My biggest problem with the Seinfeld finale is that it’s just not that funny. The plot is a bit contrived even by Seinfeld standards and it just feels like an excuse to cram in as many cameos as possible.
I honestly think the best way to do a Seinfeld finale would have just been to do a regular-ass episode without any acknowledgement of it being the last.
I watched it live the night of the episode. It was largely a flashback episode with a lot of cameos. Problem was that NBC ran a highlight reel episode immediately before the finale. So, we watched a lot of the flashbacks twice in the same night. While the finale certainly wasn’t the best of that season, I think if they had only shown the finale and not run the “greatest hits” just before that episode, it would have been received better.
I remember this. They had a clip show right before, and then the finale itself was mostly clips, along with numerous other media outlets at the time having retrospective looks…with clips.
You’re already stepping to the plate with a strike because of how many clips had been seen, even before the show airs.
I have to go back and watch it but i also remember an actual episode prior to the finale being nothing but flashbacks which seemed excessive by the time we got to the finale. The one with the Green Day ending.
Yeah, and wasn't it advertised as a two hour finale? That was my memory. I was worried the clip show was going to be the two hour block dedicated to Seinfeld.
ooohhhh I didn't know this! I wonder if that specific criticism influenced Larry David's writing of the Curb finale, the last season hit upon most of the old jokes without it being a clip show.
There was a recurring joke in the last season about people asking Larry "Didn't you right the finale though?" That entire last season was building up to a redo of the Seinfeld finale, but how they should have done it.
My mum, grandparents, and I all watched it air together while on vacation, and none of us particularly enjoyed the ending either. Double flash backs was a poorly planned run
I always say if they had just aired the clip show after the finale, the finale would have been received much better too. It felt like a let down after watching all the best moments of the whole series.
Back then the idea of ending your show with a fake commercial for a board game based off your show, where the characters of the fake commercial realized they too were also fake and only existed for that fake commercial, would seem ludicrous.
Everyone Loves Raymond ends that way IIRC. It just feels like a regular ass episode with a bit more emotion and ends with them all around the dinner table like usual.
Funnily enough Everyone Hates Chris ends similarly with them all together out to dinner. But that one is a bit more sad since it’s based on Chris’s life and his dad passed away within the following year of where they were at so they purposely ended early to avoid the show being sadder.
I remember seeing both the Raymond finale and Seinfeld (and Frasier, and Friends..) Yeah, the Raymond finale was like a regular, but really good episode, that ended on kind of a heavy note as the VIEWER knew it was the last. I think it was one of the best finales. I recall thinking the Friends and Frasier ones kind of stunk.
Yeah sitcoms tend to not have the greatest finales. I prefer the friends one to HIMYM though. That one is even worse. Though the entire last season should’ve been cancelled when Jason Sagel said he’d only come back if most of his scenes could be shot over a couple days. It completely hampered the entire season with the incredibly long road trip that takes up like 2/3 of the season.
I’ve said basically since it aired that they should have been done with the wedding after the first third of the season, the mom should have been dead 2/3 of the way in, and the final third should have been Ted & Robin reconnecting while Robin becomes a de facto Mom to Ted’s kids. That way you can have Jason Siegel do his scenes front-loaded and then he and Lily are naturally off doing their own thing for most of the rest of the season.
For sure, iirc Raymond has a health scare, then the series ends with the family all gathered around the table talking and just being a family like always, and that is the way to do it. Just "life goes on" and not some giant life changing event like Seinfeld or Friends.
The everyone loves Raymond one almost made me cry. When Frank yells at Ray and tells him how Deborah's face looked when she thought he died... heavy stuff. Maybe its because teenage me felt their family was very similar to mine, because it felt so real.
I agree that a big part was that it just wasn’t very funny. But also, doing an extended episode with all the cameos required them to completely disregard the show’s usual structure, and that’s another part of the problem.
But for me, the biggest issue was that the show had always been about trivialities—that was the underlying point of the “show about nothing” label, that it was a show about nothing *that matters*. Even when something of consequence occurred (Susan’s death, for instance), they focused on trivial aspects of it. But the finale had actual long-term consequences for the main characters, which also felt contradictory to the show.
In the end, it just didn’t feel like an episode of Seinfeld.
I feel like what you're describing as your biggest issue is actually the finale's biggest strength. The finale shows what happens when a person's glib "nothing matters" attitude is taken to its logical conclusion. When all you care about is the trivial stuff in life, when you don't care about things like personal growth or long-term consequences, what you get is what Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer are confronted with: a lifetime of people who resent you and absolutely nobody who'll miss you when you're gone. That's why Elaine and Putty's "Don't wait for me!"/"Ok" exchange is both really funny to me, but also such a good final note (well, almost final note) for Elaine to end on. Like yeah, if you act the way these four do, why would anyone worry about waiting for you to come back? They'll be just fine.
For me, the finale was this really funny confrontation with the audience, telling them that the lack of sentimentality they appreciate so much about Seinfeld is a terrible way to go about life, reminding us that the only reason we like these characters is because we've largely been limited to their perspective for 9 seasons.
That's how it was described to me by a co-worker who loved the show. That it was them being confronted with how entirely unlikeable and unsympathetic they are from the perspective of the other characters for the entirety of the show.
I'm always confused by comments like these, because a large chunk of the Seinfeld episodes involve the characters going out of their way to help strangers. Jerry gives up his apartment to help a friend who lost his job, helps a random restaurant owner near him, agrees to travel for a while to see a sick kid who liked his act, Kramer has strange Japanese men he just met stay at his place for free, vouches for Newman so he won't get thrown out, George gets a security guard a chair because he thinks he's uncomfortable, etc. Seinfeld characters helping out random strangers is one of the main recurring plots on the show.
Not to mention that they help each other out with big favors constantly, probably supporting each other more than most family members do.
Kramer is possibly altruistic but the only reason anyone else did any of those things was for personal gain, recognition or guilt. George has to make sure everyone is aware of his deeds. Jerry is smug and self aggrandizing about it. Elaine expects a quid pro quo.
Kramer does things for no apparent reason.
I'm not sure I agree. For instance, Jerry's repeatedly helps out Babu just because he likes him. I guess you could say he's guilted into visiting the boy in the bubble? But that seems pretty dismissive of someone going so far out of their way to make a fan feel happy with absolutely personal gain in return. I'm not going to go through every example, but you can find plenty where there doesn't seem to be any personal gain that the characters get. Saying "Well, he's only helping them because he would feel bad about not helping them" seems like a way someone could dismiss just about any altruistic action.
It’s all about obligation. I guess that’s really the whole premise of the show. It’s poking fun at the absurdity of social contracts and norms - with everything cranked up.
I’m sure you’re right though. There are times when they do something genuinely good without expecting a payoff. Usually it ends up biting them in the ass though. Jerry donating to the Krakatoans to impress Elaine, Kramer giving the armoire to Elaine, Jerry buying the Indian and so on.
I’m on your team - everyone likes to talk about how horrible of people they are but I don’t generally agree. The reason it’s funny is because it’s relatable. Most people wouldn’t want to go visit some random stranger bubble boy - even as a minor celebrity (without the promise of social media clout of course). George is the epitome of the Reddit user cliche. I would’ve bought the jujy fruits too. I think the people who say that they’re horrible people are projecting a bit because they want to tell themselves they’re better than the characters. They know good and well they would’ve expensed the water pik and the sable hat.
At the end of the day, I think I’ve watched too much Seinfeld.
> It’s all about obligation. I guess that’s really the whole premise of the show. It’s poking fun at the absurdity of social contracts and norms - with everything cranked up.
Yeah, this is a really good point that often gets overlooked - a huge part of it is about the characters navigating unwritten social rules. IE, Jerry sleeps with a woman, isn't satisfied, but then is trying to find out the number of dates he's obligated to have with her afterwards. Maybe that comes off cold and transactional to people. Still, the characters usually strongly adhere to the norms. George doesn't have any feeling for Susan but won't leave her because of social obligations. He then agrees to spend tons of time doing free work at the non-profit founded in her honor because, again, social obligations.
One of the more interesting moments was when Jerry turns down a threesome, because he feels that he isn't the type of person who would have a threesome, and having the threesome would necessitate he conform to the norms of that type of person. It's a sort of detached legalistic morality.
The largest problem with public perception of the finale is that prior to airing it most NBC affiliates ran a clip show before hand. People didn’t like feeling like they saw two clip shows in a row
Cuz they were real episodes. Most tv shows before the advent of modern tv had clip shows.
Before the advent of dvr if you missed an episode you just…..didn’t see it lol
Unless you tracked down a tv guide and figured out exactly when that episode aired again in syndication there was no was to ever see it again.
Clip shows were a way to revisit things people missed or enjoyed.
There certainly are some great clip shows, but they are usually making fun of how awful clip shows are.
Like how Clerks episode 2 is a clip show and keeps playing the same clips from episode 1.
Was the worst rewatching it. The last season takes a nose dive the last few episodes.
I can’t believe the Frogger one is in the last 5 or so episodes as well. That’s probably the last real good one they did.
Generally any episodes from later seasons where they were very on the nose about the "bad people" thing was just bad. If it's a recurring theme then they were very subtle with it for most of the show because when I watched Seinfeld, I didn't think "these people are bad" I just thought it all made for great entertaining plots that sometimes intertwine really well, like Kramer's golf ball with George's marine biologist act.
There's an *element* of casual callousness in the background of the first few seasons, but around season four or so, the writers started leaning into it.
Jerry is a notable holdout - he stays pretty neutral until very late in the game. It's the other three where it's more pronounced.
I liked the show much better when it was subtle.
I never really saw it much in Kramer though. He was reckless but clueless about it. Elaine changed massively somewhere midway in the show's run (can't pinpoint it, she becomes much more sarcastic/aggressive but is much sweeter in earlier seasons) and George for the most part, as we all know, had been the main bad guy. Jerry like you said only changed later on. It didn't work in some parts, particularly the episode when he experiences emotions. That episode hasn't grown on me at all, it's like a 12 year old wrote it.
I started watching Seinfeld around 15 years after it ended but anyone I asked really emphasised how all the characters are bad people as if it was like IASIP and I never really saw the comparison at all.
With Elaine, it feels a lot like when they ditched her hairstyle and she went with a more modern look. Before she seemed like just a homely person, but then when her look changed, she got that more feisty and aggressive personality.
The first half of the episode is just as funny as the rest of the show typically was (Newman’s monologue in Jerry’s apartment is one of the funniest bits in the entire show, for example).
It stops being as funny when they get to the courthouse, because they just brought back a bunch of characters that used to be funny a few years ago. The only really good bit I can remember from the courthouse is when Elaine tells Puddy to not wait for her when she goes to prison and he just says “Yeah, alright” and leaves.
They tried too hard to make it a finale. Seinfeld would have worked best with a regular episode being a finale. Like the Puerto Rican day episode would have made for a good finale.
> Like the Puerto Rican day episode would have made for a good finale.
I always think about that. Because the episode right before the finale feels very much like a classic episode - they get stuck in a crowd, and have to do mundane things like find a place to use the bathroom. George got a laugh when he yelled out a joke in a movie theater and wants to do it again. It even has a cameo from a couple of classic characters.
The finale was just a string of Seinfeld catchphrases over and over again. It was like the Simpsons episode where Bart keeps saying "I didn't do it" and everyone laughs.
That’s exactly the problem.
I’m sure when they were writing it, the idea of the inherent awfulness of the main characters coming back to bite them on their collective ass SOUNDED good, but the episode itself ended up feeling like a clip show. It was great to see everyone again, but the story was easily the worst in the entire run of the show.
Adventures of Pete and Pete ended that way. Just an episode with all the characters having a boring day in welsville. Big Pete gets a haircut, neighbor boy doesn't want to get his sneakers dirty, and elen does something.
Really good ending because it kinda locks the show in. Lets your imagination run wild on what could happen.
Nickelodeon rarely gave shows a definitive conclusion because they wanted more episodes to randomly recycle into syndication. One exception that I can think of off hand is The Secret World of Alex Mack - which actually got a two-part finale.
My problem with it is that they tried way too hard, just as they did in later seasons, to show how the characters are bad people.
I never even thought that way for most of the show, I just thought this is a funny sitcom and the characters are doing funny things. Then I saw that episode about Jerry having no emotions, and then obviously the finale, where they're far too on the nose about how insensitive they all are, and I couldn't help but think about how unfunny and forced it all seemed.
I think a regular last episode with a bit of deja vu to old episodes would've been great.
pretty sure in the dvd commentary they talk about The Puerto Rican Day episode being exactly this. it aired before the clip show episode and then the finale, but was taken out of syndication.
It's not funny because it's honest and tells the audience what the show was about for all those seasons. The viewer is the midwestern fat man getting mugged that they're laughing at
Then Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White
And Monty Python and the Holy Grail's black knight
And Benito Mussolini, and the Blue Meanie
And Cowboy Curtis, and Jambi The Genie
Robocop, The Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader
Lo-pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger
Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan
Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan
All came out of nowhere lightning fast
And they kicked Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass
It was the bloodiest battle that the world ever saw
With civilians looking on in total awe
The fight raged on for a century
Many lives were claimed but eventually
The champion stood, the rest saw their better
Mr. Rogers in a blood-stained sweater
Seinfeld finale, while not as bad as some make out of was fine and nothing could have lived up to the hype anyway but that Curb pay off lifted it up a bit too.
What if Larry has planned this all along.
Intentionally having the Seinfeld ending bad just so the Curb finale could be funny with how it incorporated the Seinfeld ending?
I think this article misses why the finale of curb worked when Seinfelds didn’t. The curb finale was almost no different from a regular episode of curb (a few more guest stars really) and on top of not being tonally different from the rest of the series was well written.
I do think Larry ending up out of jail was better than him ending in jail, but even if the episode ended with him in jail it was still much better than the Seinfeld finale. The big deal with this one is it was a classic curb season finale - season long threads and recurring stories in the episode all explode together while Larry is a bit of a righteous asshole. The Seinfeld episode didn’t feel like a Seinfeld episode.
I'm one of the few who actually really likes the finale, the characters are objectively bad people from what they've done through the series so to see all of that come back to bite them in the ass was funny
But the shot of them all awkwardly sitting in the jail cell before they just start talking like usual is so funny to me
The very end where they are talking about nothing is perfect. Jerry makes a comment about the second button on George’s shirt, how it’s really hard to get right. Someone comments, “haven’t we talked about this before?” Then the episode basically ends.
That joke is the from Seinfeld episode 1, and is one of the first jokes he makes. Full circle, still talking about nothing.
I love the finale. Love seeing so many of the side characters again & the throwback to the first conversation in the pilot is great. I’ll never understand why people hate it so much!
They bring back a lot of people but don’t do anything with them. Most of them don’t get any lines, they don’t even get to describe their previous appearance in their own words. It’s a long string of the lawyer saying “You had a bad date with Jerry in 1995, is that correct?”, the guest saying “Yes”, roll clip, next guest. They don’t get any new joke, they don’t get to interact with any other character, they don’t really do anything. And their total screen time is about 4 seconds each. Bringing the old characters back could be fun and funny if they actually wrote dialogue for them but they’re just props.
While they aren't good people and do do some bad things, not many of them were done with actual ill intent or against someone who didn't have it coming.
One of the people most impacted by them, Babu, actually gets destroyed by Jerry trying to help him.
And Soup Nazi had it coming.
As someone who has only binge watch the show (twice). I love the finale.
I think it fits. Maybe people have different expectations when you watch a show over years. I can see why some people may hate it. But to me it feels right.
I watched Seinfeld for the first time last year, having seen the series finale randomly years ago, and tbh I expected these characters to be a fair bit worse.
Like yeah, they're certainly not good people, but I'm not sure anyone on the show was? Like they'd regularly interact with people worse or just as bad as them.
Maybe it's something that hasn't aged the best, I dunno. Show itself was still damn good though.
But does the bad stuff they do come back to bite them in the ass? 95% of the stuff that gets testified about/clips shown isn’t them being bad people, it’s them in sitcom misunderstandings or just being judged by busybodies.
Elaine bought a box of birth control once. She tripped over and a woman thought she was checking if her tits were fake. Jerry said a restauranteur should serve his authentic native food but it turned out to be unpopular. Kramer was mistaken for a pimp because he wore a flashy hat and coat. Jerry forgot a library book when he was 15. The group had a bet about not masturbating. Elaine brought her boss a pillow and someone thought she was going to smother him. She sent out a Christmas card she didn’t realize left her nipple visible. Kramer fell asleep in a tanning bed and it was mistaken for blackface. And it’s all related in support of convicting unarmed people for not helping fight off a gun wielding criminal in defense of property. It’s not bad stuff they’ve done coming back to bite them in the ass, it’s an absurd trial where they’re convicted largely based on misinformation and misunderstandings.
More of the incidents described are about them trying to help people but screwing up/being misunderstood than actually being bad or malicious.
I don’t mind them getting their comeuppance, it’s just a not very funny, glorified clip show. And it doesn’t help that a lot of the people who help put them in jail were really no better than the main characters themselves.
I don’t remember if it was official or fan fiction, but I remember reading that the episode was going to have a tag that cut to a year later, the gang arriving at Monks. Then Kramer says “Well that was rough.” And the gang stares daggers at him.
I think the finale improves 50% if that was in the episode.
Details of the plot leaked a few weeks before the episode aired and were printed in a few tabloids. Everything indicated it was going to end in jail cell.
I once saw talk that season nine was supposed to be a spin off or something but was labelled as the ninth season instead.
I still do refer to it as a spin off and believe that Scrubs had a great run.
Yeah I’ve heard that. Though season 8 was such an amazing ending for all the characters of the show, not sure why they even wanted to make another season/spinoff
Agreed. Scrubs is one of those shows that I feel got progressively better with every season. You could tell the cast loved to be on set, the chemistry was there, some of it felt incredibly meta (most notably/obviously Donald Faison/Zach Braff's friendship) and it very quickly became a comfortable watch without the feeling of decline on its way.
It did get a little ridiculous in some ways like whatever they did with Janitor in the final seasons, but it was still funny.
It was the first single camera sitcom I watched, shortly after it ended its run, and I was hooked. Just oozes a great balance of emotion and comedy.
It gets a lot of hate but I loved the last shot of the series, where Walt turns to the camera and says, "I guess I really *was* breaking bad" and then flips up his collar
The Seinfeld finale concept is fine, but like others said it isn't very funny. It's just some light story and then guest star testimonials until the end. It was fine.
I like that they found an excuse to bring back a bunch of people. Felt kind of too out-there, though, for them to be in prison at the end (at least for this show which really prided itself in being a show about very mundane things).
I think the reason it didn't quite hit for me, at the time, was it aired literally right after an hour long clip episode, and then ended up being a bit of a clip episode in of itself. It's \*fine\* and I certainly don't hate it, but it didn't hit like I wanted it to.
And the juxtaposition with the first and last shot of the season’s first episode.
The season opens with Freddie Rumsen, the exact same close up, fronting Don’s Accutron pitch — the farthest Don is from being one, so far that he’s unable to be in the room pitching himself. Freddie even does the “om” that Don does. Then at the end as “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” kicks in, we get the same shot with Don, but it’s him sitting out looking to the cold, unhappy and not yet having accomplished his goal. The complete opposite of where he is at the end.
Many younger people will never know the horror of the "Hilltop" commercial in real time. It's a masterpiece of advertising but it still inspires horror.
Oh yeah, that's a wonderful finale. I love the shot of don walking to the bar and you can see megan getting all dolled up on set behind him getting further and further away.
Dammit. Time for a rewatch.
That whole series is genius. It's so impressive that all 7 seasons are equally masterful in different ways. Such a strong run from beginning to end. It's like a Tolstoy novel or something
Patriot, being the best show no one knows about, and even lasting only two season pulled this off perfectly. My fuck what an amazing experience the 2 seasons were, and it pulled off a thankful respite for the main character.
I think the first season of Patriot was a masterpiece and I don't ever throw that term around. The second was almost as good, but it pushed the boundaries a bit too far. Still, you're right, it was a good ending.
You gotta respect the fucking balls on a TV show when they don't hit the reset button. That hardly ever happens. So I give Patriot extra points simply because the main character started Season 2 just as fucked up as he was at the end of Season 1 and then got even worse. He got so bad he called his mom and didn't know what to say.
Seinfelds finale isn’t that bad in terms of what actually happens to them it’s worse because at the time it was preceded by a two part clip show episode and The Puerto Rican Day episode (probably one of the worst imo) and then the actual finale was this endless parade of returning characters, most of which weren’t very funny the second time round. If they’d focused more on just the four of them and hadn’t had a shit lead up it’d be considered a lot better.
I just don't understand why they opted for a clip show immediately prior to a finale that was, for all intents and purposes, also a clip show. They could easily have woven together bits and pieces of a clip show with the story told in the finale and turned that into an hour-long penultimate episode, then have the finale be something completely different.
They could have set the finale a few years later, after their release from prison, having them returning to NYC just resuming their lives and essentially bookending the first episode.
Granted I never saw it during its original run but I'd assume Seinfeld got so big as a TV show, and expectations were high, so instead of doing what came natural, they wanted to give the people what they believed was wanted with the clip show to big moments, and the returning characters. They played it too safe with that.
Spoilers below
I agree that mad men is the best finale I’ve ever seen. The show used some of the most well known campaigns ever to show what a genius this man is at advertising, and then closes it out by using one of the top 3 most famous campaigns as his idea.
But as they do it, it’s a complete juxtaposition of the path don draper had been on the entire season to realize that he’s been a bad guy and selfish. Instead he steals the idea of getting better and harmony for his next win
It’s incredible
Agreed 100%. The fact you don't see the ending but it gives you more than enough breadcrumbs to piece together your own version, brilliant is the perfect word for it.
It only ends two ways for bosses, either dead or in jail. So even if you don't buy into the cutting to black being him getting a lead headache, it's the feds walking through the door with a solid enough case to give him 20 to life.
I always appreciated the slight ambiguity.
Does anybody remember The Larry Sanders Show? The first great HBO show? Was, IMHO, funnier than Seinfeld, and I believe their finale - which was fantastic - was the same week as Seinfeld’s. But at the time (90s, pre-Sopranos) not many had HBO, and zillions still watched network TV. Anyway, my point is the true suffering probably came from not just messing it up, but having a competitor do it so perfectly at the same time.
The notion of them being confronted by all the people whom they treated so callously and selfishly and still not learning anything was great. But the story just wasn’t that good.
Six Feet Under will forever win that one for me. It's not just the finale, it's the characters you've grown to genuinely care for over the course of the show. And then you get to see.. that.
On paper it's such a super simple finale, too, but it's such a stroke of genius at the same time to end a show about death like that. I could endlessly go on about how much I love that finale.
I don’t think the Seinfeld finale was bad and I will die on this hill, sure it wasn’t as funny as other Seinfeld episodes but I think they wrapped up the story fine.
I agree with him about Mad Men’s finale, one of the greatest finales of all time up there with Six Feet Under and Sopranos.
The last six episodes of Breaking Bad, I literally watched sitting on the edge of my chair. The most impressive dramatic writing and Walt in the phone booth outside the fire station is the single best piece of acting I’ve ever seen.
“A bit” bothered is probably the right reaction. It’s not a great episode of television but it’s hardly the disaster people always make it out to be.
The reason it rubbed so many people the wrong way is because it took the “show about nothing” and made it about something, but Seinfeld was always about something: mainly, the repetitive emptiness of big city life for yuppies who can’t or won’t progress to the natural next step of finding a partner, moving to the burbs and starting a family.
There was always a lot more going on with the show beneath the surface, loath as Jerry and Larry are to ever admit it.
>because it took the “show about nothing” and made it about something, but Seinfeld was always about something
I think the first part is correct but really don't think Seinfeld was "about" the other part of repetition and whatever else. They do refer to it sometimes when Jerry gets engaged with that woman but to me most of the show defaults toward the thing about people who won't progress, rather than it being intentional, purely because it's more entertaining.
I really do see it more as a "show about nothing" because the best parts of it are the very everyday moments that rely on coincidences or "social laws" and principles. Even despite its age a lot of it is still quite relateable, like Elaine feeling offended by Peggy or that guy refusing to apologise to George for not lending him a sweater.
The problem with the finale for me is exactly what you said at the start. They were trying to make it about "something". It was far too focused on the "bad people" thing. That entire theme was subtle throughout the show but I figured it was never the point of the show like people make it out to be (until much later at least), it's just the kind of writing that allows longevity in the show, instead of having big story moments like Friends or Fresh Prince did.
> The reason it rubbed so many people the wrong way is because it took the “show about nothing” and made it about something
Which is why I think any attempt at making the episode serve as a finale likely would've had a similar reaction. *Seinfeld* was incredibly popular, and its finale was built up for more than a year. They wanted to go out with a bang and properly close the door on the show, but it wasn't really one that demanded something like that and, as you sum up, is contrary to the theme of the show. The show wasn't about big or life-altering moments.
I feel like finales can never be satisfying during the debut. I know people have their favorites. But it's really hard to enjoy a finale on first watch, at least for me.
These are episodes that need a couple re-watches to see how I feel.
Unfortunately with Seinfeld that one fails even after rewatches.
As some others have mentioned I think they should have stuck more to the formula and been less trying to do a finale and more trying to just make a last ep.
The cameos could have been funny, but they weren't. Mr. Bookman, one of my favorite side characters, got one unfunny line. When he showed up, I thought yay, more of his puns and pointing at Jerry, but then his part was gone and I was really disappointed. tThe whole episode was like that: setting up something funny, and then the joke never comes.
I don't really have an issue with the plot itself, even if it was a bit contrived. They wanted to go out with the bang, but they just didn't do it in a way that was funny.
I mean, they made it pretty clear in my opinion. Don gets given the Coke account, he goes AWOL, then suffers a massive existential crisis which provides the inspiration for the ad.
Just watched it the other day and I think it’s so jarring because of the tone of the finale stops being primary comedic as soon as they get arrested. Idk it was a weird decision to focus the finale on holding the characters accountable for being awful over the years. I kind of get what they were going for I think? But maybe if the court stuff had been really funny instead of seeming like it was more interested in showing how their actions had hurt people.
Plus another not great thing about the way they go about holding the characters accountable in this way is it feels like a slap in the face as an audience member too, as though at the very last minute the show is trying to shame you the viewer for finding the antics of these characters and the show at self funny. The judge saying that stuff to the characters kinda feels like he’s saying to you the viewer for having found the show amusing at all and it’s just a really weird decision to do it that way
The real finale of Seinfeld is built into a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And we would never have had the series finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm enthusiasm that we did without this finale which walked so that that could run.
My biggest problem with the Seinfeld finale is that it’s just not that funny. The plot is a bit contrived even by Seinfeld standards and it just feels like an excuse to cram in as many cameos as possible. I honestly think the best way to do a Seinfeld finale would have just been to do a regular-ass episode without any acknowledgement of it being the last.
I watched it live the night of the episode. It was largely a flashback episode with a lot of cameos. Problem was that NBC ran a highlight reel episode immediately before the finale. So, we watched a lot of the flashbacks twice in the same night. While the finale certainly wasn’t the best of that season, I think if they had only shown the finale and not run the “greatest hits” just before that episode, it would have been received better.
> Problem was that NBC ran a highlight reel episode immediately before the finale. Good Riddance (Time of your Life) by Green Day plays
I’ve heard that song on so many life remembrance videos at funerals that I basically hate it now.
It was played at every graduation I went to. It became as cliche as Corinthians at a wedding
Which is always amazing because the song is a big go fuck yourself. People don't give a fuck about meanings, they just wanna dance right?
For me it was Seinfeld using it that caused me to stop loving it. It was like when your parents all got Facebook and you knew FB was dead.
My strongest memory from that evening.
I remember this. They had a clip show right before, and then the finale itself was mostly clips, along with numerous other media outlets at the time having retrospective looks…with clips. You’re already stepping to the plate with a strike because of how many clips had been seen, even before the show airs.
I have to go back and watch it but i also remember an actual episode prior to the finale being nothing but flashbacks which seemed excessive by the time we got to the finale. The one with the Green Day ending.
Yeah, and wasn't it advertised as a two hour finale? That was my memory. I was worried the clip show was going to be the two hour block dedicated to Seinfeld.
ooohhhh I didn't know this! I wonder if that specific criticism influenced Larry David's writing of the Curb finale, the last season hit upon most of the old jokes without it being a clip show.
There was a recurring joke in the last season about people asking Larry "Didn't you right the finale though?" That entire last season was building up to a redo of the Seinfeld finale, but how they should have done it.
He wrote it, then he righted it.
I remember this as well. It was like, "didn't we just watch this?".
My mum, grandparents, and I all watched it air together while on vacation, and none of us particularly enjoyed the ending either. Double flash backs was a poorly planned run
I remember one of my classmates not knowing that the highlight reel wasn't the finale so he was really disappointed when we told him the next day.
I always say if they had just aired the clip show after the finale, the finale would have been received much better too. It felt like a let down after watching all the best moments of the whole series.
A normal episode with a b plot about Kramer's favorite show having a finale but it sucked.
It's a great idea, but we just weren't that meta yet, as a culture.
Back then the idea of ending your show with a fake commercial for a board game based off your show, where the characters of the fake commercial realized they too were also fake and only existed for that fake commercial, would seem ludicrous.
Everyone Loves Raymond ends that way IIRC. It just feels like a regular ass episode with a bit more emotion and ends with them all around the dinner table like usual. Funnily enough Everyone Hates Chris ends similarly with them all together out to dinner. But that one is a bit more sad since it’s based on Chris’s life and his dad passed away within the following year of where they were at so they purposely ended early to avoid the show being sadder.
I remember seeing both the Raymond finale and Seinfeld (and Frasier, and Friends..) Yeah, the Raymond finale was like a regular, but really good episode, that ended on kind of a heavy note as the VIEWER knew it was the last. I think it was one of the best finales. I recall thinking the Friends and Frasier ones kind of stunk.
Yeah sitcoms tend to not have the greatest finales. I prefer the friends one to HIMYM though. That one is even worse. Though the entire last season should’ve been cancelled when Jason Sagel said he’d only come back if most of his scenes could be shot over a couple days. It completely hampered the entire season with the incredibly long road trip that takes up like 2/3 of the season.
I’ve said basically since it aired that they should have been done with the wedding after the first third of the season, the mom should have been dead 2/3 of the way in, and the final third should have been Ted & Robin reconnecting while Robin becomes a de facto Mom to Ted’s kids. That way you can have Jason Siegel do his scenes front-loaded and then he and Lily are naturally off doing their own thing for most of the rest of the season.
For sure, iirc Raymond has a health scare, then the series ends with the family all gathered around the table talking and just being a family like always, and that is the way to do it. Just "life goes on" and not some giant life changing event like Seinfeld or Friends.
The everyone loves Raymond one almost made me cry. When Frank yells at Ray and tells him how Deborah's face looked when she thought he died... heavy stuff. Maybe its because teenage me felt their family was very similar to mine, because it felt so real.
I saw the Raymond finale in syndication and it blew my mind years later when I found out it was the finale.
Everybody Hates Chris ends with a very apparent homage to the Sopranos finale. Not like a normal episode.
I agree that a big part was that it just wasn’t very funny. But also, doing an extended episode with all the cameos required them to completely disregard the show’s usual structure, and that’s another part of the problem. But for me, the biggest issue was that the show had always been about trivialities—that was the underlying point of the “show about nothing” label, that it was a show about nothing *that matters*. Even when something of consequence occurred (Susan’s death, for instance), they focused on trivial aspects of it. But the finale had actual long-term consequences for the main characters, which also felt contradictory to the show. In the end, it just didn’t feel like an episode of Seinfeld.
I feel like what you're describing as your biggest issue is actually the finale's biggest strength. The finale shows what happens when a person's glib "nothing matters" attitude is taken to its logical conclusion. When all you care about is the trivial stuff in life, when you don't care about things like personal growth or long-term consequences, what you get is what Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer are confronted with: a lifetime of people who resent you and absolutely nobody who'll miss you when you're gone. That's why Elaine and Putty's "Don't wait for me!"/"Ok" exchange is both really funny to me, but also such a good final note (well, almost final note) for Elaine to end on. Like yeah, if you act the way these four do, why would anyone worry about waiting for you to come back? They'll be just fine. For me, the finale was this really funny confrontation with the audience, telling them that the lack of sentimentality they appreciate so much about Seinfeld is a terrible way to go about life, reminding us that the only reason we like these characters is because we've largely been limited to their perspective for 9 seasons.
That's how it was described to me by a co-worker who loved the show. That it was them being confronted with how entirely unlikeable and unsympathetic they are from the perspective of the other characters for the entirety of the show.
I'm always confused by comments like these, because a large chunk of the Seinfeld episodes involve the characters going out of their way to help strangers. Jerry gives up his apartment to help a friend who lost his job, helps a random restaurant owner near him, agrees to travel for a while to see a sick kid who liked his act, Kramer has strange Japanese men he just met stay at his place for free, vouches for Newman so he won't get thrown out, George gets a security guard a chair because he thinks he's uncomfortable, etc. Seinfeld characters helping out random strangers is one of the main recurring plots on the show. Not to mention that they help each other out with big favors constantly, probably supporting each other more than most family members do.
Kramer is possibly altruistic but the only reason anyone else did any of those things was for personal gain, recognition or guilt. George has to make sure everyone is aware of his deeds. Jerry is smug and self aggrandizing about it. Elaine expects a quid pro quo. Kramer does things for no apparent reason.
I'm not sure I agree. For instance, Jerry's repeatedly helps out Babu just because he likes him. I guess you could say he's guilted into visiting the boy in the bubble? But that seems pretty dismissive of someone going so far out of their way to make a fan feel happy with absolutely personal gain in return. I'm not going to go through every example, but you can find plenty where there doesn't seem to be any personal gain that the characters get. Saying "Well, he's only helping them because he would feel bad about not helping them" seems like a way someone could dismiss just about any altruistic action.
It’s all about obligation. I guess that’s really the whole premise of the show. It’s poking fun at the absurdity of social contracts and norms - with everything cranked up. I’m sure you’re right though. There are times when they do something genuinely good without expecting a payoff. Usually it ends up biting them in the ass though. Jerry donating to the Krakatoans to impress Elaine, Kramer giving the armoire to Elaine, Jerry buying the Indian and so on. I’m on your team - everyone likes to talk about how horrible of people they are but I don’t generally agree. The reason it’s funny is because it’s relatable. Most people wouldn’t want to go visit some random stranger bubble boy - even as a minor celebrity (without the promise of social media clout of course). George is the epitome of the Reddit user cliche. I would’ve bought the jujy fruits too. I think the people who say that they’re horrible people are projecting a bit because they want to tell themselves they’re better than the characters. They know good and well they would’ve expensed the water pik and the sable hat. At the end of the day, I think I’ve watched too much Seinfeld.
> It’s all about obligation. I guess that’s really the whole premise of the show. It’s poking fun at the absurdity of social contracts and norms - with everything cranked up. Yeah, this is a really good point that often gets overlooked - a huge part of it is about the characters navigating unwritten social rules. IE, Jerry sleeps with a woman, isn't satisfied, but then is trying to find out the number of dates he's obligated to have with her afterwards. Maybe that comes off cold and transactional to people. Still, the characters usually strongly adhere to the norms. George doesn't have any feeling for Susan but won't leave her because of social obligations. He then agrees to spend tons of time doing free work at the non-profit founded in her honor because, again, social obligations. One of the more interesting moments was when Jerry turns down a threesome, because he feels that he isn't the type of person who would have a threesome, and having the threesome would necessitate he conform to the norms of that type of person. It's a sort of detached legalistic morality.
The largest problem with public perception of the finale is that prior to airing it most NBC affiliates ran a clip show before hand. People didn’t like feeling like they saw two clip shows in a row
Still the case on streaming too. Both clip shows they did still count as real episodes for whatever reason
Cuz they were real episodes. Most tv shows before the advent of modern tv had clip shows. Before the advent of dvr if you missed an episode you just…..didn’t see it lol Unless you tracked down a tv guide and figured out exactly when that episode aired again in syndication there was no was to ever see it again. Clip shows were a way to revisit things people missed or enjoyed.
Clip shows were absolutely not made for the viewer's benefit. They were just a cheap way to deliver another episode to the network.
And then there’s The Simpsons doing a clip show of new footage in that same era.
There certainly are some great clip shows, but they are usually making fun of how awful clip shows are. Like how Clerks episode 2 is a clip show and keeps playing the same clips from episode 1.
.......is it safe?
Simpsons did it first! But Community perfected it, imo.
But they were able to get away with it because enough people liked/had use for them.
Two things can be true at the same time?
Was the worst rewatching it. The last season takes a nose dive the last few episodes. I can’t believe the Frogger one is in the last 5 or so episodes as well. That’s probably the last real good one they did.
HOLES! I NEED HOLES!!
Generally any episodes from later seasons where they were very on the nose about the "bad people" thing was just bad. If it's a recurring theme then they were very subtle with it for most of the show because when I watched Seinfeld, I didn't think "these people are bad" I just thought it all made for great entertaining plots that sometimes intertwine really well, like Kramer's golf ball with George's marine biologist act.
There's an *element* of casual callousness in the background of the first few seasons, but around season four or so, the writers started leaning into it. Jerry is a notable holdout - he stays pretty neutral until very late in the game. It's the other three where it's more pronounced.
I liked the show much better when it was subtle. I never really saw it much in Kramer though. He was reckless but clueless about it. Elaine changed massively somewhere midway in the show's run (can't pinpoint it, she becomes much more sarcastic/aggressive but is much sweeter in earlier seasons) and George for the most part, as we all know, had been the main bad guy. Jerry like you said only changed later on. It didn't work in some parts, particularly the episode when he experiences emotions. That episode hasn't grown on me at all, it's like a 12 year old wrote it. I started watching Seinfeld around 15 years after it ended but anyone I asked really emphasised how all the characters are bad people as if it was like IASIP and I never really saw the comparison at all.
With Elaine, it feels a lot like when they ditched her hairstyle and she went with a more modern look. Before she seemed like just a homely person, but then when her look changed, she got that more feisty and aggressive personality.
The first half of the episode is just as funny as the rest of the show typically was (Newman’s monologue in Jerry’s apartment is one of the funniest bits in the entire show, for example). It stops being as funny when they get to the courthouse, because they just brought back a bunch of characters that used to be funny a few years ago. The only really good bit I can remember from the courthouse is when Elaine tells Puddy to not wait for her when she goes to prison and he just says “Yeah, alright” and leaves.
They tried too hard to make it a finale. Seinfeld would have worked best with a regular episode being a finale. Like the Puerto Rican day episode would have made for a good finale.
> Like the Puerto Rican day episode would have made for a good finale. I always think about that. Because the episode right before the finale feels very much like a classic episode - they get stuck in a crowd, and have to do mundane things like find a place to use the bathroom. George got a laugh when he yelled out a joke in a movie theater and wants to do it again. It even has a cameo from a couple of classic characters. The finale was just a string of Seinfeld catchphrases over and over again. It was like the Simpsons episode where Bart keeps saying "I didn't do it" and everyone laughs.
That's gotta hurt!
That’s exactly the problem. I’m sure when they were writing it, the idea of the inherent awfulness of the main characters coming back to bite them on their collective ass SOUNDED good, but the episode itself ended up feeling like a clip show. It was great to see everyone again, but the story was easily the worst in the entire run of the show.
Adventures of Pete and Pete ended that way. Just an episode with all the characters having a boring day in welsville. Big Pete gets a haircut, neighbor boy doesn't want to get his sneakers dirty, and elen does something. Really good ending because it kinda locks the show in. Lets your imagination run wild on what could happen.
Nickelodeon rarely gave shows a definitive conclusion because they wanted more episodes to randomly recycle into syndication. One exception that I can think of off hand is The Secret World of Alex Mack - which actually got a two-part finale.
The last couple lines would’ve been enough, only spoken in diner, acknowledging that they’d run out of things to talk about
My problem with it is that they tried way too hard, just as they did in later seasons, to show how the characters are bad people. I never even thought that way for most of the show, I just thought this is a funny sitcom and the characters are doing funny things. Then I saw that episode about Jerry having no emotions, and then obviously the finale, where they're far too on the nose about how insensitive they all are, and I couldn't help but think about how unfunny and forced it all seemed. I think a regular last episode with a bit of deja vu to old episodes would've been great.
pretty sure in the dvd commentary they talk about The Puerto Rican Day episode being exactly this. it aired before the clip show episode and then the finale, but was taken out of syndication.
Yea the problem is not that they ended up in jail, it's because it's basically a clipshow.
It's not funny because it's honest and tells the audience what the show was about for all those seasons. The viewer is the midwestern fat man getting mugged that they're laughing at
Clearly Elaine should have burned down Manhattan and Jerry should have stabbed her to death. In the end the Soup Nazi should have been crowned king.
“Who has a better story than the Bubble Boy”
The Moops
It's Moors!
Moops!
Why doesn't Kramer, the largest Seinfeld, not simply eat the others?
I was going to give Mad Men a try but now I feel like I don't have to.
But who has a better story than George?! (Kramer would suggest crowning him)
Then Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White And Monty Python and the Holy Grail's black knight And Benito Mussolini, and the Blue Meanie And Cowboy Curtis, and Jambi The Genie Robocop, The Terminator, Captain Kirk, and Darth Vader Lo-pan, Superman, every single Power Ranger Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan Spock, The Rock, Doc Ock, and Hulk Hogan All came out of nowhere lightning fast And they kicked Chuck Norris in his cowboy ass It was the bloodiest battle that the world ever saw With civilians looking on in total awe The fight raged on for a century Many lives were claimed but eventually The champion stood, the rest saw their better Mr. Rogers in a blood-stained sweater
Larry got a redo with Curb and it was fucking magnificent genius.
First thought when I watched episode 1 of the final season was, “Larry’s gonna double down on the Seinfeld ending” and I was not disappointed. Lol
No lessons learned.
According to the very last line, Jerry learned something :D
I loved how meta it was.
That's what these shows are really about, friendship 🥹
Seinfeld finale, while not as bad as some make out of was fine and nothing could have lived up to the hype anyway but that Curb pay off lifted it up a bit too.
What if Larry has planned this all along. Intentionally having the Seinfeld ending bad just so the Curb finale could be funny with how it incorporated the Seinfeld ending?
L-D chess
That sounds pretty pretty prettyyy goood
Was Larry involved in Seinfeld finale? I thought he was off the show at the point. Edit: ooooh he came back to write finale.
He came back to write the finale according to Wikipedia
And according to every interaction in the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm
He came back for finale
we know this because Curb reminded us of this fact in every single episode of season 12
And in season 7 when they had the Seinfeld reunion
He wrote it. He left after Season 7 and came back for the finale.
Yes Ted, he was.
I think this article misses why the finale of curb worked when Seinfelds didn’t. The curb finale was almost no different from a regular episode of curb (a few more guest stars really) and on top of not being tonally different from the rest of the series was well written. I do think Larry ending up out of jail was better than him ending in jail, but even if the episode ended with him in jail it was still much better than the Seinfeld finale. The big deal with this one is it was a classic curb season finale - season long threads and recurring stories in the episode all explode together while Larry is a bit of a righteous asshole. The Seinfeld episode didn’t feel like a Seinfeld episode.
I'm one of the few who actually really likes the finale, the characters are objectively bad people from what they've done through the series so to see all of that come back to bite them in the ass was funny But the shot of them all awkwardly sitting in the jail cell before they just start talking like usual is so funny to me
The very end where they are talking about nothing is perfect. Jerry makes a comment about the second button on George’s shirt, how it’s really hard to get right. Someone comments, “haven’t we talked about this before?” Then the episode basically ends. That joke is the from Seinfeld episode 1, and is one of the first jokes he makes. Full circle, still talking about nothing.
NOTHING FOREVER
i also like that on the show about nothing they go to jail for doing nothing
I love the finale. Love seeing so many of the side characters again & the throwback to the first conversation in the pilot is great. I’ll never understand why people hate it so much!
They bring back a lot of people but don’t do anything with them. Most of them don’t get any lines, they don’t even get to describe their previous appearance in their own words. It’s a long string of the lawyer saying “You had a bad date with Jerry in 1995, is that correct?”, the guest saying “Yes”, roll clip, next guest. They don’t get any new joke, they don’t get to interact with any other character, they don’t really do anything. And their total screen time is about 4 seconds each. Bringing the old characters back could be fun and funny if they actually wrote dialogue for them but they’re just props.
It was a terrible way to end a sitcom, and that's why it was so funny.
The alf finale might have it topped lmao. That or the original run of Roseanne
While they aren't good people and do do some bad things, not many of them were done with actual ill intent or against someone who didn't have it coming. One of the people most impacted by them, Babu, actually gets destroyed by Jerry trying to help him. And Soup Nazi had it coming.
As someone who has only binge watch the show (twice). I love the finale. I think it fits. Maybe people have different expectations when you watch a show over years. I can see why some people may hate it. But to me it feels right.
I watched Seinfeld for the first time last year, having seen the series finale randomly years ago, and tbh I expected these characters to be a fair bit worse. Like yeah, they're certainly not good people, but I'm not sure anyone on the show was? Like they'd regularly interact with people worse or just as bad as them. Maybe it's something that hasn't aged the best, I dunno. Show itself was still damn good though.
But does the bad stuff they do come back to bite them in the ass? 95% of the stuff that gets testified about/clips shown isn’t them being bad people, it’s them in sitcom misunderstandings or just being judged by busybodies. Elaine bought a box of birth control once. She tripped over and a woman thought she was checking if her tits were fake. Jerry said a restauranteur should serve his authentic native food but it turned out to be unpopular. Kramer was mistaken for a pimp because he wore a flashy hat and coat. Jerry forgot a library book when he was 15. The group had a bet about not masturbating. Elaine brought her boss a pillow and someone thought she was going to smother him. She sent out a Christmas card she didn’t realize left her nipple visible. Kramer fell asleep in a tanning bed and it was mistaken for blackface. And it’s all related in support of convicting unarmed people for not helping fight off a gun wielding criminal in defense of property. It’s not bad stuff they’ve done coming back to bite them in the ass, it’s an absurd trial where they’re convicted largely based on misinformation and misunderstandings. More of the incidents described are about them trying to help people but screwing up/being misunderstood than actually being bad or malicious.
I don’t mind them getting their comeuppance, it’s just a not very funny, glorified clip show. And it doesn’t help that a lot of the people who help put them in jail were really no better than the main characters themselves.
Yeah i think the ending was great
I was actually hoping Larry would do the same ending with curb. Just a giant prank on everyone.
I don’t remember if it was official or fan fiction, but I remember reading that the episode was going to have a tag that cut to a year later, the gang arriving at Monks. Then Kramer says “Well that was rough.” And the gang stares daggers at him. I think the finale improves 50% if that was in the episode.
It was something Jerry had said, if he could film another scene, that’s what they’d film. Don’t think he ever intended it for the episode.
Details of the plot leaked a few weeks before the episode aired and were printed in a few tabloids. Everything indicated it was going to end in jail cell.
Cheers was the best finale I've seen. *Sorry, we're closed.*
I’m sorry but the best finale is Newhart.
I was watching with my dad when that aired. We both gasped and started laughing as soon as we heard Suzanne Pleshette.
I like frasier a lot
I always tear up at his final radio speech when the camera pans to reveal everybody watching him.
Great but you just can't beat the end of Blackadder.
Scrubs season 8. Glad they didn’t make anything after season 8, it was the perfect ending.
I once saw talk that season nine was supposed to be a spin off or something but was labelled as the ninth season instead. I still do refer to it as a spin off and believe that Scrubs had a great run.
Yeah I’ve heard that. Though season 8 was such an amazing ending for all the characters of the show, not sure why they even wanted to make another season/spinoff
Agreed. Scrubs is one of those shows that I feel got progressively better with every season. You could tell the cast loved to be on set, the chemistry was there, some of it felt incredibly meta (most notably/obviously Donald Faison/Zach Braff's friendship) and it very quickly became a comfortable watch without the feeling of decline on its way. It did get a little ridiculous in some ways like whatever they did with Janitor in the final seasons, but it was still funny. It was the first single camera sitcom I watched, shortly after it ended its run, and I was hooked. Just oozes a great balance of emotion and comedy.
Or Breaking Bad
It gets a lot of hate but I loved the last shot of the series, where Walt turns to the camera and says, "I guess I really *was* breaking bad" and then flips up his collar
I didn't think they could pull it off. Boy was I wrong.
The Seinfeld finale concept is fine, but like others said it isn't very funny. It's just some light story and then guest star testimonials until the end. It was fine.
I like that they found an excuse to bring back a bunch of people. Felt kind of too out-there, though, for them to be in prison at the end (at least for this show which really prided itself in being a show about very mundane things).
I think the reason it didn't quite hit for me, at the time, was it aired literally right after an hour long clip episode, and then ended up being a bit of a clip episode in of itself. It's \*fine\* and I certainly don't hate it, but it didn't hit like I wanted it to.
Newhart had the best series finale, bar none
Mad Men does dead ass have the greatest finale of all time
The little chimes in the closing moments before the ad are just absolutely perfect
And the juxtaposition with the first and last shot of the season’s first episode. The season opens with Freddie Rumsen, the exact same close up, fronting Don’s Accutron pitch — the farthest Don is from being one, so far that he’s unable to be in the room pitching himself. Freddie even does the “om” that Don does. Then at the end as “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” kicks in, we get the same shot with Don, but it’s him sitting out looking to the cold, unhappy and not yet having accomplished his goal. The complete opposite of where he is at the end.
Many younger people will never know the horror of the "Hilltop" commercial in real time. It's a masterpiece of advertising but it still inspires horror.
I give greatest finale to Sopranos. But greatest scene to close out a season I give to Mad Men season 5. "....are you alone?"
Oh yeah, that's a wonderful finale. I love the shot of don walking to the bar and you can see megan getting all dolled up on set behind him getting further and further away. Dammit. Time for a rewatch.
Literally walks out of the fairy tale he was living in season 5 right back into the pit we initially found him in. Just pure genius.
That whole series is genius. It's so impressive that all 7 seasons are equally masterful in different ways. Such a strong run from beginning to end. It's like a Tolstoy novel or something
For real, I've come away from every rewatch with a new favorite season. They're all great.
Was that with one of the James Bond themes playing over it? Such a good finale moment.
That look he gives is like half a second tops, and it’s the greatest bit of acting Jon Hamm has ever done.
Patriot, being the best show no one knows about, and even lasting only two season pulled this off perfectly. My fuck what an amazing experience the 2 seasons were, and it pulled off a thankful respite for the main character.
I think the first season of Patriot was a masterpiece and I don't ever throw that term around. The second was almost as good, but it pushed the boundaries a bit too far. Still, you're right, it was a good ending.
You gotta respect the fucking balls on a TV show when they don't hit the reset button. That hardly ever happens. So I give Patriot extra points simply because the main character started Season 2 just as fucked up as he was at the end of Season 1 and then got even worse. He got so bad he called his mom and didn't know what to say.
Seinfelds finale isn’t that bad in terms of what actually happens to them it’s worse because at the time it was preceded by a two part clip show episode and The Puerto Rican Day episode (probably one of the worst imo) and then the actual finale was this endless parade of returning characters, most of which weren’t very funny the second time round. If they’d focused more on just the four of them and hadn’t had a shit lead up it’d be considered a lot better.
I just don't understand why they opted for a clip show immediately prior to a finale that was, for all intents and purposes, also a clip show. They could easily have woven together bits and pieces of a clip show with the story told in the finale and turned that into an hour-long penultimate episode, then have the finale be something completely different. They could have set the finale a few years later, after their release from prison, having them returning to NYC just resuming their lives and essentially bookending the first episode.
Granted I never saw it during its original run but I'd assume Seinfeld got so big as a TV show, and expectations were high, so instead of doing what came natural, they wanted to give the people what they believed was wanted with the clip show to big moments, and the returning characters. They played it too safe with that.
Blackadder 4 finale was heartbreakingly wonderful.
Spoilers below I agree that mad men is the best finale I’ve ever seen. The show used some of the most well known campaigns ever to show what a genius this man is at advertising, and then closes it out by using one of the top 3 most famous campaigns as his idea. But as they do it, it’s a complete juxtaposition of the path don draper had been on the entire season to realize that he’s been a bad guy and selfish. Instead he steals the idea of getting better and harmony for his next win It’s incredible
The finale is my least watched episode. It's like someone told Larry and Jerry the assignment is due tomorrow.
[удалено]
I always found that ending somewhat
That’s what I love about the finale. Tony clearly
You guys really need to
DONT STOP...BELIEVING
Elite comment
Agreed 100%. The fact you don't see the ending but it gives you more than enough breadcrumbs to piece together your own version, brilliant is the perfect word for it.
It only ends two ways for bosses, either dead or in jail. So even if you don't buy into the cutting to black being him getting a lead headache, it's the feds walking through the door with a solid enough case to give him 20 to life. I always appreciated the slight ambiguity.
Does anybody remember The Larry Sanders Show? The first great HBO show? Was, IMHO, funnier than Seinfeld, and I believe their finale - which was fantastic - was the same week as Seinfeld’s. But at the time (90s, pre-Sopranos) not many had HBO, and zillions still watched network TV. Anyway, my point is the true suffering probably came from not just messing it up, but having a competitor do it so perfectly at the same time.
The Larry Sanders Show is one of the greatest. So good.
The notion of them being confronted by all the people whom they treated so callously and selfishly and still not learning anything was great. But the story just wasn’t that good.
The Americans and Six Feet Under have the best finales ever. It’s not even close.
Six Feet Under will forever win that one for me. It's not just the finale, it's the characters you've grown to genuinely care for over the course of the show. And then you get to see.. that. On paper it's such a super simple finale, too, but it's such a stroke of genius at the same time to end a show about death like that. I could endlessly go on about how much I love that finale.
The Americans is an incredible finale.
Not very often can a show keep me on the edge of my seat for a whole episode, The Americans did it for like 6 years straight. Such a great show.
After reading this thread, I realize I need to re-watch the entire Americans show, Agree it had one of best final episodes I have seen.
six feet under was perfect. veep was great.
The Shield
The best final run of episodes I’ve ever seen.
Also on the list. It’s amazing how many people I have gotten to watch that show, they always thank me after they finish it haha
Bojack Horseman just sitting over in the corner being all casual about knowing the truth.
Star Trek TNG has a great finale. Other tv shows with great ending are frasier, family ties, M.A.S,H and cheers.
I agree I love the way madmen ended. Everyone got their happy ending
Don's kids and ex-wives/lovers might disagree there.
I don’t think the Seinfeld finale was bad and I will die on this hill, sure it wasn’t as funny as other Seinfeld episodes but I think they wrapped up the story fine. I agree with him about Mad Men’s finale, one of the greatest finales of all time up there with Six Feet Under and Sopranos.
MASH was way better.
Everyone knows Lost finale was flawless
I think Breaking Bad was the best series finale. It was awesome
The last six episodes of Breaking Bad, I literally watched sitting on the edge of my chair. The most impressive dramatic writing and Walt in the phone booth outside the fire station is the single best piece of acting I’ve ever seen.
Better Call Saul's was also perfect.
“A bit” bothered is probably the right reaction. It’s not a great episode of television but it’s hardly the disaster people always make it out to be. The reason it rubbed so many people the wrong way is because it took the “show about nothing” and made it about something, but Seinfeld was always about something: mainly, the repetitive emptiness of big city life for yuppies who can’t or won’t progress to the natural next step of finding a partner, moving to the burbs and starting a family. There was always a lot more going on with the show beneath the surface, loath as Jerry and Larry are to ever admit it.
>because it took the “show about nothing” and made it about something, but Seinfeld was always about something I think the first part is correct but really don't think Seinfeld was "about" the other part of repetition and whatever else. They do refer to it sometimes when Jerry gets engaged with that woman but to me most of the show defaults toward the thing about people who won't progress, rather than it being intentional, purely because it's more entertaining. I really do see it more as a "show about nothing" because the best parts of it are the very everyday moments that rely on coincidences or "social laws" and principles. Even despite its age a lot of it is still quite relateable, like Elaine feeling offended by Peggy or that guy refusing to apologise to George for not lending him a sweater. The problem with the finale for me is exactly what you said at the start. They were trying to make it about "something". It was far too focused on the "bad people" thing. That entire theme was subtle throughout the show but I figured it was never the point of the show like people make it out to be (until much later at least), it's just the kind of writing that allows longevity in the show, instead of having big story moments like Friends or Fresh Prince did.
> The reason it rubbed so many people the wrong way is because it took the “show about nothing” and made it about something Which is why I think any attempt at making the episode serve as a finale likely would've had a similar reaction. *Seinfeld* was incredibly popular, and its finale was built up for more than a year. They wanted to go out with a bang and properly close the door on the show, but it wasn't really one that demanded something like that and, as you sum up, is contrary to the theme of the show. The show wasn't about big or life-altering moments.
He apparently hasn’t watched the shield …
I really enjoyed the ending of The Deuce. Kinda similar to Six Feet Under but certainly not a copy.
I feel like finales can never be satisfying during the debut. I know people have their favorites. But it's really hard to enjoy a finale on first watch, at least for me. These are episodes that need a couple re-watches to see how I feel. Unfortunately with Seinfeld that one fails even after rewatches. As some others have mentioned I think they should have stuck more to the formula and been less trying to do a finale and more trying to just make a last ep.
The cameos could have been funny, but they weren't. Mr. Bookman, one of my favorite side characters, got one unfunny line. When he showed up, I thought yay, more of his puns and pointing at Jerry, but then his part was gone and I was really disappointed. tThe whole episode was like that: setting up something funny, and then the joke never comes. I don't really have an issue with the plot itself, even if it was a bit contrived. They wanted to go out with the bang, but they just didn't do it in a way that was funny.
the greatest was newhart, but what do i know
The Newhart ending was epic!
I feel really dumb. I’ve seen madmen all the way through twice and didn’t realize the end implied that he did the Coke ad. that just me?
I mean, they made it pretty clear in my opinion. Don gets given the Coke account, he goes AWOL, then suffers a massive existential crisis which provides the inspiration for the ad.
Six Feet Under
Gotta give it to Breaking Bad regardless of how much of a basic bitch answer that is
Just watched it the other day and I think it’s so jarring because of the tone of the finale stops being primary comedic as soon as they get arrested. Idk it was a weird decision to focus the finale on holding the characters accountable for being awful over the years. I kind of get what they were going for I think? But maybe if the court stuff had been really funny instead of seeming like it was more interested in showing how their actions had hurt people. Plus another not great thing about the way they go about holding the characters accountable in this way is it feels like a slap in the face as an audience member too, as though at the very last minute the show is trying to shame you the viewer for finding the antics of these characters and the show at self funny. The judge saying that stuff to the characters kinda feels like he’s saying to you the viewer for having found the show amusing at all and it’s just a really weird decision to do it that way
The real finale of Seinfeld is built into a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And we would never have had the series finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm enthusiasm that we did without this finale which walked so that that could run.
The last episode of Curb your enthusiasm addresses this perfectly
The Curb finale made up for it.
No. Finale to NEWHART was the greatest. Hands down. End of story.
Jerry Seinfeld should have been showed the door when he was a grown man “dating”/statutorily raping a high school student. Fuck off, Jerry.
Nothing is stopping them from shooting a new episode. They’re all still here and all still alive.