Finally finished Seinfeld - My thoughts on the show

To jump off of my OP.. one complaint

Why did they drop the cold opening stand up spots for spots with the cast members? It seemed really forced and quick.. I was not a fan of it at all

quote:

---

Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer were very terrible human beings

---

This is what made the show so great. They were terrible people that you couldn't help but like. Seinfeld is the precursor to Always Sunny in that respect, but ASIP took that and brought it to another level of debauchery.


I personally hated the finale. I get what they were trying to do by making fun of finale cliches that we see so often, but it fell very flat. I don't care if it is open ended or not given the series, but I expected so much better than this.


Cheers is still the greatest finale of all time. It was the perfect sendoff that had both closure and a sense that life still went on. Justified is up there as well.

You can easily say they are horrible people but I prefer to think of them as indifferent to everyone except their group and that’s why they were put on trial. Almost as if they were moving through the world in their own personal bubbles

This is partially true.

Seinfeld is on record multiple times saying that it became too difficult to write & perform good enough stand-up lines week to week to keep up with the episode filming & writing schedule that also didn't take away the best jokes from the show itself.

Even the show itself poked some fun at itself over the "show about nothing" moniker. After the first 2 seasons, I get the moniker, but they went away from that formula in the third season and never really went back to it.

I thought the finale was perfectly fine. A lot of people seem to take major issue with teh fact they brought back former cast, but that seems a strange thing to be upset about. I liked that it gave the fans something to enjuoy by seeing some of the old favorites. It would also be extremely un-seinfeld like to do somethign over the top like have someone get married or have all the cast move to a new city and start life anew like we see in so many other series finales. And in absolutely PERFECT seinfeld fashion, the final scene is the exact same conversation as the opener in teh pilot, wiht george then saying "haven't we had thsi conversation before?" That was about as fitting of an end as you could want. I think that most of the people who say "omg the finale suuckkkeeed!!!!!" just went in with unrealistically high expectations that were out of the stratosphere and pretty much anythign would fall short of them.

quote:

---

How did they wrong the Soup Nazi? Jackie Chiles? Babu? The Bubble Boy? Bania? I mean, I loved the fact they brought everyone back, but the list of witnesses was somewhat composed of people who were at least as bad as they supposedly were.

---

Not a great fan of the show, although I did enjoy it the rare times I watched it. However I do remember how Jerry screwed Babu over.

First it was the Dream Cafe - Babu was running it, apparently successfully, with a broad range of cuisines that his customers liked and wanted. Jerry suggested that he should change over to an all-Pakistani menu in order to be “authentic”, and the business failed (apparently Pakistani cuisine sucks).

Then, in a later episode, Babu is threatened with deportation and Jerry assures him that he will attend his hearing and support his request for renewal of his green card. Of course he gets caught up in some meaningless situation and forgets, and the episode ends with Babu vowing revenge as he is being flown back to his native land.

Dont know about the others, but Babu had reason to be pissed.

quote:

---

First it was the Dream Cafe - Babu was running it, apparently successfully, with a broad range of cuisines that his customers liked and wanted. Jerry suggested that he should change over to an all-Pakistani menu in order to be “authentic”, and the business failed (apparently Pakistani cuisine sucks).

---

First of all, it wasn't successful at all. The beginnign of the episode they're joking that that location is a black hole that is constantly changing hands and never successful. Jerry is looking out the window watching as apparently no one goes. He even makes a reference about the cafe serving mexican, american, italian, etc and all over the place. He says that maybe nobody goes in because people want ot see a restaurant that has people in it, which is why he starts going in the firs tplace. It was actually Jerry's kindness that made him even meet babu. Later on, with still zero business happening, jerry suggested maybe being authentic pakistani food. On the fact of it it's not a bad suggestion, and obviously the "anything goes" menu wasn't working. Blame babu for taking the offhand suggestion of a single customer and completely changing his business model.

quote:

---

Then, in a later episode, Babu is threatened with deportation and Jerry assures him that he will attend his hearing and support his request for renewal of his green card. Of course he gets caught up in some meaningless situation and forgets,

---

This also wasn't jerry's fault. I can't remember specifically but it was something to do with mail; either the deport notice was put in a wrong mailbox by mistake, or someone was checking jerry's mail and forgot to give it to him. Can't remember specifically but I do remember that jerry didn't even get the notice until much too late.

quote:

---

but Babu had reason to be pissed.

---

Babu came from another counrty with the idea to open a restaurant that served all cuisnes. It got zero business at all. He then changed it to his home cuisine and still got no business. And apparently the only person that could help him from being deported was the one regular loyal customer that did frequent the place. That sounds like Babu didn't plan very well or didn't have any other allies than Jerry. He should be pissed at himself.

The perfect finale for Seinfeld would've just been another random episode.

There were never really story arcs for the characters, and they only had one season — the one where they were working on the sitcom pilot — where they had continuity and a season arc.

As years have gone by, I've gotten more and more okay with the finale they ended up having. It was a decent way of bringing back several of the characters they'd screwed over throughout the years and reinforcing that the core four were terrible, narcissistic human beings.