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(Originally posted February 2024)

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Oh…. h-heh, oops. Didn’t see ya there ^ᵕ^”’

I started watching thru Seinfeld on dvd and I’m going to talk about it. Here.
The first season is only five episodes so I’ll talk about all of them.

EP 1 – THE SEINFELD CHRONICLES

This is the pilot episode of the show. An acquaintance calls Jerry (Seinfeld) to tell him she’s coming to New York. Jerry thinks there’s some kind of opportunity for romance, while his friend George is adamant that she doesn’t plan on seeing him.
The episode focuses a lot on Jerry and George’s dynamic, which is the show’s greatest strength in this season. Jerry has the on-screen charisma of a beaver, meanwhile Jason Alexander as George is bouncing off the walls, flailing around with cartoonish gestures. Entertains me a bit…
Kramer is also in the show, but they don’t have him figured out. His name is Kessler and he’s framed as an eccentric recluse. His golden retriever was unfortunately killed in a bicycle accident after this episode.

EP 2 – MALE UNBONDING

In this show Jerry gets sick of a longtime friend who he wishes to not see anymore. George encourages him to “break up” with him. Kramer’s calling around trying to pitch a restaurant where you cook your own pizza, and there’s a great scene later in the show of everyone arguing whether or not the idea is worthwhile. Some great stuff from George too.
This episode also introduces Elaine, the fourth main cast member. She and Jerry have some charismatic banter in his apartment, and they casually drop the info that they used to be in a relationship while talking to Jerry’s friend. I thought it was a great way to do it without being annoying and beating it over our heads.

EP 3 – THE STAKEOUT

This one basically does Elaine’s introduction but the exact opposite by beating us over the head with the facts and making their interactions kinda awkward and tense.
Jerry wants to pursue a girl, but doesn’t want to ask Elaine for help. So he decides to go on a stakeout with George at her workplace.
Instead of the sensible option of having George give Jerry the stupid idea like usual, they instead have Jerry’s parents stay over for a semantic reason and have this pace murdering scene where they mull over the situation, and his dad gives him the idea.
The stakeout itself is the highlight though. Jerry and George are having this stupid conversation trying to problem solve. Trying to come up with a reason that they’re in this lady’s building, George wants to pretend to be an architect. The five minute clip on Youtube is a better watch than the real thing.

EP 4 – THE ROBBERY

Jerry gets his TV stolen when he’s out of town, and George tries to sell him on a new apartment (he’s in real estate I guess). But George starts to want it too, so they argue a bunch and yell about coin flip semantics. Fine enough. Weird how so many shows tend to have a looking for a new house episode early on. Or maybe it’s just like three shows…

EP 5 – THE STOCK TIP

There’s some amusing banter in this one as usual, but the plot is kind of a mess. George gets a tip to invest in a certain stock, he shares it with Jerry, who ends up pulling out while the stock is down. At the same time Jerry is going out with the girl he stakeouted in ep 3, and wants to go on a long trip to Vermont with her. They go on the trip, and have a miserable time (over the course of one scene), and that’s basically it. Then he goes home and George made money off the stock so he’s smoking big cigars.

SEASON 1 THOUGHT?

Weirdly not a great start. There’s great moments with the characters but the stories themselves aren’t very good. The best episodes I’ve seen usually involve taking an awkward social situation or observation and pushing it to the extreme until its absurd. We kinda get that in episode two with Jerry breaking up with his guy friend, but the show rarely explores that avenue in this season. At least it was short.

🐒See you next post!🐒