Seinfeld - Season Eight/Volume Seven
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B- Episodes: B-
Seinfeld is a show that I was never a big
fan of, but the more I have watched it on DVD, the more I realize why people
enjoy it and why it was such a huge hit.
One of the best-cast shows since the 1980s, the chemistry was good from
the start and by this eighth season, they were so on top of their game that the
idea that this was “a show about nothing” was one of the most deceptive
interpretations around.
Instead
of being about stupid comedy or even one that is political (though it was
politically incorrect, culminating into Michael Richards’ off screen tirade
perhaps?), it understood what great comedies series of the past understood:
when you want to do comedy, just get on with it and make it good.
Season Eight has the show all worked up and
built on the same principals of non-formula that made the series as phenomenon
in the first place. The Yada, Yada, Yada episode is a great
example. The term has been around
forever and originally meant excessive talking, but having disappeared, the
writers reinvented it as a metaphor for casual sex beyond casual. It is the most famous show of the set.
Then
there are (in true Mary Tyler Moore Show
style if you think about it) the characters doing little things that cause
tension with everyone else and that you know will be like nothing you have seen
them (or maybe anyone) do before.
Richards, Seinfeld, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus always
deliver and if you have not watched the show by now, you should give it another
shot. Especially when the DVDs are so
much better than the TV/cable copies, you can’t miss.
The 1.33
X 1 apparently are filmed and except for some minor limits, looks really good,
while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo may not have any surrounds, but are very
well-recorded, which is so important when telling jokes and having the kind of
interchanges the show is famous for. The
combination is pleasant. Extras include Notes About Nothing, behind the scenes Inside Looks at the show, audio
commentary on select shows and In The
Vault deleted scenes on all four discs, Sein-Imation on DVDs 2 & 3, Jerry Seinfeld: Submarine Captain
documentary on DVD 1 and a bloopers reel on DVD 4 called Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That. Once again, if the shows are not enough for
fans, the supplements are.
- Nicholas Sheffo
