Frasier: What Episodes Is Kim Coles In & Who Does She Play?
By the time Kim Coles made her "Frasier" debut in 2000, she was already a sitcom veteran. The actress cut her comedic teeth as a cast member on "In Living Color" before joining the cast of "Living Single." From 1993 to 1998, Coles played Synclaire James-Jones — the bubbly cousin to Queen Latifah's Khadijah James — on the groundbreaking sitcom.
Coles first appeared as Mary in Season 7 of "Frasier." In "Something About Dr. Mary," Roz (Peri Gilpin) takes the week off from her producer duties, leaving fresh-faced newcomer Mary to fill in. Initially meek, Mary becomes more vocal behind the mic at Frasier's (Kelsey Grammer) urging. Soon, Mary is chiming in constantly, even dubbing herself Dr. Mary, much to Frasier's chagrin. She becomes such a hit that she is bumped up to co-host.
Frasier doesn't want to criticize Mary for fear of being perceived as racist, resulting in one of the most cringeworthy moments on "Frasier." His reluctance ends up working in Mary's favor. Her on-air advice has become so popular that she gets her own radio show. Over coffee at Café Nervosa, she tells an apologetic Frasier, "God bless your guilty white ass, okay?"
The response to Coles' Mary was so positive that she booked a second appearance for Season 8, Episode 8. "Mary Christmas" sees the one-time co-hosts reunited to host a Christmas parade. Once again, Mary's chipper on-air persona is well-received by the producers, even if Frasier would prefer to keep things by the book.
Coles tried to get Mary her own spinoff
Frasier may have referred to Mary as his radio rival, but behind the scenes, things were far more amicable. In a 2018 interview with Andscape, Coles reflected on her time on "Frasier." "I have to tell you, the experience was amazing. Kelsey Grammer was beyond kind to me, and he loved my Dr. Mary character."
Coles also wasn't intimidated by the show's lack of racial diversity — a fact that has since become a punchline. Indeed, in a "Weekend Update" segment for "Saturday Night Live," Colin Jost once referred to "Frasier" as "the show that made 'Friends' look Black." Coles continued, "I knew that there were no [Black people] on 'Frasier,' but I saw that as a challenge." Dr. Mary proved to be a groundbreaking character on the series. Added Coles, "The writer who wrote my two episodes on 'Frasier' even won a diversity award because before that they didn't have anyone like me on that show!"
Coles went on, "The response to Dr. Mary was incredible, so we tried to get the 'Frasier' people to do a spinoff. This was at the time Kelsey was about to do 'Girlfriends,'" Coles said, speaking of Grammer's role as executive producer on the UPN series, "so I knew he had to be open to black women being the lead [of a show]." Unfortunately, the Dr. Mary spinoff never came to fruition. If the "Frasier" reboot gets a second season, there's always hope that Dr. Mary will make an appearance in Boston.