions between the brothers began during childhood; Frasier resented the younger Niles distracting their mother from paying attention to him, and Niles disliked the older Frasier reaching career and life milestones first. Nonetheless, they meet every day at Cafe Nervosa, where they discuss their lives and various other topics. Niles and Frasier often collaborate on projects, which frequently and comically lead to complete disaster. Some examples are the book—ironically, about sibling rivalry—that they attempt to write, the restaurant they purchase and attempt to transform into an exclusive eatery, and Frasier's brief period in private practice next door to Niles' office.

His romantic life is another area explored throughout the series, and it is tragically plagued with grief and misfortune.

Niles' first wife is Maris, the selfish, haughty, highly-strung, anorexic, and unstable daughter of a wealthy Seattle family, who is never seen on the show, despite being referred to frequently. Similar to Niles, Maris has a long list of allergies, being allergic to most meats, spices, creams and more. She also has lots of pills and medication which usually have comical side effects such as extreme narcolepsy. Despite being predominantly an anorexic, in one episode she is show to be eating loads of doughnuts and growing vastly in weight. Maris demonstrates her extremely paranoid and controlling nature throughout the series. Her lack of respect and affection for Niles leads to separation, followed by serving Niles with divorce papers as a bluff; when Niles signed them she was shaken and agreed to couples counseling. However, after appearing to make progress, Niles discovers Maris has begun an affair with their couples' therapist, Dr. Shenkman, ultimately leading to him making the second and final decision for divorce. Maris attempts to reconcile with him by sending him expensive gifts, but Niles remains steadfast in his decision for divorce and Maris responds by shredding their financial settlement document - she turns it into the wrapping paper for her final gift to Niles - a five-cent piece in a jeweler's box along with the poem 'Roses are red, your heart is fickle, when I'm through with you, all you'll have is this nickel' - and proceeds to nearly bankrupt Niles. He is forced to sublet his suite at the Montana and move into the low-rent Shangri-La; while it is far below his usual standard of living, he realizes this is the initial price to pay for being free of Maris and it's worth the sacrifice. After hiring laid-back Donny Douglas to end the bitter, drawn-out process, she finally agrees on a settlement when he threatens to expose that her family's wealth is not in timber lands but in urinal cakes. A running gag involves Niles speaking affectionately about Maris, despite her poor treatment of him.

After a period of dating, Niles becomes involved with Mel Karnofsky, Maris' plastic surgeon; despite being more compatible than his ex-wife, Frasier nonetheless can see Mel's true colours in her subtle yet masterful manipulation of Niles' affections towards her. After dating less than six months the two elope, but the marriage falls apart after only two days when Niles confesses his love for Daphne Moon, his father's physical therapist, to whom he had been secretly attracted throughout the series' first seven seasons. His confession occurs the night before her wedding to Niles' divorce lawyer Donny Douglas. The relationship spawns a huge ordeal, prompting Donny to respond by suing both Daphne and Frasier, while Mel forces Niles to participate in a prolonged charade of a happy marriage for the sake of appearances, until he finally loses his temper and shouts out the truth during an important dinner party - that his marriage to Mel was a sham and he refuses to put Daphne through the torture of hiding their love any longer.

Niles' most significant relationship on the show is with Daphne, perhaps an unlikely attraction given the significant differences in their tastes, temperament and social standing (he once referred to her as a "working-class Venus"). His infatuation for her begins the moment they meet. For numerous reasons during the first six seasons of the show, however, Niles is unable to confess his feelings for Daphne, who remains unaware of his love for her (despite her professed psychic abilities).

Curiously enough, although Niles is a Jungian therapist, he shows no inclination to incorporate the paranormal into his personal belief system. He does not believe that Daphne is clairvoyant; a true Jungian would, taking the collective unconscious into consideration. In an eighth-season episode, Daphne actually has her psychic powers evaluated. Once Niles hears her explain how she came to believe she was psychic, he understands that she needs to believe it, and he asks not to know the test results.

Niles' feelings for Daphne are the basis for many gags on the show, including the numerous ways he demonstrates how besotted he is with her (such as being entranced by the smell of her hair or staring at her rear end when she bends over), but develops over the course of the series into an important plot line. Pierce engaged in innumerable bits of nearly unnoticeable stage business, displaying Niles' almost trance-like attraction to Daphne even when the audience's focus of attention is not on the pair.

Niles is frequently jealous of Daphne's boyfriends (and even his own nephew, Frederick, who nurses a crush on Daphne as a pre-adolescent). Niles does tell Frasier repeatedly that he is over Daphne when she accepts Donny Douglas' proposal of marriage, and proceeds to marry Mel in a kind of rebound, but admits that he still loves Daphne when on the eve of her wedding, Frasier tells him that Daphne knows of Niles' feelings and reciprocates them. When the two do attempt a relationship, they must reconcile their many lifestyle differences. Fortunately, in the end the couple finds compatibility, and many of Niles' nervous eccentricities diminish as he finally manages to maintain a stable relationship.

After Niles and Daphne became engaged, this high degree of infatuation was used to incorporate Jane Leeves' real-life pregnancy and weight gain. Daphne felt pressured to live up to the 'perfect' image Niles had imagined; she responded by overeating and gained sixty pounds. Jane's maternity leave was written into the show in an arc where Daphne reached her breaking point and realized she needed help for her weight problems, so the Crane boys send her to a health spa where she can lose weight and receive counseling (an in-joke in the season 8 episode 'It Takes Two to Tangle' had Niles quipping "she's already lost 9 pounds and 12 ounces," the birth weight of Jane's baby girl Isabella).

Ultimately Niles and Daphne are together 1 year before Niles proposes in the 9th season. The two end up getting married in Reno, Nevada at the end of season 9, after Niles tries to reconcile Daphne's mother and father. His plan ends in failure, leaving Daphne in doubt about married life, since her mother and father's marriage ended after 40 years together. However, Daphne's father reveals that no matter how many times he tried to get rid of Niles from his pub, Niles kept coming back until he finally agreed to come back to America with him all in an effort to make Daphne happy; an extreme act of love that he himself (Daphne's father) never did for her mother. With the sudden realization that Niles' love runs so deep that when he says he'd do anything for her, he literally means it, Daphne goes over to Niles apartment in the spur of the moment and demands he marries her right then and there, saying, "Because you'd do anything, even put up with my insane family to make me happy. Because you traveled half way around the world to make my dreams come true, even the impossible ones. And because I can't spend one more second without being your wife, Niles Crane, because I adore you." The two then left in the night to go and find a place to wed. The series ends two years into their marriage with the birth of their son, David, who is born at a veterinary clinic. However, later in the future, the couple will have two daughters, as is revealed in the season 10 episode, "Room With A View".

Niles' final line in the series is "I'll miss the coffees".