Seinfeld: Season 4

Season 4 of Seinfeld is often considered the show's peak. It's the year it finally caught on in the ratings and also the year it won an Emmy for being the best comedy series. I can certainly agree that it was the greatest season I've seen so far. It contained a number of memorable episodes, including the classic, "The Contest." Part of the reason this season was so great was its use of continuity and story arcs. It's still the same old lovable "show about nothing," sure, but now the "nothing" spans several episodes. The season-long plot was another thing of beauty. Jerry is approached by NBC executives to create a TV pilot. This worked on a number of levels, most notably the level that, of course, the real life Jerry Seinfeld had been asked to do the same thing years before - hence the show's very existence. Since real Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David incorporated so much of their real lives into Seinfeld, it only makes sense that character Jerry and George (really, the "character" version of Larry David) would be asked to write a pilot the same way real Jerry and Larry were. The show really seemed to come into its own this season. Season 2 ended much better than it began, and Season 3 was good too, but this season definitely outdid the previous two DVD volumes I watched. A couple of minor complaints I have include the first six episodes being two-parters. Three straight "to be continued" endings or hour long episodes? What is this, Season 4 of The Office? I didn't care for that decision. Also, the other thing that irked me a bit was the studio audience's applause every episode when Kramer first appeared. That just felt very tacky and 1960s to me. Yeah, Kramer is a lovable and goofy character, but rounds of applause every time he energetically slid through Jerry's door seemed like overkill to me. Season 4 also marks the first time Elaine's ridiculous hair stopped bothering me. Anyway, I've now seen four seasons of the show, and while it still isn't quite the barrel of laughs I was hoping for after watching seven seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, I'm definitely capable now of accepting it for what it is and enjoying it plenty. As far as I know, Season 5 doesn't regress at all from Season 4's peak, and hopefully I'm in for a several-season plateau of greatness.