I have not been bashing Seinfeld this season, in fact, I think there have been many great eps, but boy, was the finale bad. I mean, seriously, maybe the worst episode ever, especially because of the hype and expectation, but not only because of that.
I think the main problems were:
Why the moralizing? We know these characters are shallow. We've seen all of their horrible exploits, and we love them that way. It's almost as if Larry David was apologizing for the characters he helped create by putting them on trial and finding them guilty of being the way they are.
It was basically just another clip show during the whole trial part. Yes, we've seen all of these situations and we loved them, but we didn't need to see these clips again, and I could have done without the parade of characters. To bring some of them back into this last show in a way that would have been more genuine and to perhaps have the group one-up their wrongs to them in some way would have been much better. Even the whole premise from the beginning, of the 'Jerry' show being picked up by NBC, was really just a rehash.
This was just not funny. There were a couple of brief moments early on, when Jerry and George almost hugged, and when George confessed to cheating in 'the contest', that hinted at what could have been a good final episode, but that was about it. None of the trial characters elicited any laughter beyond their clip scenes.
All in all, I would have preferred one more decent half-hour show, with no special significance or closure, to this pathetic ending. Got to love the series, but got to hate the finale.
Eric E.