Diane is a cultured intellectual (read snob) who is well versed in the more refined aspects of life (dead languages, dead painters, dead philosophers). She seems to know a lot about everything, except what she wants to be doing with her life. When we first meet her, she thinks she wants to elope with her still-married fiancé, and former professor, Dr. Sumner Sloane -- that is until he abandons her at Cheers. Not one to feel sorry for herself, Diane takes a job there until she can figure out what her next move will be.

To say that she is a fish out of water in the Beantown watering hole is a bit of an understatement, but Diane perseveres despite Carla’s endless ridicule and Sam’s relentless attempts to woo her. It’s not that Diane thinks she’s better than everyone else (well maybe a little); it’s just that she’s terribly insecure and feels that the more she knows, the better she’ll be. So she makes due serving drinks to the common folk, and tries to maintain her dignity while doing it, which means not giving in to Sam and his oh-so-obvious charms (he’s just too low and uncultured for her – so what if he does have a certain irresistible animal magnetism?). One gets the feeling that Diane would rather talk about love then make it, and Sam’s naked pursuit is a bit unsettling. Diane puts up a valiant effort in resisting him, but in time Sam breaks her down and she gives in. It's not an easy surrender for an obsessive-compulsive control freak like Diane, and she checks herself into a psychiatric hospital to try to work it all out. There she meets and falls in love with Dr. Frasier Crane, a man who is as neurotic and sexually repressed as poor Diane. In Frasier -- an equally effete snob -- Diane finds comfort in the familiar. When he proposes they run off to Italy together, but Diane realizes that what she feels for Frasier isn’t love, but reassurance. Returning to Boston, she resumes her relationship with Sam. Theirs is a rocky reconciliation, one marked by multiple marriage proposals and break ups before the pair finally call it quits after five years of trying. Diane leaves Boston and pursues a career as a screenwriter. She’ll translate her time at Cheers into an award-winning screenplay, and even return to her old stomping grounds to briefly rekindle her romance with Sam; but mostly, Diane will go on trying to find her place in the world.