The Kramer arc exists just to set up the climax of the episode. The plot doesn’t really work, and it doesn’t tie into the greater story in any meaningful way. The George plot is so outstanding that it covers over the weakest part of the episode: Elaine’s plot about meeting a famous Russian author and having her new digital organizer (very ’90s) annoy him to the point where he throws it out the limousine window and injures a passerby. Unfortunately for George, the lie works and he and the classmate begin to date, all under the false pretense that George had made something of his life since college, and that he was an expert about all things fish and whale related. To impress a former classmate, Jerry spins a yarn about George having become a marine biologist. What did I just say about story lines colliding? “The Marine Biologist”, written by Ron Hauge and Charlie Rubin, is peak Seinfeld. It all culminates in Jerry ruining the low talker’s life when he slams her business on The Today Show, George burns his hands on a hot iron after insulting the shirt in front of its creator, and all the pre-ordered Puffy Shirts at the factory (“They’re making these?”) are distributed to the homeless. It’s tough to not have the best episodes of the show include these two breakout stars, and here we get to experience the origin of George’s paranoia as Frank Costanza insists that the waiter sees them, he just doesn’t want to serve them. In addition, we’ve got a great Mr and Mrs Costanza scene in the restaurant. The business of Kramer forcing the shirt at a reluctant Jerry is topped off with the memorable, “But I don’t wanna be a pirate!” line as Jerry tries to stop himself from laughing. Jerry’s reaction to the shirt, and Kramer’s pleasure at revealing it, are wonderful. The scene where Kramer reveals the Puffy Shirt is outstanding. In the second storyline, George’s luck starts to turn around as he’s found to be a remarkable hand model, one with hands so spectacular that they remind everyone of Ray McKigney, a hand model ruined after he found that no woman could match the beauty of his own hand. Kramer dates a “low-talker” who asks an unsuspecting Jerry to wear some of her new clothing line on The Today Show, where he’ll be promoting a benefit to clothe the homeless. The second episode of season five, “The Puffy Shirt” was written by Larry David, who considers the episode to be one of his favorites. That said, here are my top five episodes of Seinfeld.
Best seinfeld episodes per season series#
The topics were familiar and from real life experiences, but the plot and characters became a bit more broad and the series began to work diligently to have their complicated plots weave together by the end of each episode. With the addition of some new writers, the show moved away from its hyper realistic tone of the earlier seasons and began to embrace stories that were clearly conceived by writers but were still very grounded in normal, day to day life. Four of the five episodes are from season five, which I now consider to be the turning point in the shows tone. It’s surprising, and mildly distressing, how easy it is to burn through multiple seasons of half hour sitcoms, but in the end I narrowed down my list of the top five Seinfeld episodes, and ultimately my favorite season of the show. With the entire Seinfeld library having recently moved to Hulu, I embarked on a minor mission to see how the show held up. For a few brief years the show found its legendary stride and created some of the most memorable jokes and story lines that still exist in the culture today. Despite that, the fourth through seventh seasons remain some of the strongest sitcom seasons in television history. The episodes look grainy, the pacing is wrong, the editing is slow and drawn out.
The first three seasons remind me in some ways of the first two seasons of The Next Generation (even though TNG was much, much, much worse): everything about the production screams late ’80s or early ’90s. Seinfeld seems a little dated at this point, a victim of The Seinfeld Is Unfunny Effect. I’m not sure Seinfeld even occupies the top spot on my comedy list anymore, a victim to time and exposure to shows like the BBC hit “Peep Show”, and the brilliant, burning on both ends of candle “Arrested Development” (although the third and Netflix produced fourth season did enough damage to knock the sublime first and second seasons of the show down a peg). During my high school and college years, it would have definitely placed first in the ranking of my favorite shows of all time, and it certainly would have been in first place on the comedies list, miles ahead of its next closest competitor. Seinfeld remains one of my favorite shows of all time.
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