Seinfeld is on Netflix UK

[sutin]

I never watch pre-Season 4 Seinfeld, and it's my favourite TV show of all time.

I like Jerry Seinfeld's stand up. I went to see him once and he was fantastic.

[sutin]

I only watched it through for the first time last year and I'd disagree with that only because I think then you'd miss a few of the jokes which rely on knowledge of the characters and their relationships and recerences to past events etc. I mean maybe you could skip the pilot and a few/all of S1 and not miss much but even then anyone who watches the rest and likes it enough is probably going to end up watching them eventually out of curiousity.

I think you're better off watching seasons 4-9 first and then seasons 1-3. In my experience most people who try to get into it by watching it from the start get put off by the unfunny, slow early episodes.

[Mobbd]

I think you're better off watching seasons 4-9 first and then seasons 1-3. In my experience most people who try to get into it by watching it from the start get put off by the unfunny, slow early episodes.

Agree. Season 4 is when it becomes the show that people remember. The first 3 aren't particularly recommended. Come back for those once you're an obsessive.

HAVING SAID THAT, I'm currently bouncing through those earlier seasons, watching only the episodes I remember fondly or which I somehow don't recognise from the synopsis at all. Obviously, this has been a mixed bag but I must say that Season 3's "The Tape" is superb. I may feel differently once I hit Season 4 but I currently wonder if this isn't a Top 10 contender.

As well as the main story about Elaine leaving a sexy message on Jerry's tape while he's working (which is wonderful and JLD's performance contains so much mischief and lunatic energy), the episode has the Chinese bald cure and an absolute tonne of the great undwelled-upon throwaway stuff that makes Seinfeld such a rich world to wade around in. The coup d-toe. The question about Spector's fat fetish conflicting with his minimalism. The way Ping looks at George and laughs while he's on the phone to China. The cockney accents: "not bloody likely!" (and the very fact that Kramer challenges Jerry on it while his own accent is far worse).

Class.

[buttgammon]

There are a couple of outstanding episodes in Season 3 - The Tape is definitely one, but The Pen, The Subway and The Limo are all great. I was going to mention The Chinese Restaurant but I think that might be even earlier, and I'm just a sucker for bottle episodes.

[JamesTC]

Take the pen

[Mobbd]

There are a couple of outstanding episodes in Season 3 - The Tape is definitely one, but The Pen, The Subway and The Limo are all great. I was going to mention The Chinese Restaurant but I think that might be even earlier, and I'm just a sucker for bottle episodes.

I'm a real bottle show boy, but I'm oddly not drawn to the Seinfeld ones. Not sure why this should be. Maybe they lack the energy I expect from Seinfeld or something. What better time to investigate!

The Pen is a fucking marvel. The Limo - maybe? It involves a rightwing conference speaker or something, no? I'm sure it's a good script and is on the side of good, but I'm just not in the mood to think about that subject maybe. Christ, the pen is funny though. "Why did you have to take his pen?!" And the whole business of "the astronauts" using it.

[buttgammon]

It was only on my most recent rewatch (I've seen all of them many times) that I really started to appreciate just how good The Pen was. Elaine screaming "Stellllaaaaa" when she was off her face on painkillers floored me with laughter this time.

[QDRPHNC]

The Limo has so many great bits though. George excitedly calling his mother to tell her he's in a limo, which breaks down over the course of about 10 seconds into him screaming I'LL NEVER TELL YOU. NEVERRRRRRRR!!!!! into the phone.

Jerry trying an Irish accent, being told it sounds more Scottish and saying "we were right on the border."

Did you see the way she was looking at me?
SHE'S A NAZI GEORGE.

I'd have to include season 3 in the classic run, with The Tape probably being the best of it. Love the perfect timing of George honking the car horn when Elaine says she's up for anything. And Kramer's face and finger-point after showing off his cockney accent.

Gosh, Seinfeld is a good comedy show, it really is.

[Mobbd]

Kramer's face and finger-point after showing off his cockney accent.

Yes! So earnest! Fucking killed me, that.

The first "prematurely good" episode I alighted on was Season 2's The Pony Remark. I mean, come on. Even the name of the episode.

Oh! And The Pez Dispenser is Season 3 too. On reflection, The Tape is still better but The Pez Dispenser has the Gatorade story. It's Kramer's callously casual "Oh sure, the guy I told to pour the Gatorade that killed Marty Benson?" line. Fuck, so funny. He's not even in denial about his involvement like Jerry was in The Pony Remark and Kramer himself was with that drycleaner ("poor little Pinkus") later in the series.

[QDRPHNC]

"Is this the interference?"

[Blue Jam]

I recently got into Mr Robot and have just started season 2, where Elliot meets that

Spoiler alert

fellow psychiatric patient

[close]

who has recently got very, very, very into Seinfeld and keeps insisting on reciting the plots of episodes to him:

"There's this one episode where they
go to this Chinese restaurant, and they're just waiting for a table the entire time. Like, they don't even eat at the end, bro. God, man, that Kramer dude. If I knew him in real life, I'd knock his ass out."

Love it. It's even funnier that the guy's name is

Spoiler alert

Leon

[close]

.

[Replies From View]

I assumed it would have been The Simpsons but I looked at all Seinfeld references, and it isn't there.

Weird how people assume things must be Simpsons references or pre-observed tropes copy-pasted from the Trope website.  When you watch Seinfeld the overriding experience anyone should get is of a man saying "what's the deal with tables" and "what's the deal with fish fingers".  That is The Seinfeld Sense Of Humour, and nobody should believe it needs a Simpsons-league rocket scientist to notice it.

[JamesTC]

Weird how people assume things must be Simpsons references or pre-observed tropes copy-pasted from the Trope website.  When you watch Seinfeld the overriding experience anyone should get is of a man saying "what's the deal with tables" and "what's the deal with fish fingers".  That is The Seinfeld Sense Of Humour, and nobody should believe it needs a Simpsons-league rocket scientist to notice it.

I believed it would have been The Simpsons because it was one of a small amount of shows I watched religiously as a kid, as I allude to in the rest of my comment. It certainly wasn't going to be Red Dwarf or Mr Bean. I never saw the show Seinfeld until I was around 12 or 13. The Simpsons was a window into much of American pop culture for people who grew up during the golden age.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I watched all the HD/widescreen episodes last year and didn't really have a problem with it, aside from one particular episode with a scene in a car where Elaine's face is ridiculously zoomed in on. HD 4:3 would be the ideal though. Definitely holding onto my DVD box set.

[BeardFaceMan]

Weird how people assume things must be Simpsons references or pre-observed tropes copy-pasted from the Trope website.  When you watch Seinfeld the overriding experience anyone should get is of a man saying "what's the deal with tables" and "what's the deal with fish fingers".  That is The Seinfeld Sense Of Humour, and nobody should believe it needs a Simpsons-league rocket scientist to notice it.

I think the phrase "what's the deal with" appears less than half a dozen times through the whole show, and even then its usually people other than Jerry saying it. The phrase comes more from his stand up, and stand up of that style, that wrongly gets attributed to the show.

[Replies From View]

I believed it would have been The Simpsons because it was one of a small amount of shows I watched religiously as a kid, as I allude to in the rest of my comment. It certainly wasn't going to be Red Dwarf or Mr Bean. I never saw the show Seinfeld until I was around 12 or 13. The Simpsons was a window into much of American pop culture for people who grew up during the golden age.

By the way even though I was quoting you, I don't want you to think my comment was directed at you personally.  Sorry if you took it as a personal dig, in fact it wasn't really intended as a dig at all so much as an observation that I keep seeing cropping up.

[jobotic]

Just watched The Pen. Fantastic. And yes Elaine shouting Stella had me laughing out loud too.

[JamesTC]

T-bone!

[Jerzy Bondov]

The Jacket is the first really good episode for me. George trying to work out how much it cost is one of my favourite George bits. I love The Revenge as well. Series 1 is skippable but I like 2 a lot.

[JamesTC]

I love The Comeback. Jerk Store might be my favourite single plot strand in all of Seinfeld. The scene when he finally has the set-up but Reilly gets the great zinger in return is magnificent.

Just the look on George's face when he is anticipating the feed line.



To the smug grin as he knows he is about to deliver the greatest comeback ever.



Then the utter desperation when the zinger arrives in return.

[Dr Rock]

'Get a good look Costanza?'

[sutin]

I love The Comeback. Jerk Store might be my favourite single plot strand in all of Seinfeld. The scene when he finally has the set-up but Reilly gets the great zinger in return is magnificent.

Just the look on George's face when he is anticipating the feed line.



To the smug grin as he knows he is about to deliver the greatest comeback ever.



Then the utter desperation when the zinger arrives in return.

That's probably my all-time favourite episode of anything ever. Absolutely sublime comedy.

[Blue Jam]

^^^ Watching that one right now!

Not sure about this being fake widescreen either, and on a 4KHD telly everyone looks freckly.

Has the audio been pitched down a bit too or am I going mad?

[JamesTC]

Has the audio been pitched down a bit too or am I going mad?

I might be wrong, but it may be down to PAL speed-up no longer being an issue with the HD version. The previous UK versions in SD will have been converted to PAL from NTSC so will be 4% faster and will have had pitch correction.

[Blue Jam]

Cheers for that, interesting technical stuff.

fwiw any criticisms I have are negated by not having to sit through All4's increasingly lengthy streams of ads.

[jobotic]

Okay watching The Comeback now. Two Kramer lines that made me laugh out loud.


One lung, blind and you're eating through a tube

No that's not my style



The Pain and the Yearning. 192 minutes?

That's a lotta yearning


And George is fantastic of course.

[buttgammon]

The Jacket is the first really good episode for me. George trying to work out how much it cost is one of my favourite George bits. I love The Revenge as well. Series 1 is skippable but I like 2 a lot.

Forgot about The Jacket, which is a really good episode. Elaine's dad is a terrific one-off character (he was mooted as a recurring character but they couldn't have him back because the actor fooled around with a knife on the set and scared the hell out of everyone).

[Blue Jam]

Okay watching The Comeback now. Two Kramer lines that made me laugh out loud.


One lung, blind and you're eating through a tube

No that's not my style

That's great, but "You can eat, but machines do everything else" just had me howling.

[Keebleman]

Forgot about The Jacket, which is a really good episode. Elaine's dad is a terrific one-off character (he was mooted as a recurring character but they couldn't have him back because the actor fooled around with a knife on the set and scared the hell out of everyone).

That's an incredible story, and a real shame cos Mr Benes was a fantastic character.   Apparently the table read for that episode was a roaring success, but when everyone came back the next day for rehearsal, Lawrence Tierney's sense of humour had atrophied overnight and he angrily demanded to know why everyone was laughing at him.   Makes you wonder how he ever was able to have a career, but around the same time not only was he in Reservoir Dogs but he had a semi-regular gig on Hill Street Blues and guest-starred on loads of other high profile shows. 

[QDRPHNC]

Forgot about The Jacket, which is a really good episode. Elaine's dad is a terrific one-off character (he was mooted as a recurring character but they couldn't have him back because the actor fooled around with a knife on the set and scared the hell out of everyone).

Oh God yes. I love the divide between Lawrence Tierney's old-school man's man and the urban, neurotic George and Jerry, emotional children in his presence:

Jerry: How are we going to get out of it?
George: We'll say we're frightened and we have to go home.