Back in the 1980s, continuity wasn’t something writers paid an abundant amount of attention to, especially not when the topic in focus was a sitcom. What people didn’t realize, was that Cheers would be such an incredible success that we’d still be watching it almost four decades later.
The show was hard on the comedy aspect, something that ballooned up further in the ensuing seasons, also opening it up to many moments where the series didn’t make sense in terms of continuity and general logic. Here are 10 such moments from Cheers that made no sense.
Why Does Carla Hate Diane?
Carla seemed to hate everyone around her, but Diane had a special place of loathing in Carla’s heart - even more so than her hatred for Cliff. The terms behind this loathing were never clear either, as Carla’s original reasoning had been jealousy that Sam preferred Diane, but this was shot down in a Season 2 episode.
Carla always wanted only bad things to happen to Diane, who never even did anything to deserve such resentment. After Diane left, Carla became somewhat fearful of Diane, and was shown to be scared of Diane ever coming back. Exactly what elicited this feeling was never made clear.
Norm's Profession
What we know for sure is that Norm was a total slacker, but it was also left ambiguous exactly what his profession was. In the first few seasons, he was a reluctant accountant whose justification for bailing on work was his lack of passion. However, he still remained this way after apparently finding his true calling.
Norm would become a house painter after realizing he enjoyed the work, only to then ignore it completely and call himself unemployed later on. In the series finale, he got himself a job in the government again as an accountant, because of Woody. And yet, he had earlier on been seen zig-zagging his profession as a painter.
Diane And Sam's Relationship
The only thing that kept Sam and Diane interested in each other was their positions as main characters, or at least that’s what it seems like, because Sam and Diane really didn’t look like they even liked each other as people.
The entire tenure of Diane’s time on the show had seen her take shots at Sam’s expense and Sam constantly teasing her personality. Even when they were dating, their relationship revolved around annoying one another, making it a mystery why they were attracted to each other at all.
Diane And Sam's Break-Up
The finale saw these two getting back together after six years and almost getting married in the excitement surrounding the reunion. This didn’t last long, though, with the couple breaking up for good on the plane that was supposed to take them to a new life.
While the reason given was that Diane and Sam “came to their senses," it wasn’t a good reason at all. They could have easily had one simple talk where they ironed out what they didn’t like about their relationship and all would’ve been golden. Frasier showed how Diane still pined for Sam and how the latter still hadn’t found a girl to match Diane, making the break-up nonsensical.
Rebecca's Characterization
When she was first introduced, Rebecca was the anti-Diane, in that she didn’t take flak from anyone and didn’t stop around to make friends. She was also a very independent and no-nonsense woman, who could even strike fear in Carla’s heart.
When you look at what Rebecca eventually became, however, you scratch your head thinking at what happened to the original version. Rebecca was revealed to have been living off her father’s money and became a laughing stock of the show; so why did she come across as the total opposite in her introductory season?
Kelly's Inappropriate Friendship With Henri
When Kelly returned from Europe, she brought along a male friend called Henri, who was out to steal her from Woody. However, it was only Woody who was shown to clearly see how Henri was obviously trying to woo Kelly, while nobody else took him seriously.
Henri would even openly say he would “steal (your) girlfriend” to Woody, yet Kelly not only kept him around, she even had an inappropriately close friendship with him where he easily came close physically to her and stayed at her place. For some reason, nobody saw how wrong this was.
Lilith Being Called "Evil"
This perception of Lilith carried into Frasier as well, where everyone from his family was morbidly scared of her. On Cheers, Lilith’s supposed sinister personality was only an informed attribute, though, as we never saw her do anything unambiguously “evil.”
In fact, Lilith instead was somewhat of a victim to the amount of verbal taunts Carla repeatedly threw at her without cause, and the rest of the group (including Frasier) would joke around at her lack of feelings. Lilith’s only “evil” part of her personality seemed to be that she wasn’t very emotional; nothing actually malicious.
Frasier's Will
In one episode, we saw Cheers seemingly make it a canonical fact that Lilith and Frasier would remain married well into old age when a flash forward into the far future showed Lilith and an adult Frederick opening Frasier’s will after his death.
Here, Lilith was identified by Frasier’s lawyer as his widow, with the gag being that Frasier’s will had been replaced by Sam’s fertility test back in the 1990s; Lilith would then curse the bar. As we all know, though, Frasier and Lilith got divorced in 1993 and never got back together, which would make this flash forward an impossibility.
Diane's Work Efficiency
For all of five years, we were constantly wondering how Diane managed to stay employed, as she never proved herself an especially efficient waitress. In fact, Diane was a horrible waitress who regularly messed up orders and neglected her job.
How did she get the job, then? She was seen expertly recalling an order for someone else while not even having been part of the conversation, impressing Sam enough to keep her on. This was seen in the very first episode, but these skills were never shown ever again.
All Of Sam's Stories
Sam’s storylines had to do with him becoming mature and improving his treatment of women. Sadly, however, we saw this arc play out on so many times that it became a joke in itself.
Sam would always undergo a remarkable reflection in his life and stop messing around, only for the following episode to show him being back to his debauchery. The final episode had Sam realize his greatest love was the bar and that he would one day find his special lady; two years later, Frasier showed him being perfectly willing to let the bar go and having just cheated on his fiance - whom he didn’t even really love. What was the point of all that positive character development then?