November 13, 2007
Alternatives to an awful ending
Seinfeld, the sitcom about four people obsessing over nothing, is now available in a box set covering the entire series.
I’m a relative latecomer, catching an episode here and there during the last season, before the creators pulled the plug on it in 1997.
The writing was good, the chemistry between the players, perfect, but the neurotic, selfish nature of the characters was eventually off-putting; I can take Jason Alexander’s George Costanza in small doses, before reaching for the remote – he reminds me too much of some nuts clinging to the branches of my family tree.
What Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David and the writers did very well was taking stories about nothing – the insignificant irritants familiar to city-dwelling singles in the 1990s – and spinning them into half-hour, rage-filled, bilious rants, concealed beneath a thin layer of laughs.
But their only misstep was a big one: the series finale is widely reviled as one of the worst ever lensed, an intensely unfunny pastiche of every major character brought back for a cameo in a strange courtroom ordeal/kharmic comeuppance.
The characters – and the audience – apparently got what the show’s creators thought we deserved.
Jason Alexander – who has gone on to star in The Producers on stage (and a string of failed sitcoms), spoke about the series finale in an interview this week.
Q This megaset will give "Seinfeld" fans another chance to rehash the infamous finale, which some viewers loved, others loathed. What's your take on it?
A It's weird from the inside. I felt there were really great things about it. We were a really unsentimental group, but we always did love our bench of players -- people like Wayne Knight [Newman] or Partick Warburton [David Puddy], or people who became big successes off the show, like the Soup Nazi [played by Larry Thomas]. The way [co-creator] Larry David found to get everyone on who had been part of our success over the years was poetic. And the fact we had these four characters who were the most selfish people on the planet getting what they deserved? That was great. But as a story it was a mishmash.
Q Was another approach ever considered?
A Jerry [Seinfeld] had once pitched a way for the show to end -- it would be a regular episode, and we would be in the coffee shop afterward talking and talking and talking until we ran out of things to say ... and Jerry would say, "That's enough."
Q OK, here comes the "Beatles reunion" question. How do you handle people wanting a "Seinfeld" reprise?
[…]
A We talked about doing a final scene for the DVD where we come out of jail and go to the coffee shop -- Michael Richards [Kramer] had come out all tattooed and become a rough rider; Julia Louis-Dreyfus [Elaine] was a lesbian; I had a sex change ... and Jerry was exactly the way he was. And he would say, "Boy, that was rough."
I can’t think of a better way to end the show than to have the four of them sitting in their booth at the diner in silence, staring at each other, nothing left to say about anything, realizing they didn’t even like each other.
But George after a sexchange ain’t bad, either.
You can read the rest of the interview here.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 13, 2007 04:25 PM
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