"This was a very bad finale, a very bad finale!"�a purposeful misquote of Babu from the last SEINFELD episode.
The climax of one of the best, most successful television series in the history of the medium has been screened, and I'd like to present forth a critical thesis I'm betting echoes the thoughts of the legion of viewers who invested the time and energy to view it: it was an utter, abysmal, abject failure. The failure of the show can be examined on several levels, both macro and micro, and I'd like to touch upon a few during this post. To state the most encompassing reason why the show fell far below expectations (in fact, it is still falling, destined to never reach a final destination point due to the bottomless pit it's found itself in) is to remind the reader of what he/she saw before the main event- namely, the forty-five minute retrospective tape. What followed the presentation of the retrospective was, itself, a retrospective in its own right, and herein lies the big problem: by mixing mediums, it is impossible to pull something like a finale off. Think about it: the show wanted to be a nexus where all the individual elements (characters, buzzlines, scenarios, etc.) of the sum total of the series would come together and intersect and be afforded one more opportunity at a curtain call, to take one last bow, if you will�this was a recipe for disaster. Why? Because the last episode is not supposed to be a fictional conglomeration of everything that came before it, rendered in exactly the same fashion; that's too tacky, too boring, and it invites into the viewer's mind an endless parade of distractions, wherein the viewer attempts to guess what's going to happen next or what character from the past are we going to see now. It was too conspicious of an attempt to force nostalgia down the throats of the fans, a vain attempt at second-guessing the audience, thinking they want to see a syrupy mosaic quilt of all their favorite characters because that's the tradition of a final episode�silliness. Witnessing quick, fleeting glimpses of bubble boy and the virgin and the old lady who was accosted by Jerry for the bread was an exercise in tedium and lethargy.
Another issue to contend with is the woefully self-conscious aspect to the episode; how many times were we hit over the head with forced reminders that SEINFELD was always considered a cultural juggernaut based on the creative premise of being about nothing? Example: the phone etiquette with Elaine and her friend; it was about nothing, yes, but it wasn't funny. Another example: Kramer with the rogue water in his ear canal. Yet another example: George's obsession with the Heinz 57, or lack thereof. In fact, all the time leading up to the carjacking was like that, and it was wrong, just dead wrong; including these jokes just because they were trying to make a statement about what others thought the show was did not make for an enjoyable experience. And the allegorical statement they were trying to make with the whole carjacking premise, that they stood around and did nothing while it was going on. That they did nothing. They did nothing. So clever (you know, I can imagine what it must have been like at Rob Reiner's house, watching the last episode of SEINFELD; he and all his other Castle Rock/entertainment-biz cronies must have had some sore vocal cords from all the canned, obligatory laughter they were synthesizing for an hour and fifteen minutes).
And speaking about putting people on trial, how about Larry David�I personally charge him with the crime of ignorant arrogance, and I find him eminently guilty. The man has proved himself to be a fluke, one whose talent comes and goes; when he hits gold, it is because of the luck of the draw; when he hits lead, we see the true inner essence of his skills appear. Do I say this to be mean, because I think I'm above him? No way, it's nothing personal against him, and I respect him. But, honestly, I was annoyed tonight, I was annoyed at the missed opportunity the finale presented, and how he messed it up. Why was he the sole writer of the episode? Something this significant demanded the attention of three/four co-writers, easily. But I can imagine what was going on in his head as he wrote the episode: he desired to do something atypical while at the same time paying homage to the series he co-created and never once thinking about the viewer, never once. Arrogance. Ignorance. He thought he knew how to do it, he thought he was the only one. And he did it, all right, I'll give him that, he did it: he made a slow, plodding, irregularly executed episode which was boring and tenacious and lacking all at once. Why couldn't he have gone the simple route instead of thinking he was creating the Taj Mahal? Why not just make a quality episode which would have provided some hints of closure without actually coming out and saying so? He was on the right track with the notion of bringing back the pilot (in fact, I had previously posted about bringing back the pilot device to end the series); instead, he veered off on a trajectory that made the show look like a yearbook- and we all know that the only people who care about the yearbook are the aboriginal graduates the 'book documents.
I look upon this episode like that Indian of public-service-announcement-past looked upon the polluted landscapes before him�with a tear in my eye�