Forgetting Nothing
By Jamie Malanowski
Nine years is a long time to spend with friends. And whether the episodes were brilliant (often) or formulaic (a little too frequently lately), they were almost always better than any other show on TV.
THE SEINFELD CHRONICLES Aired 7/5/89. The series pilot: there is no Elaine, there is a different hangout and a different apartment, and George and Kramer are unformed. Fresh and funny, but luckily the show went away and revamped.
THE PHONE MESSAGE Aired 2/13/91. Jerry loses a girlfriend--one of dozens--for a slim reason: she likes Dockers commercials. The early shows are smart about relationships; even if these people are neurotic, you really do want them for friends.
THE DEAL Aired 5/2/91. Ex-lovers Jerry and Elaine work out rules under which they can still have sex. A signal from the first full season of the show's ambition and precocity.
THE CHINESE RESTAURANT Aired 5/23/91. The anti-sitcom: no contrived plots, in fact no plots at all: these people can be funny just waiting to be seated.
THE PEN/THE LIBRARY The first aired 10/2/91, the second 10/16/91. In these early episodes from the third season, fans begin to see that there is a Seinfeld universe, inhabited by odd relatives and weirdos and exaggeratos, governed by the law of unintended consequences. Good deeds not only go unrewarded, they are in fact punished.
THE BOYFRIEND Aired 2/12/92. Elaine dates Keith Hernandez, but the key moment is a spitting incident that is used to send up Oliver Stone's JFK. A bit of a stretch, but proof of the show's stunning reach.
THE BEST SEASON Season 4 (1992-93) is the series' smartest: Kramer in L.A.; Jerry and George's "show about nothing"; the show in which Susan's father is revealed to be John Cheever's lover; The Master of My Domain episode; The Virgin and The Bubble Boy shows. A mix of high and low, of the self-referential and the hip, of things underfoot and out of left field.
THE RAINCOATS Aired 4/28/94. The episode that ends with a takeoff on Schindler's List. Funny enough, but the cranky gang of four has already roasted a sacred cow this way. The show, though still far from formulaic, is losing the originality that first made us love it.
THE SOUP NAZI Aired 11/2/95. A famous episode, though not one that's all that funny. But Seinfeld is still resilient. Within weeks we see classic moments like Elaine discussing sponge-worthy men and Jerry stealing bread.
THE INVITATIONS Aired 5/16/96. Susan, George's fiance, dies licking envelopes. Audacious, cruelly funny, this is the episode that dares the audience to love the characters for their shallowness, and it is perhaps the last time the show is so sharply funny about relationships. By the way, this also marks the end of co-creator Larry David's involvement with the show.
THE LITTLE KICKS Aired 10/10/96. Typical of this season, a golden moment (Elaine's horrid dancing) is mixed with a thin idea (Jerry as a bootleg video auteur). And before long, the awful Mandelbaums would appear.
THE YADA YADA Aired 4/24/97. A hallmark of a great show is its ability to penetrate the culture. This episode created a lot of buzz, but Yada Yada is rather dumber than Master of My Domain. Besides, the real killer moment comes when Jerry goes to confession.
THE BETRAYAL Aired 11/20/97. Emblematic of this final season in which the show has consistently failed to hit on all cylinders. The backwards episode was clever and original, but not actually amusing. Let's hope the series rallies for its stretch run.
--By Jamie Malanowski