Seinfeld: Season 9

Webber just posted about the final season of what I believe to be the best comedy of the '00s. Now, allow me to reflect on the final season of what many believe to be the best comedy of the '90s. Since I've already talked about the show at length, and since this season was really no worse than the previous five or six in my opinion, let's just cut to the chase and talk about the series finale. It's no secret that it was met with nearly unanimous criticism. I hope you won't consider it a spoiler for me to talk about the episode - 75 million people tuned in back in 1998, so really, if you haven't heard about it by now I'd be impressed. Anyway, as you probably already know, the hour-long final episode has the gang being arrested for breaking some bullshit misrepresentation of a "Good Samaritan" law and then tried and found guilty by a jury of their peers. They all wind up going to prison. And that's how the series ends. Even 12 years later, I totally understand the disappointment. Seinfeld was the #1 show in America when it ended. The showrunners made the rare and commendable decision to go out on their own terms. And these were the terms they chose? The whole thing felt rather clip-show-esque and, really, not all that funny. And I'm not saying the Seinfeld finale should have been touching or emotional (in fact I'm glad it was neither of these things), but why spend the show's final hour reminding the audience what terrible people the four main characters are? The beauty of Seinfeld was how easily we could all relate to it. The characters only acted as self-centered and shallow as we wish we could behave without being caught by society's judgmental eye. In essence, the finale said that these characters were all reprehensible people - which was true - but without meaning to do so, the finale thus produced an enormous moral compass we'd never even seen on Seinfeld before. It didn't really fit with the mood of the rest of the show. I'm not smug enough to think I could have come up with an ideal series finale, but plenty of possibilities existed that were better than what they actually put forth. On the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David put together a Seinfeld reunion special. I'd love to see that actually come to fruition, especially given the actual closure we received regarding the foursome. I think the Curb episode's Seinfeld reunion may actually be considered canon in the Seinfeld universe. And hey, I'll take it; the actual Seinfeld finale kind of sucked. Oh well. It was a sitcom; the point was never the ending but the episodes along the way. And those were, for the most part, great. I guess now I can compare Seinfeld to other great comedies from my lifetime. But the question is, does it even compare to other great comedies from my lifetime? Sounds blasphemous, I know, but I'll say the following. Larry David's other project, Curb Your Enthusiasm, has a similar tone but superior humor (thanks in no small part to its home being HBO instead of network TV). It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a contemporary show about horrible and selfish people, and it makes me laugh far more than Seinfeld. Perhaps we should focus on networks, however, where comparisons are easier. Fine. On FOX, Arrested Development was amazing. But that's all I can come up with, and it only lasted three seasons. Had it lasted nine seasons - and what a dream that would have been - who's to say it could have kept up the pace? Seinfeld may have been about nothing, but that's what made it so easy to keep it going year after year. Nine years, and still the #1 show in the country? That's not just impressive; that's something we'll never see again. Keep in mind that it had a laugh track and a multi-camera set-up, and we can immediately narrow down its genre and remove Curb, Sunny, Arrested, and even shows like The Office and 30 Rock from the discussion. With this more-defined constraint in place, what's left when it comes to discussing the greatest "traditional" sitcom of my lifetime? Really, just Friends. And Seinfeld was better than Friends in most respects. But not all of them. But I'm not about to get into a Seinfeld versus Friends debate with myself on a dying blog that nobody reads. Seriously, guys - where are you?