Hello. I've just added alt.tv.seinfeld to my newsgroup. I'd like to post a letter I sent to amy the tv gal on aol when she was having a Seinfeld discussion. It basically discusses the "Backwards Episode" (I'm sure all of you have discussed this to death by now, but I hope you don't mind one more opinion), plus a couple of other points.
...I actually like SEINFELD quite a bit. I agree many aspects are, as you say, "over the top", but if they weren't, it probably would be a chore to get through. Put another way, the show isn't really about "nothing" anymore. During the SEINFELD CHRONICLES period, the show was about nothing, and they weren't that good. Take for example the Chinese restaurant episode (not sure if that was a CHRONICLES per se, but it's close enough). That was ponderous, lumbering; watching three people wait for a seat in a busy restaurant was exactly like waiting for a seat in a busy restaurant- i.e., it sucked (and by the way, Kramer wasn't in that episode, and if you ever wanted to see how valuable Mike Richards is to that show, juxtapose it with any Kramer-filled episode...you'd be amazed). SEINFELD is basically a show that explores everyday, prosaic occurences through a filter of Marx Bros./Monkees-like antics, and it needs this filter to keep an audience entertained; there's just no way around it.
I'd like to, however, make special mention of SEINFELD at its lowest: last Thursday's so-called BACKWARDS EPISODE. It was horrible, it was repugnant, but worse...it was arrogant. I happen to dabble in the whole spec manuscript thing, and it slays me that the writers at the show, who are probably the beneficiaries of nepotistic/cronyistic grails, had the nerve to invert the laws of comedic physics by presenting the punchlines first and then the setups? Why did they automatically think that editing the scenes from back to front was just so SEINFELD? It doesn't make any sense, it seems like a neophytic knee-jerk reaction. They apparently are so daunted by the prospects of the malefic demigod known as "the Sweeps" that they felt they had to do something really wacky. Guess what...it was really sucky. And the whole India setup...it was silly, even for SEINFELD. But, hey, what do I know? Those writers eat better than I do, so I guess I'm the loser. I'll just send my spec scripts out and have them returned in their puke-brown manila envelopes, knowing that next sweeps period SEINFELD and its writers will do yet another arrogant gimmick-episode which would've been better off in an arena like David Letterman's show (remember when he had the revolving show which did a 360? Stuff like going backwards works in that type of medium, but not in situation comedy) while I remain unoptioned.
Oh well...I'll still watch the show, I guess. It is good...just watch out for the hubris!