In this threadthe final Seinfeld show is mentioned, and it brought back memories for me of how strange that show was on multiple levels. I think I know what they were going for but it was so out of line with the rest of the series that the “comeuppance” notion kind of (for me) fell flat regardless of how lazily amoral or cynical the characters were.
What was your impression of the last Seinfeld episode? Genius, failure or “meh”?
Failure. Made me feel like I wasted my time watching a show about a bunch of unlikable self absorbed a-holes. All the characters going to prison was just a nasty way of ending it.
I would say failure, but I felt that way about the entire last season, so I didn’t expect much from the finale. After watching Curb You Enthusiasm and becoming more familiar with the personality of Larry David and the stories he writes, I appreciate what he was going for with the last episode and I feel it could have had promise. The idea of Jerry and friends amoral behavior over the years coming back to bite them could have worked better, but the execution was really, really not there.
What I mean is that I didn’t want to see the four of them get the chair, but the premise was handled correctly.
Odd that you mention this.
I was thinking the other day how it would be good to see another “final” episode with the entire cast.
The concept for the finale seemed to me to be something they thought of after a lot of drinks at a local bar and went with it.
I think it would have been better to do what Six Feet Under did (which ranks as my all time favorite series finales - ever!) but in a humorous vein.
Show what happens to each character until they the day they die, and show how they died.
What did George do? Did he get married and have children? Did the children accidentally kill him with a Festivus Pole?
Did Elaine turn out to be a lesbian who had a short term relationship with Rosie O’Donnell and then get married to an actor who later went into rehab?
Did Kramer have a melt down and attack a black politician and spend years in prison, with a pet cockroach, learning Arabic and thus pardoned to work at Guantanamo Bay? (Endless supply of Cuban cigars.)
Did Jerry get a sitcom that was a huge hit, after its first airing, but was tragically killed in a post office by Newman going postal?
I’m o.k. with the finale but it is hardly inspired and if viewed as any other episode, I’d classify it as rather weak but not a complete disaster either.
It plays more as a clip show than anything else and some of the choices are pretty lame. The one with the woman who loses control of her wheelchair, for example, offers absolutely nothing. As to bringing back other minor characters, it seemed more to show off how many bit players they could re-group and cram into one episode.
**DMark’s **suggestion could have played out brilliantly. Had they included one of those And-Then-What-Happened still frame shots (cf. the endings of Animal House, Stripes, A Fish Called Wanda) and used the main cast and a select few of the minor players, they might have stuck upon comedy gold.
The Seinfeld finale didn’t feel right, but it took me a while to figure out why.
The genius of that show was that it always made some kind of sense. The smallest things could get blown out of proportion, there were wildly improbably coincidences, and personality quirks could become full-blown obsessions; but at it’s core, it added up and was consistent. Episodes ended with surprises, that, within the Seinfeldian universe, were pre-ordained.
The last episode lost that, and, in fact, got it completely backwards. The Gang of Four saw someone in trouble, and for once in their lives they stayed out of it. They’re arrested for it. The prosecution brings in lots of witnesses to testify about how awful our heroes are. But that’s not the way things work in this world. They should have all been witnesses for the defense. Jerry helped a restaurant owner so much it got him deported. George helped his finace into the grave. Every charitable impulse they ever had ruined someone’s life.
Throwing them in jail is mundane. If the writers wanted them to get a comeuppance, let them try to confront and prove their incompetance as the means of staying out of jail.
When it originally aired, a friend of mine had an elaborate theory about how they actually DID die in the plane crash (rather than pulling out at the last minute and landing safely) and the trial was basically their lives being examined, and winding up where they did essentially being their punishment (hell).
A nice theory, but I still thought the final episode was crap.
This was my biggest problem. The episode had no story to it, and pretty much every joke was a reused one. I think bringing Larry back for the final episode was the worst idea. The writers were doing fine. I know a lot of people won’t agree with me but the Puerto Rican Day Parade is one my favorite episodes.
Yep, it was terrible. Still bitter about it.
The SNL skit with Jerry in prison was a lot funnier than the last episode of Seinfeld.
My biggest problem was that they were brought up on charges of not helping a fellow citizen in need. How so? They were supposed to get involved with what could be a violent robbery? Instead, they actually kind of the did the proper thing - Kramer videotaped the whole damn thing. Sure, their banter was rude, but Kramer caught the whole scene on tape thus providing the most effective evidence possible against the assailant. While most of the stuff on Seinfeld and other sitcoms involves stuff that could easily have been fixed, this just didn’t jibe with me.
That said, the scene in the end credits with Jerry doing the stand-up in prison was great. “What’s everybody in for? Grand theft auto? Don’t steal my jokes!”
I found it really disappointing at the time. I saw it in rerun a couple of years ago and felt it wasn’t THAT bad when removed from the original context of being the series finale. As one rerun among many it seems more like a novel way of handling a clip episode, and it’s fun to see all the supporting characters back again. But I still don’t think it was a good way to wrap up the whole show.
I didn’t appreciate it at all. Haven’t seen it since it first aired. But my recollection is that it should have stayed in NYC and it shouldn’t been much more about nothing. In other words, instead of it being some elaborate setup to show clips and bring back old characters, it really should have been something mundane with them in Jerry’s apartemnt or at the coffee shop 80% of the time.
When I originally watched it, I thought the fact Kramer videotaped the carjacking thereby enabling the police to ID and catch the criminal would come into play during the trial and result in his being exonerated. Of course, there were so many legal errors during the episode that any first-year law student’s head would explode if he was taking the show seriously. (For example, I’m fairly sure that if a defense attorney like Jackie Childs slept with one of the witnesses for the prosecution during the trial and then bragged about it to his clients, there would at least be a retrial on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel and the attorney would almost automatically be disbarred.)
In any case, I could’ve lived with the final Seinfeld if the punishments of the main characters reflected their usual luck during the run of the series. Elaine would get a suspended sentence or something light like a fine; Jerry would get community service (i.e., having to do some prison shows); Kramer, as mentioned earlier, would got off scot-free and be viewed as a “hero”; and George, of course, would get the worst of it by not only having to serve the full jail sentence but also end up being bankrupted by legal costs, rendered unemployable because he’d be considered such a social pariah, disowned by his parents who move away while he’s jail without telling him, and, to add insult to injury, seeing the “bystander law” that he went to jail be declared unconstitutional the day after he gets out.
I thought it was pretty funny. I especially liked the plane crash scene where each character is begging for their lives as the plane goes down, but of course Kramer is screaming, “Oh, I’m ready, Lord!!! I’m ready!!!”
That still cracks me up…
I thought it was a pretty obvious satire of Huis Clos, with the shot of them sitting in a cell making each other miserable as their version of hell. Haven’t heard any of the people who worked on the show say that was the case, though, so I guess I’m probably wrong.
In anycase, I kinda liked the concept of the finale, but making it a clip show instead of more original material killed it for me.
They shoulda been sentenced to be some guy’s butlers.
It sucked.
Yes, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It was stupid. It was mean. It did not resonate with me as “real,” which many of the episodes did. Sure, Seinfield was satire, but based in reality. The idea of making fun of a guy getting mugged was repugnant to me. I don’t care how neurotic you are, you don’t laugh at someone who is being mugged or victimized in any way, even if he is fat. (I was mugged once, so I can’t be objective.) And bringing back all the various characters? Oh please – I had the feeling that the writers were just fed up with the whole series and too lazy to be creative. And they all end up in the same jail cell. I loved this series, but this ending was so disappointing. (And Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine are laughing all the way to the bank.) :mad:
I heard the same thing at the time, and it makes more sense as being judged in the afterlife.
The afterlife theory sounds plausible enough to me. Otherwise, it sucked. Plus, I wish Newman had gotten some sort of comeuppance - he was more of an asshole than the main characters.
I just didn’t buy that they were standing there laughing at the guy being mugged. I know they aren’t pleasant people but nothing in the show before suggested they were all such assholes that they wouldn’t even stir themselves to call 911. It just seemed like a forced piece of writing to move the plot along. Elaine even had her cutting edge cell phone.
That said, I thought it was OK. I liked seeing so many minor characters get together for one last hurrah. I like the afterlife idea and am annoyed I didn’t think of it until I read shoeless’ post.