they were self-centered and petty. isn't that why we watched?

i have a lot of problems with the final episode, but my biggest is with the "message" of the episode itself. it's bad enough there was a "message" at all for a show that prided itself on NOT having messages (as many have pointed out), but the message could at least have been an original one. or at least an interesting one. or a fair one.

seeing the four main characters punished for their sins seems intended, to me, as an attempt to "warn" the audience about how shallow and superficial the characters are, and not to look at them as role models.

well, what great comedy characters are role models? the essence of virtually all great comic characters is that they are deeply flawed. their flaws are what make us laugh, and our laughter is what makes us like them. we don't like shallow, insensitive characters on tv; we like shallow, insensitive characters who MAKE US LAUGH.

was archie bunker a role model? sam malone? dianne chambers? maxwell smart? reverend jim? ralph kramden? the list could go on and on.

there are exceptions, of course. cliff huxtable on the cosby show, or andy griffith. but most comedy characters, if described objectively, would be considered highly neurotic or troubled human beings in real life.

so what?

this is the message that wraps up 9 years of nothing?

maybe mr. david's point was that the message was nothing too. hats off to him. more of that brilliantly subtle irony we've come to expect from seinfeld. (?!?)

i, for one think, he completely lost touch with the show he helped create.

--gary

W.Gary Wetstein wrote:

I have to disagree with you on that. I don't see it as a warning about role models. Who thinks of these 4 as role models?? In the last nine years they have been shown to be anything but. I think, as other people here have said that it was finally time for them to get their just desserts.

Trish

W. Gary Wetstein wrote:

Good takes across the board - finally someone with something intelligent to say about the finale. Most people I talk to come up with the same opinion - that the idea of the ending far surpassed the execution. Like you said, it was the trying to send a message that mucked everything up. The "nothing" part of the show was about something - comedy.

The other "regular" episodes usually tied up the parts, the two or three almost equal story lines together [not particularly with each other] at the end of each show. Outside of the small "how and when and what kind of phone call to make when someone's father's in the hospital" and "water in my ear" story lines, there was just one main thrust of the finale. Instead of quick hit jokes and bouncing back and forth between one inane situation to the other, we we're focused on just the trial. And it couldn't stand up to our scrutiny. And therefore everyone complained that it was too long or boring. Other episodes have had one main story line [when they go to India for the wedding - the "backward" episode, e.g.] and they've worked.

Which brings us back to the "trial" trying to "say" something as the probable main reason for the finale's failure. And just as important, it took too long to come to the point.