I've watched lots of Seinfeld on shuffle in the past, but recently decided to take it from the top.
Rating and reviewing 180 episodes ostensibly about nothing wasn't a chore I felt like putting myself through, so I decided to just enjoy watching it like some kind of normal person, only stressing over choosing some interchangeable favourites as it went along.
George's latest work scam that could be easily resolved if he only asked for clarification provides hope for the lazy moochers of the world, before that theme gets overdone in future years. Meanwhile, Jerry dangerously sees a better barber on the side, in one of those thematic twists on mundane domestic troubles that the middle years nailed best, before wacky became the new normal.
Seinfeld achieves peak silliness as George fails to achieve another lifelong ambition, with an inspired climax that every episode of The IT Crowd failed to better. Meanwhile, Elaine eats a sixty-year-old cake and the cops cover up for a serial killer who's hilariously decapitating people in the park because they can't agree on an inappropriate nickname. Fake Seinfeld Plots seems less far-fetched the longer the series goes on.
Well-meaning but thoughtless Jerry accidentally destroys an immigrant's livelihood, George and Elaine commit IQ test fraud and Kramer's rightfully hunted down for jacket theft. They might not go full evil for another few years, but it was a gradual progression. All of these plots interact in brief but significant ways.
The semi-serialised fourth season is an especially satisfying year to binge watch, and this grand finale stays on the right side of masturbatory metafiction to not be alienating, even if you haven't done the background reading to get all the in-jokes and frustrations, though naturally that makes it better.
An insignificant flaw in a thoughtful gift succinctly symbolises all of these picky pricks' preoccupations across nine years. George is in the right, for once, but then he has to go and have sex with the cleaner to complicate things. The mawkish resolution's a bit cringey, but they get away with it because it's Christmas.
The show's zany final year is deservedly criticised, but the willingness to push boundaries leads to the occasional classic too. I'm easily won over by a structural gimmick, but the backwards narrative is used to its full advantage to tease with pay-offs before clarifying the set-ups. It even takes the opportunity to clear up an age-old continuity error.
George finds himself in another stupid mess he could just politely ask his way out of. It's the theme of the season at large. Meanwhile, the search for Jerry's missing car surreally becomes a murder investigation for a while and Kramer and Newman commit themselves to a trifling scheme that's not worth the effort of the calculations, let alone the gas. It gets surprisingly tense for something so silly.
They're not pretending that these are actually real people any more, but George's irresponsible scheme to turn his life around is potentially inspirational regardless. The cosmic ramifications of George becoming successful as the universe seeks to restore balance brings further paranormal delight.
Larry David's coy classic embraces and exaggerates the puritanical hypocrisy of network censorship more than it strictly had to. That sense of naughtiness makes it all the funnier, and it's the nocturnal montages with no dialogue that get the heartiest laughs, because you can pat yourself on the back for getting the joke. I wonder how parents explained it to any young kids watching.
1. The Marine Biologist (5x14)
What seems like a defining example of writing backwards from the pay-off was apparently the result of last-minute inspiration instead. It's bizarre to think that Hauge & Rubin wrote a story that featured Kramer whacking golf balls irresponsibly into the sea and George having to save a mysteriously beached whale because he's dug himself too deep into another self-destructive lie, without those dots being connected until Seinfeld & David's masterful edit. That's why they had one of the most successful sitcoms of all time, I guess.Episodes where an over-excitable audience member shouts 'Kramer!' to announce that Kramer has entered: 'The Good Samaritan,' 'The Wallet.'
Episodes with jokes about airline food: 'The Wallet,' 'The Airport,' 'The Summer of George' (self-parody).
Episodes where Jerry asks what the deal is with something: 'The Fire,' 'The Abstinence' (self-parody), 'The Summer of George' (self-parody), 'The Butter Shave' (self-parody).
Episodes where an audience member gets caught up in the peril and shrieks 'oh no!': 'The Barber.'
Best: George.
