As I remember, NBC had a lock on Thursday nights for years, with half-hour sitcoms from 8-10, and a hour-long drama at 10pm. In 1983-4, for instance, it had Gimme a Break! at 8, Family Ties at 8:30, Cheers at 9, Night Court at 9:30 and Hill Street Blues at 10. Later, they had The Cosby Show, Wings, Frasier, A Different World, Mad About You, Friends, L.A. Law, Law & Order, ER, etc. in that block. And yes, they would put their popular sitcoms at 8 and 9, a popular drama at 10 (these called tentpole shows) and try to grow new shows at 8:30 and 9:30 that could, perhaps be moved to standalone positions on another night. I read someplace that dominating Thursday night was lucrative because that was when the studios wanted to advertise their big movies being released that weekend.
I am not sure that phrases entering pop-speak is a quality mark of a show…
just 2 3 examples:
- How YOU doing?
- COULD Seinfeld be any more boring?
- Pivot! … Pivot!!
I agree that slang doesn’t necessarily mean quality, although I think so here. But it does mean cultural relevance. We’re talking dozens of phrases. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In fact, a few months ago I bought a used book about Seinfeld with anecdotes, episode recaps, quotes and such. The (younger) three cashiers all said how much they liked the show and that used book. They could quote most of the episodes they liked by season and number. There aren’t that many older shows where that is true across a wide swathe of different people. I suspect many university students know more about Seinfeld than Bonanza or MASH (though might be wrong).
Although the episode titles in Friends all followed the format “The one where…[something mundane happens]”
But as you said, Friends had story arcs and the characters grew and matured over time, having serious relationships, getting married, pursuing careers.
Seinfeld is notable in that the characters showed almost no growth or significant life change from season to season. Kramer got a first name. That’s about it.
My millennial kids grew up watching it, and have rewatched a lot. And if a friend of theirs hasn’t seen it, they’ll be invited over to binge a season.
Obviously sitcoms have long had characters that never change. I mean, they learn a lesson by the end of the episode, but next week they’re exactly the same as before. On Seinfeld the world around them moved and changed with long story arcs, but the main characters never learn anything. I believe that was one of the guiding principles of the show.
Plus, of course, all the awards and recognition it’s garnered over the years.
That is absolutely not “it”. I don’t know why the characters “growing” or “maturing” over time should be a necessary factor to the quality of a series; on the contrary, the absence of maturity was part of the humourously cynical undercurrent of the show. But Seinfeld certainly had story arcs – characters moving from one long-term situation to another as the episodes progressed. Like George’s unemployment early on, progressing to various jobs and then, jobless again, desperately trying to get extensions on his unemployment insurance (at one point by wooing the daughter of the clerk at the unemployment office) before finally landing a cushy job with the Yankees. Or George’s ongoing relationship with Susan. Or the various jobs Elaine holds which continue across many episodes.
"The Doorman* is a good example of continuity from previous episodes. The many back-references to previous episodes and situations are too numerous to mention, though the pee-stained couch is probably the highlight! 
Exactly this.
“No hugging, no learning.” was the Jerry Seinfeld’s mantra, a concept I appreciate much more than I do the show itself.
Nothing is worse for a sitcom than character development.
They were perfect from the start!
Raise your hand if you’re spongeworthy!
I mostly agree with you…but… I recently watched an exccellent video essay about Elaine and it made me reevalute how i saw her. She’s the only one who had an actual chracter arc in the show. She went from a normal voice of reason and common sense to being a weirdo like everyone else. They dragged her down, Jerrry! They dragged her down!
It argued pretty successfully that it wasn’t just a kind of “Flanderization” but that there were story beats that furthered her arc over the years. Basically as George started to see more undeserved success, she started to have a downward trajectory in her life and career which made her start to act out. Initially just having a kind of general dislike for George to it growing to bitterness and resentment toward him that started to pepper how she interacted with the world.
Honestly, could you stand having people like the Bizarros as friends? They’d drive me up the wall!
Elaine was a loser. Couldn’t dance, couldn’t keep a man, lost every job she had, couldn’t stand up to authority figures, couldn’t even create an original cartoon. Her lowest point was masturbating over a Kennedy.
I’m still bingeing away and still immensely enjoying it. Recently finished “The Engagement” which has something of a different tone from the others. The part leading up to George proposing to Susan was rather mellowly introspective, with a sort of Woody Allen feel to it. But it never failed to deliver great lines, like when George calls his mother to tell her about the engagement, and his mother asks to talk to Susan:
Mother: Congratulations!
Susan: I just want you to know that I love your son very much.
Mother: Really! May I ask why?
“The Engagement” kicks off Season 6, which is one of the best. Among the gems that follow it are “The Wink”, “The Hot Tub”, “The Soup Nazi” (a television classic), and “The Secret Code”.
“The Secret Code” is another one that I’d probably forgotten and possibly had not seen, and it’s delightful. J. Peterson invites Elaine to dinner as a reward for her good work, a prospect that Elaine dreads because of Peterson’s insufferably rambling anecdotes, so she enlists Jerry and George to join her to make things more tolerable. At the last minute Elaine has to cancel, leaving her erstwhile saviours as Peterson’s sole victims when he insists on hosting dinner for Jerry and George alone. Thinking quickly, Jerry claims he’d forgotten that he had a comedy set to do that night, and rushes off, leaving poor George as Peterson’s sole victim.
But it rapidly gets worse as Peterson insists on driving George home, and on the way gets a call on the car phone that Peterson’s mother is on the verge of death. Peterson takes off at high speed to his mother’s house, his erratic driving flinging George against the side window. George is now forced to be part of the death watch over Peterson’s mother. Left alone with her at one point, he is told to talk to her to keep her spirits up, but George can’t manage anything but inane comments. Lacking anything else to say, and having been chastised for refusing to share his bank card code even with his fiance Susan, George confides in her that his secret code is “Bosco”.
When Peterson returns to the room, his mother suddenly utters the word “Bosco” in her dying breath, and passes away, a great parody of the “rosebud” scene in Citizen Kane. After which Peterson widely publicizes “Bosco” as an enigmatic message from his dying mother.
Watching George sweat as Kramer tries to deduce what the secret code is and comes pretty close is also great.
There’s a Seinfeld episode about that. I think the one where everything is even for Jerry, everything is coming up George, and Elaine has a series of setbacks.
So whether the writers planned on dragging Elaine down from the beginning, just noticed it was happening so did an episode about it, did the episode and thought it was a good idea and continued, or just started writing her as weirdo because it was funnier, I can’t say.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, early on, Elaine was dressed more (for lack of a better word) “frumpy”. Her hair was just pulled back, and she wore long formless dresses. Later, her hair and dress seemed more stylish.
Anyway, that was just my personal observation. I don’t want to objectify her, but I think Julia Louise-Dreyfus is uncommonly beautiful. She seemed (to me) to play that down that early on in the series.
I’d say she grew more “mature” in the image she wanted to project. She went from a free-and-easy “hippie” look to that of a prim “successful” professional, even though she was never particularly either.
The series lasted for so long, it’s not strange that her character (and her look) would evolve.
That was the style at the time! It was not “frumpy.”