The 24-episode 11th and final season of Frasier aired during the 2003/2004 TV season. All the primary cast members returned for the final season, and several recurring cast members from throughout the series' run also returned, including Dan Butler, Harriet Sansom, and Anthony LaPaglia. Felicity Huffman continued in her recurring role early in the season, and later in the season, Laura Linney and Wendie Malick had major recurring roles that carried through to the end of the series. The series brought in several recognizable guest stars this season, including Patrick Stewart, Julia Sweeney, Penny Johnson Jerald, Sarah Silverman, Laurie Metcalf, Jennifer Tilly, Krista Allen, Rosie Perez, Stephen Root, Aaron Eckhart, Jason Biggs, and Jennifer Beals. This season also featured Bebe Neuwirth making her final appearance as Lilith in a funny and touching episode. The celebrity voice cameos for the guest callers this season included Benjamin Bratt, Stanley Tucci, Penny Marshall, Hillary Duff, and Helen Mirren.
The show continued to blend story-of-the-week procedural storylines with longer story arcs. There is a multi-episode arc in the middle of the season involving Maris (who we still do not see), which wraps up her storyline in the series. The large arcs this season involve Niles and Daphne becoming parents and Martin finding love. The season itself was mainly good, but I think the writers dropped the ball with a potential major storyline for Roz, which was set up in the season 10 finale. Despite that, the writers do an excellent job of wrapping up the story arcs for several characters; however, not everything is tied up in a neat bow, and while it does not end on a total cliffhanger (in the conventional sense), viewers are left to wonder how things play out. There are some absolutely funny moments, including a great joke that breaks the fourth wall about playing the same character for 20 years, and there are some touching moments, especially at the end.
As of this writing, the individual seasons remain available only on DVD as a four-disc set. The Blu-rays are only included in the complete series box set, with the 11th-season episodes spread over three discs that are held in their own keep case. There are a couple of bonus features on the final Blu-ray disc that serve as series retrospectives and include interviews with cast, writers, and producers. The A/V quality of the Blu-rays is very good, and because this season was produced later in the show's original run, there are fewer flaws in the video quality than there were in the earlier seasons.
While the series was at the end of its historic run and was beginning to get a bit stale by the 11th season, it remained a very well-written and well-acted sitcom. All of the actors did a great job in their various roles. Ultimately, it is absolutely worth watching to see how the series is wrapped up.
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