Okay, so it's over.
First things first: no, I didn't like the final episode. It was
overlong, meandering and
not consistently funny. It was nice to see all those guest characters again, but
considering all they did was reiterate their previous appearances, I'd
just as soon watch
the original episodes. It was kind of cute that they were sent to jail for
doing nothing,
which is all they supposedly ever do, but I dunno. I think it did an
injustice to the show. I
will definitely say I was shocked at how little the "Big 4" were actually
given to do in the
second half of the show-- they basically sat there and said nothing.
There were one or two good bits-- I liked Jackie Chiles getting it
on with Teri Hatcher,
I liked George's near-death admission of cheating in "The Contest"-- but
mostly it just
didn't work for me. A big let-down.
On that note, let me say that while I think it was a very good
idea to end the show this
season, I will miss it. It's the characters, of course. I've grown quite
accustomed to
them, and I think it will be quite awhile before any subsequent sitcom
finds such a
perfect ensemble who work so well together. I find it hard to discuss comedic things sometimes, because taste
in humor seems to
vary so widely. This is clearly apparent in comparing my taste in episodes
to others who post on this newsgroup, some episodes mentioned as favorites
I couldn't stand, others' least favorites were some I liked a lot.
To me, the show was always best when it was at least somewhat
rooted in reality. The
more cartoony it got, the less I liked it. If the resulting jokes were
funny enough, I could
suspend my disbelief in the cartoonish nature of the plot-- for example in "The
Abstinence", George becomes more and more intelligent the longer he
abstains from
having sex, and Elaine becomes dumber and dumber. This is a totally dopey
premise, but
I laughed anyway because seeing George at genius level and Elaine dumb as
a stump was
greatly amusing. But a show like that is an exception to the rule, and
more often than not
the more cartoony the show, the stupider it was, and the less I laughed.
In each consecutive season, the show began to lean more and more
toward the cartoony,
especially after Larry David left. And as the very personalities drifted
away from what
they once were I got annoyed.
Jerry to me was always the normal one, kind of the straght man to
the others; he was
overly neat and not the most sympathetic guy, but overall he was
reasonably normal. He
has got progressively stranger over the years; his germ-phobia going overboard,
expressing a strange array of emotions (this season he even proposed to
Elaine) and
doing bizarre things like drugging a date so he could play with her toys
while she was
asleep. A straight man is a very helpful component to a comedy formula, by
moving
Jerry away from this we just had four kooky people all doing weird shit,
and no one to
relate to.
Elaine was always nervey and outspoken, but in the early years she
still had a
femininity and wisdom to her. Boy did that ever change! By the end she was
nasty, angry
and basically seemed unhappy to be alive. A real laff riot, there.
George has always been my favorite character. He has probably
changed the least; from
the get-go he has always been a lazy, cheap, lying, cheating whiner. And
he was damn
good at it. Lately, though, his predominant character trait has just been
anger. Seems
like every episode this last season has him frothed up in a rage screaming
his head off at
*somebody*. I liked the more vulnerable George; he was funny. New George
was very
one-note and redundant.
The character who's changed the most over the years is Kramer, and
boy did it bug me. I think everybody just kind of forgot who and what
Kramer was supposed to be, which
seems strange to me because why wouldn't Michael Richards remind them?
Kramer was
always a goofy eccentric. He came up with these hair-brained schemes to
make money,
he was always doing weird stuff around the house (hot tub in the living room?
"Levels"?) But Kramer was never, ever stupid. (well okay, maybe in the
very first 12
episodes or so) Sometimes, in the oddest moments, he said something very
wise, and it
was a funny juxtaposition that the weirdest character would "get it". But
Kramer,
somewhere along the way, became a big dummy, and furthermore I think he
starts to act
downright insane. There is somewhat of a difference between being goofy
and eccentric
and out-and-out mentally unstable. I hated the change tremendously.
The thing of it is, SEINFELD didn't gradually decrease in quality
like other sitcoms. You
could look at something like ROSEANNE, which was absolutely dead-brilliant
the first
few seasons, and then the last two were completely god-awful; hell, it's
happening right
now with THE SIMPSONS. But the thing with SEINFELD was, it never really
declined; it
seemed to fluctuate between great and piss-poor episodes from week to
week. I think this
might be part of the secret to its success. Those who liked the sort of
"real life" type
episodes like "The Chinese Restaurant" or "The Subway" could live in
harmony those who
liked the goofy cartoony schtick like "The Doorman" or "The Blood", and
since you could
never tell from week to week whether you were going to get a gem or a
turd, *everyone*
watched every week.I had considered doing a "Bottom 10" to recount my least favorite episodes, but looking back on what I've written so far, it does seem like I'm being a little too negative about a show which, when push comes to shove, I really *did* love (honest!) So let me just say that nearly any episode written by Tom Gammill and Max Pross stunk, and move on to more positive commentary...
Every SEINFELD fan is bound to have certain episodes on their Top 10 list, probably a few from season 4, which was just incredible. But probably no two top tens lists will be quite the same. Here's my picks, not ranked but rather listed chronologically (when you're that close to perfection, it's hard to choose among them what's "best")
1. "The Pen" (Season Three) My favorite of the many appearences of Jerry's parents. Jerry and Elaine jet down to Florida to be present for a shindig in Morty's honor, thrown by the condo association. All hell breaks loose over the most simple of comments, Jerry admiring crabby Jack Klompus's "space-age" pen (it can write *upside down*), Jack appearing to make a gift of it, and soon it is all over the condo community that Jerry "took" the pen. Meanwhile Elaine's back is out from sleeping on a crappy pull-out sofa, and why won't Jerry's parents ever use the air conditioning? She proceeds to take too many pain killers, which leads to her making a fool of herself at the dinner (*great* Brando impression, though!) So absolutely hilarious, you don't even notice that George and Kramer aren't in the episode.
2. "The Pez Dispenser" (Season Three) Lots of funny stuff happening in this one, from George's attempt at a "pre-emptive break-up" (he suspects his girlfriend is about to break up with him) to Elaine's lack of composure when a simple Tweety Bird pez dispenser breaks her up laughing in the middle of a somber piano concert. I also love the whole subplot about Elaine and Jerry's drug-addicted friend (which Kramer takes credit for) and the subsequent plans to stage an "interference".
3. "The Trip, Part Two" (Season Four) Jerry and George are in Los Angeles, looking for Kramer, and are shocked to learn he is arrested on suspicion of being a serial killer. Contains probably one of the best skits of the entire series, when Jerry calls 911 on a pay phone to protest his friend is innocent. Words can't describe how funny it is. Later they are in the back of a police cruiser, and acting like children. When another victim is killed, Kramer is released, and the three of them dance a happy gig, singing "cause the murderer struck again!" like it's the most wonderful thing imaginable.
4. "The Cheever Letters" (Season Four) The Constanzas always get all the attention, but I have always gotten a big kick out of the Rosses, Susan's parents (maybe I'm biased because they are played by Warren Frost and Grace Zeberskie, two great actors from TWIN PEAKS) In this episode, George and Susan rather clumsily break the news that Mr. Ross's beloved cabin has burned to the ground. Later, a rather shocking discovery is made about Mr. Ross in a letter written by the author John Cheever. Meanwhile, Jerry is making out with a girl who talks dirty, and he somehow blurts out "Are those the panties your mother laid out for you?" Which of course, causes her to leave in disgust. Elaine's final punchline never stops being funny, no matter how many times I watch it.
5. "The Contest" (Season Four) After George's mother catches him doing "it" (the word masturbation is never actually spoken in the episode) in the bathroom with a Glamour magazine at hand, the 4 friends enter a contest to see who can hold out the longest without doing "it". Wouldn't you know it, Jerry's dating a virgin, and a woman living across the street from him insists on walking around her apartment stark naked all the time...
6. "The Outing" (Season Four) A newspaper report misinterprets Jerry and George's close friendship, and reports that they are gay lovers. A great bit comes when she is almost convinced they aren't, but a crappy phone gifted by Kramer causes her to overhear more incriminating dialogue. Absolutely hysterical, and of course the originator of the immortal phrase, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
7. "The Opposite" (Season Five) In this great season finale, George is so depressed about his lot in life that he decides to do something drastic-- since every decision he has chosen in life has been disastrous, he will now do the exact opposite of what his brain tells him to do. Within minutes, he walks up to a beautiful woman at Monk's counter and says, "My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents." When she sets him up with a job interview with the New York Yankees, he lambasts Steinbrenner-- and is hired for his spunk! Meanwhile, everything is going horribly wrong with Elaine; she loses her apartment and her job, and by the end she bemoans, "I've become George! I'm George!" A classic.
8. "The Soup Nazi" (Season Seven) Infamous for its caricature of the real-life surly soup vendor of Manhattan, the Soup Nazi has a hair-trigger temper, and if you set him off its "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" (a line so funny I use the sound bite as the alarm signal on my Mac) Meanwhile, George and Elaine are sickened by all of the cutsie baby talk going on between Jerry and his new girlfriend (AKA "Shmoopie") Plus the debut of Ray and Cedric, the rather hostile gay couple who will repeatedly bully poor Kramer through the rest of the series' run.
9. "The Rye" (Season Seven) I knew I was going to love this one from the moment I heard the premise: George's and Susan's parents meet at last! The banality of the conversation about cornish game hens! When the Rosses forget to serve the marble rye which the Costanzas brought, Frank takes it back home with them! Desperately, George concocts a wacky scheme to get a replacement loaf back into the house, to throw suspicion away from his crazy parents. The nadir comes when Jerry actually stoops to mugging a stubborn old lady for her bread! Meanwhile Elaine's boyfriend finds that playing a saxaphone and "doing *everything*" (wink wink) during sex aren't completely compatible.
10. "The Butter Shave" (Season Nine) George sinks to one of his lowest levels yet-- pretending to be handicapped in order to get special treatment (including a spacious bathroom) at his new job. Jerry's irritation with Kenny Bania's riding of his coat tails grows to such levels, that he purposely puts on a completely horrible stand-up routine, in order to sabotage Bania. Elaine is trapped sitting next to Putty on an airplane for 18 hours, even though they have broken up during the trip. Poor "Vegetable Lasagna" is caught in the crossfire. The bit with Kramer shaving with butter and Newman's becoming hungered by the smell of him is the kind of cartoony plot I usually despise, but this time around it's worth it just for the shot of Michael Richards with the body of a cooked turkey. "Hey buddy!"
Well obviously it's hard to narrow down a great series like
SEINFELD to 10 shows, but
those above are guaranteed to make me laugh long and hard every single
time I watch
them. Probably tomorrow there will be two or three other episodes I'd
rather substitute
for the ones above, but all on this list are classics!
I'm glad that I've complied a collection of the episodes of the
show I've liked, weeding out the crappy ones. It's been hard, since the
syndicated reruns are not shown in order, but
piecing it together has been worth the effort. I've narrowed down one of
the greatest
comedies TV has ever seen to a mere 8 tapes, and I will always have
George, Kramer,
Elaine and Jerry to cheer me up and make me laugh, over and over again.