quote:
I thought the finale of Seinfeld was a betrayal of the ethos of the show: no lessons, no hugging. Instead, it makes the whole show a morality play. Worse yet, the episode was a clip show/greatest hits package.

Good points, but I'm not sure I agree with your overall mindset.

-For starters, Seinfeld was on top of the entire universe when it signed off so it would be next to impossible to make a finale that would live up to the hype. It's a bit easier to do with dramas than it is for lighthearted sitcoms.
-I don't think the finale tried to give us lessons in the finale, unless you consider "they broke the law and went to jail" a lesson of sorts. And there definitely wasn't hugging...they were convicted and are serving time. And what put them there was making fun of a fat dude while being mugged. You kinda make it soudn like it reverted to a full-house inspired feel good episode which is most certainly was not.
-As far as making it a morality play..meh. Part 2 of the episode was mainly demonstrating what bad people they were which I guess you can say was a morality play. But they were bad people for most of the show's run. I didn't really see anything different here.
-Part 1 wasn't a clip show at all and was just a regular episode. The second half you can say devolved into a greatest hits, but what's wrong with that? We got to see a ton of classic and loved characters that we otherwise wouldn't, and they did it organically within the confines of the plot. It's not like they were just walking down the street and bumped into the soup nazi and caught up on old times.
-The final scene of the series is the same conversation they were having in the opening scene, prompting george to ask "haven't we had this conversation before?" Full frickin circle! I honestly can't think of a better last few seconds they could have possibly come up with than that.