Title: Fear Is My Co-Pilot
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Cherie Eichen and Bill Steinkellner
Air Date: March 13, 1986
Previous: Save the Last Dance for Me
Next: Diane Chambers Day
Guest Starring: Kelsey Grammer, Joseph Whipp
"Fear Is My Co-Pilot" is the 21st episode of the fourth season of Cheers.
Sam delivers to Diane a phone message: one Jack Dalton called. Jack, it seems, is one of the lovers that Diane took during her wild partying spree in Europe after she dumped Frasier at the altar. Jack's both a crazy adventure guy—he studied Buddhism under a monk in Tibet, he ran with the bulls in Pamplona—and pretty rich, as he offers Diane a ride in his own private plane.
Diane, who is reluctant to talk about her time gallivanting around Europe, is reluctant to see Jack. Finally, he prevails on her to take a spin on his plane. Diane insists that Sam come along as a sort of chaperone. That is why both their lives are imperiled when Jack has a heart attack and dies, with the plane 20,000 feet in the air.
Tropes:
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Unsurprisingly, when they think they are doomed to die, Sam and Diane talk about how they should have gotten married.
- Billions of Buttons: Sam and Diane's terror is only increased when they take a good look at the cockpit and see all the dials and buttons. Sam mistakes a clock for the fuel gage.Diane: WILL YOU STOP INDISCRIMINATELY PUSHING BUTTONS?
- Continuity Nod: Another reference to Diane's offscreen drinking and debauchery in Europe after she dumped Frasier at the end of Season 3.
- Establishing Character Moment: We learn that Jack is a wild wacky adventure guy when he comes barreling into the bar, shouts "CHAMBERS!!", picks Diane up and spins her around. Then he does the same for her friends—except for Norm, who is apparently too heavy.
- Faking the Dead: Jack isn't really dead! It was just a practical joke in which Jack, who learned from a Buddhist monk how to slow his metabolism to one heartbeat a minute, made Sam and Diane think that he was dead.
- Falling into the Cockpit: Discussed Trope but ultimately averted. After Jack dies Sam says he saw a movie once where some woman passenger landed a plane after someone on the ground talked them down. He then says "I remember thinking those people were in a lot of trouble." Averted when Jack comes back into the cockpit and reveals that he was Faking the Dead.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Jack is the male version, being a wacky free-spirited kook who does stuff like running with the bulls and circumnavigating the world in a raft. He lures Diane up into a plane ride which she eventually regrets.
- Old Flame: This time not one of Sam's old flames but one of Diane's, as Jack Dalton, Diane's lover from her sojourn in Europe, visits the bar.
- The Plot Reaper: Jack dies while he, Sam, and Diane are in mid-flight. Averted when it turns out to be a prank by Jack.
- Shout-Out: The pilot is taken from the book and film God Is My Co-Pilot.
