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Seinfeld on All4

Started by Bad Ambassador, February 11, 2020, 10:27:42 AM

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Twonty Gostelow

Quote from: icehaven on January 08, 2021, 06:55:44 PM
Is there an edit without the bass? I'm near the end of my second watch through and it's driving me insane, although perversely I suspect I'd miss it. Can't win.
Finding out the bass was actually a keyboard was when I decided I was finished with modern music.

Icehaven

Quote from: Twonty Gostelow on January 08, 2021, 08:18:42 PM
Finding out the bass was actually a keyboard was when I decided I was finished with modern music.

Oh my god! This somehow makes it even worse, knowing they could have used any effect the keyboard had and went with "Some bloke with his shirt tucked into his jeans slapping away at a bass with a technical ability that far outweighs his musicality."

El Unicornio, mang

Worse than that (although thankfully only for an episode) is the fake keyboard bark noise they use in the one where Jerry has to look after the dog. Was it really that hard for them to find an actual recording of a dog barking?

imitationleather

Quote from: icehaven on January 09, 2021, 02:18:19 PM
Oh my god! This somehow makes it even worse, knowing they could have used any effect the keyboard had and went with "Some bloke with his shirt tucked into his jeans slapping away at a bass with a technical ability that far outweighs his musicality."

Here's the video that shattered the illusion for millions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVldNNHQWVw

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on January 09, 2021, 02:21:36 PM
Worse than that (although thankfully only for an episode) is the fake keyboard bark noise they use in the one where Jerry has to look after the dog. Was it really that hard for them to find an actual recording of a dog barking?

I could be misremembering, but didn't an offscreen Larry David provide "bark" sounds? Or is that the joke?

Captain Poodle Basher

I'm in the middle of Series 7 and am finding it a bit of a grind.

Mostly down to George being an OTT cunt.

He seems to have lost his subtlety down the back of Jerry's couch.

thr0b

Aye, George changes; I'm not sure it's the writing though, it just seems that Jason makes the performance much more theatrical than in earlier years, and plays to the audience.

samadriel

George gets really loud in the final season, I remember getting pretty tired of him in the episode at the car dealership, even though it's a good episode and he's even fairly funny in it. Just so much shouting! Ditto The Apology, also in the final season. I wouldn't say he's at that level in season 7 though.

EOLAN

Jumping to the finale midway through a season five rewatch, George is probably the worst thing in it when viewed in that context. Frank Costanza made up for it though.

Bernice

It feels sometimes like Jason Alexander is sensing that he's on the cusp of taking of taking the mantle of 'breakout character' from Kramer and decides to play to the gallery to assure that. The writing gets big and silly enough to support it in later seasons (for the most part), but I season 7ish is an uncomfortable point between Alexander going big and the writing catching up with him.

That's interesting, I always think of George as getting better and better with each consecutive season. The early seasons he's so clearly doing a borderline Woody Allen impersonation.

Bernice

I absolutely prefer later George to early George (where I think Alexander has even admitted he's just doing Woody Allen), but his performance definitely gets very big. I could never work out if in the Curb reunion he's doing a parody of his performance, or if in the intervening years he's forgotten everything but the shouting. Probably the former.

Isn't he a bit of a tosser in real life, the hair pieces, the singing, look at me I'm a real actor.

Bernice

Ah, he's probably fine. He is very showbiz, in a way that can be a bit off-putting (and probably feeds into The Increasing Bigness of George), but he's always happy to talk about how lucky he was to fall into a phenomenon like Seinfeld

wrec

His appearance on Marc Maron's podcast is worth a listen. He comes across as very self aware and likeable. His big passion is musical theatre and that kind of puts him in perspective. He mentioned that he was really insecure in college, and was amazed when his girlfriend told him her friends found him arrogant - he'd defensively projected a swaggering persona without realising it, and the fact that people bought it made him realise he had acting chops (if I'm remembering correctly).

That reminds me of JLD being interviewed by Maron, she was pleasant but with a slight and completely normal professional distance, which sent Maron into a needy neurotic spiral about them not "connecting"

Icehaven

Just finished my second watch through, and I can see a bit now why the dislike for the final episode is widespread, it is pretty off-tone and focusses too much on side characters. I don't hate it, but it is a bit of a shame.

Bernice

We've probably already done it to death, but the biggest sin of the last episode is just that it isn't funny. It doesn't even feel like it tries to be - the gag rate is way lower than a standard ep.

Ham Bap

Any sign or mention of this coming to Netflix yet?

It was announced about 18 months ago but no mention or date since.
Im preparing myself for the avalanche of 'Seinfeld is now problematic' articles ready to go when it does come to Netflix.

St_Eddie

#528
Quote from: Bernice on January 22, 2021, 07:34:56 PM
We've probably already done it to death, but the biggest sin of the last episode is just that it isn't funny. It doesn't even feel like it tries to be - the gag rate is way lower than a standard ep.

The whole thing just came across as an excuse to wheel on fan favourites and have them retell the synopsis for the episode they originally appeared in and to repeat their respective famous line from that episode.  It was utter arse and the only way I'm able to glean any kind of enjoyment from the episode at all is to go along with the popular fan theory that they all died in a plane crash at the start of the episode, went on trial in purgatory, only to wind up in an eternal hell of each other's company at the end.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Ham Bap on January 22, 2021, 08:29:14 PM
Im preparing myself for the avalanche of 'Seinfeld is now problematic' articles ready to go when it does come to Netflix.

Littlecock's already written[nb]I say "written", I actually mean "done a search/replace on the last time he wrote this column".[/nb] his "Now Seinfeld's cancelled!" column in response to the "This episode contains some outdated attitude" warnings I reckcon.

Quote from: Ham Bap on January 22, 2021, 08:29:14 PM
Any sign or mention of this coming to Netflix yet?

It was announced about 18 months ago but no mention or date since.

This announcement from about 14 months ago gave a date; no reason to think the contract was nullified or changed since.

Ham Bap

Quote from: Poison To The Mind on January 23, 2021, 06:24:54 AM
This announcement from about 14 months ago gave a date; no reason to think the contract was nullified or changed since.

Ah very good. I didn't see the June date anywhere.


colacentral

Quote from: Bernice on January 22, 2021, 07:34:56 PM
We've probably already done it to death, but the biggest sin of the last episode is just that it isn't funny. It doesn't even feel like it tries to be - the gag rate is way lower than a standard ep.

The whole structure of it is antithetical to the typical structure of a Seinfeld episode and what makes it good. Instead of 4 small plots for each of the main characters which weave in and out of each other, with the guest stars popping in and out in turn, the four of them are stuck together for the whole thing while the guest stars are wheeled on one after another to say their catchphrase on a boring court room set. It feels so tired. I can't imagine that the cast didn't know it was a bad episode while they were filming it, as it's just not fun at all.

If they hadn't already done it, I think the season 4 finale would have been the only version of a finale they could do which would have both felt like an episode of Seinfeld while still having some finality to it - Jerry and George achieve their dream of getting a sitcom, but it gets cancelled after one episode.

Icehaven

#534
I was just reading this article
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/09/channel-4-ramy-golden-globes

about a new sitcom on All4 which had caught my eye as the headline is "A masterful, Golden Globe-winning sitcom where nothing happens.", which sounded familiar, and it does sound like it's definitely worth giving it a go as well. However it's maybe a sign of the writer's age I suppose but I was surprised there was literally no mention of Seinfeld at all, and these paragraphs...

QuoteYou know the type: the lead is a comedian playing more-or-less themselves (their character always shares the same name), and they bumble around the city being in their 20s and making telegraphed-from-afar mid-20s interpersonal mistakes, and not making jokes exactly but not not making jokes...

QuoteOne thing I should mention is: Ramy does follow the modern trend of what I'm calling "ambient comedy", where the main character rarely creates the laughs, much of the humour coming from them playing a quasi-straight man to a host of weird and wonderful characters – a boorish uncle, an intensely kinky first date, a friend's mum whom he offends while stoned – and it moves slowly and surely and sometimes not at all, episodes occasionally ending with nothing having really happened (see also Atlanta, or Girls).

...even have the author thinking he's describing and coining a phrase for what he believes to be a 'modern trend' which is actually a near-textbook description of a 30 year old comedy he's either never heard of or is choosing not to mention for some reason (although granted the characters are a bit older). I know this always happens, with everything, young people think something is brand new and original because they're too young to know where it's influences come from, but I thought the internet had squashed time a bit in that respect and made it far less likely you'd never hear of something just because it happened before you could read. Either way if he decides to expand on his theme and googles "sitcoms where nothing happens" he may get a surprise...
Anyway that's not to let a badly researched article reflect on the show, which may well be worth a watch. I'm going to give it a try later and if it's worth it start a thread if there isn't one already.


dissolute ocelot

Isn't the above what was referred to as "hangout comedy" a few years ago, a genre generally associated with Friends, New Girl, HIMYM, etc, with the ur-example being Seinfeld?

EDIT: Apparently millennials killed hangout comedy because they don't hang out with each other?

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on February 11, 2021, 05:14:04 PMEDIT: Apparently millennials killed hangout comedy because they don't hang out with each other?

Christ. That was an article about nothing.

Bernice