Good News, Bad News

As it is known as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, it is interesting to look back on it. I am just beginning my first watch of the series, and I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed with the pilot. It seems like there's about 50% stand up and 50% actual events happening, like seeing the events unfold like at the laundromat or Jerry's apartment. From what I've gathered, it's not a story-heavy show. The stand-up does have some good moments, but it's really when they would show us the actual events that it becomes the funniest. The chemistry between Seinfeld and the other characters like George is great. The laundromat scene is great and the scene where Jerry is talking to George about what happened between him and this girl is easily the funniest part of the episode. Jerry's cluelessness is what makes it so funny and how George would respond to it. Unfortunately she only appears at the very end for maybe two minutes max. But it is funny when she reveals that she's already engaged. Overall it's a bit of a rocky start but it's still a fun watch and I'm still going to continue watching.

Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld's script for this Seinfeld pilot episode is good, often very funny, although not quite up to what the world would see in future episodes like "The Pen", "The Bubble Boy" or "The Outing". What it lacks though is an interesting plot: the storyline of Laura, the woman from Michigan, is actually quite uninteresting and the actress playing her is not a big deal either. The other female character, the waitress, is funny on the other hand and her conversations with Jerry and George are good. Still, we needed Elaine to really set things going.

The characters themselves are already established. George is a bit more confident and self-assured than later, but you definitely can see the future George Costanza in him. Kramer, or Kessler, is already funny and Michael Richards's great. It is indeed quite unusual to see him knock on the door before entering, have a dog that miraculously disappeared and have a normal hairstyle. Of course Jerry never really changed at all.

What really carries this, and the early episodes is the dialog. Quite frankly, Seinfeld is the show in television history with the best and funniest dialog. David and Seinfeld are writing on an high level right from the beginning. Prominently featured is Seinfeld's stand-up routine. The opening speech is quite unfunny but he gets much better later on. He really has the time for longer stories in the early episodes, and not just a quick joke like it would be in the future.

It's Seinfeld, it's great, Watch it!

Like the final episode, the pilot is actually pretty good, when you consider the circumstances. No Elaine, Kramer is Kessler and he knocks when entering a room, and George has a steady job and confidence. All that said, some quality moments, like when Kessler pulls to pieces of bread out of his robe pockets in Jerry's apartment and says to him "Got any meat?" Funny stuff.

I have taken it upon myself to watch Seinfeld, one of my absolute favourite television shows, once more from the very beginning and in the process of doing so, write up reviews which might be a harder task than imaginable given how consistently brilliant this show would become somewhere down the road. Watching and attempting any form of criticism of the very early episodes of Seinfeld can be an equally difficult task given the fact that a lot of the criticism is helmed by the fact that the early stages of Seinfeld do not reflect the brilliance and wit and joy of the show and not criticism inherent to the early episodes in and of themselves.The fact that the early episodes do not reflect a feeling of Seinfeld quite so much is what prevents me from enjoying them more and while the criticism may be somewhat unwarranted given how much experimentation went into settling on a design for the show, it cannot be avoided here in my case.

All of this is not to say that the early episodes have no place among the catalog of Seinfeld, but rather that it doesn't paint Seinfeld's potential as a show. It all begins here with this rather clunky pilot that does not hit much of the strides of Seinfeld, the show as it would go onto become. There's no Elaine, first and foremost, which is one of the more frequent observations regarding this episode and it certainly hurts not having that feminine anti-feminine presence as Elaine would bring tot he show. There's no Kramer in this episode, not because his name is substituted for Kessler (real life Kenny Kramer, ex-neighbour of Larry David's, was the basis of Kramer and he did not lend rights for his name to be used for a character based on him) but rather because Kramer is a little too aloof and described as a shut-in with little to no experience of social contact (evident to some extent in his brief interactions with George) and even George, arguably the episode's strongest point, is not the oddly endearing, dead on confidence, pathetic loser that he is renowned for.

Even more so than inconsistencies regarding characterization is the fact that this episode will most likely not reap too many rewards for those watching it for the first time today. There are few laughs throughout this twenty-two minutes, the stand-up sequence while it has a charm to it is not necessarily entertaining and overlong (first time viewers do not need to fear for the show severely cuts down on the stand-up by the time the show hits its stride) and even the characters obsessing over the minutia of their daily lives (Jerry pinpointing the one out-of-place button on George's shirt), while amusing, lacks the confidence and zip that would over time come to both the writers and actors.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that the episode may operate low on praise, is a watchable half hour of television. It works better as a retrospective exercise, watching this first episode, and it is amusing how many notes this episode misses that have come to define Seinfeld the show. The fact that the pilot is clunky should not in any way be an indicator of the show to come given both the lesser state of television then and the time taken for creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld to find the show its own identity. All of this is but a part of the grand tale of Seinfeld's rise to pop culture phenomenon as one of the all time great television shows.

"Seinfeld" is without a doubt one of the greatest sitcoms ever made. Not only was it consistently hilarious, it was cool and different from the very beginning... yes, even from the very first episode! Watching the pilot is an interesting experience, because it's not as good as what was to come, but it's still very well written and funny.

Like someone else said, this feels like a rough draft of "Seinfeld." You can tell the characters of George and Kramer (or Kessler) are written differently than what they turned into. George is a lot more confident--in fact, he seems more confident than Jerry (this definitely didn't last long). Kramer is more of a bum, not the hipster doofus he eventually became. Still, they all have great chemistry together, and the story is witty and funny.

All in all, it's fascinating to watch. It's the tip of the iceberg... a glimpse of the awesome show that is to come.