New York. Seinfeld is a comedian who copes trying to live in his apartment, while his friends visit him: George Costanza, Elaine and Kramer. An old friend, Laura, travels to New York and wants to stay over at his place for the weekend... George finds a new apartment for Jerry, equipped with a garden and two bedrooms, but then George warms up too much to the apartment and wants it himself... Seinfeld tries to finally break all ties with an annoying childhood friend, Joel, who keeps calling him on the phone... After an investment in a stock that keeps falling, Seinfeld sells it, but George keeps it, and earns a lot of money when it bounces back and becomes profitable.
The first season of “Seinfeld”—consisting out of only five episodes—feels either as a lame pirated rip-off of the future “Seinfeld” at his prime, or as a clumsy forerunner to something that has potential for much more. The pilot episode is surprisingly weak, forgettable and bland, featuring no Elaine, and almost appears as if Jerry Seinfeld didn’t care that much to invest more effort into it. Some producers evaluating the pilot even concluded that it is overshadowed by the similar “It's Gary Shandling's Show”, which was already gaining steam at that time. The first true typical “Seinfeld” moment shows up only in the second episode, and ignites an appetite for more: Jerry attends a diner and meets an attractive woman, but his maneuvering room is limited since the woman sits next to a man who acts cordial with her the entire time, while Jerry’s ex-girlfriend Elaine is sitting next to Jerry. At best, Jerry finds out the woman works as a lawyer in a specific company, so he hatches a crazy plan: he goes inside said company with George, and watches hundreds of employees entering, hoping to meet the woman again among the crowd and then feign a conversation. As they are waiting, George asks what excuse they will give for being in the building in the first place, but they cannot agree upon the official version: Jerry wants to pretend to visit a friend, since that sounds “more realistic” than George pretending of being an architect, even though the latter objects: “Please! I can be an architect!” Another good one is when Jerry and George flip a coin over who will get a great new apartment, but the coin hits the table, and then falls on the ground—and it is tails, so George loses, but he immediately protests that the coin flip was invalid because it hit the table: "Interference!" Seinfeld builds episodes without any real plot, it’s all anecdotes over anecdotes, but he manages to find several clever observations about people and their little patterns of behavior, which is amusing to watch. While “It's Gary Shandling's Show” was at the time better and had a stronger head start, “Seinfeld” slowly but steadily prevailed in the long run, eventually becoming one of the most successful shows of the 90s, and is remembered even today, while the former is forgotten, demonstrating how sometimes the authors don’t have to be better, just more sympathetic.
Grade:++
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