Seinfeld: Season Four DVD Review
May 15, 2005
The 1992/1993 fourth season of “Seinfeld” was when the show reached a zenith rarely achieved by today’s sitcoms. With ridiculous plots born out of the peculiar minds of Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, and Larry Charles, ranging from first class, coach satire aboard a long plane flight, to a foul odor that encompasses everything in it’s path, including Jerry’s car and Elaine’s hair, this was the year the show went from moderate success to Emmy-winning phenom. All hilarious 22 episodes have just been released on DVD, packed with extras, so to celebrate this momentous occasion, like I like to do with “The Simpsons” annual DVD releases, here is my personal Top Ten from the best year of a TV classic.
10. The Implant: All four characters have their own devices in this great episode; Jerry sends Elaine into the gym sauna to see if his new girlfriend’s breast are real; Kramer believe he’s seen Salman Rushdie taking a steam (Kramer: “Whew, it’s like a sauna in here.”); and George offends his girlfriend’s brother when he double dips a chip at a funeral service. George fighting for a reduced bereavement plane fare is priceless cheap Costanza comedy, but the best line belongs to Terri Hatcher, spurning Jerry about her voluptuous bod, “They’re real, and they’re spectacular.” And how, 12 years later Mike Delfino would say the same.
9. The Trip, Part II: The conclusion to the season opener finds George and Jerry in L.A. as Kramer is suspected of being the infamous Smog Strangler. Uneven at times, but the conversation between George, Jerry, and Clint Howard, in the back of a police cruiser, about the appropriate tipping amount for a chambermaid is the kind of “nothing” material that made the show work so well. George and Jerry’s back and forth about tucking or no-tucking a bed’s covers is pure gold.
8. The Opera: Kramer’s afraid of clowns, Elaine dumps psycho boyfriend “Crazy” Joe Davola after spraying his eyes with Cherry Binaca, and George tries to scalp tickets to “I Pagliacci”, giving Jason Alexander one of his best lines, “This is not a Metallica concert, it’s an opera.” Like many of the oddball plot lines this season, this culturally deficient episode was penned by third season Emmy-winner Larry Charles.
7. The Junior Mint: The only new episode to air in March ’93, “The Junior Mint” is notable for two things; Jerry dating a woman whose name he can’t figure out, and Kramer plunking a Junior Mint candy into Elaine’s boyfriend during an open-view surgery. This was the year “Seinfeld” entered the zeitgeist with numerous memorable phrases, and Jerry’s guessing game to figure out his girlfriend’s name, which sounds like a female body part, is one of those examples (“Mulva”), but the best line still belongs to Kramer, explaining the joys of a Junior Mint: “It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint- it’s delicious…it’s very refreshing!”
6. The Outing: A NYU student writing a piece on Jerry things he and George are lovers, leading to a denial, and the coining of the famous phrase, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” Charles toes the line of careful political incorrectness with this script that gets much mileage out of that now classic 7-word phrase.
5. The Virgin: Episodes 45-51 was “Seinfeld’s” zenith, and this script, co-written by Peter Mehlman and the Farrelly Brothers, lands right in the middle of that glorious run in November ’92, featuring the show’s textbook handling of awkward sexual situations, this time with Jerry dating a virgin (Jane Leeves, pre-“Frasier”), and George desperately trying to end his relationship with NBC exec Susan, who later in the season is so turned off from the Costanza experience she turns lesbian. Classic stuff, leading up to the even more famous…
4. The Contest: In season three of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, Larry David inadvertently trips Shaq at a Lakers game, and to make it up to him, he brings the big guy a tape of his favorite “Seinfeld” episode, “The Contest”, a legendary farce written by David about a self-control contest to see who can abstain the longest. A sexy nurse bothers George, Jerry is freaking out over his virgin and the naked woman across the street, Kramer loses very early, and Elaine is stressed over JFK Jr. Never had a weekly primetime sitcom dared to dedicate 23 full minutes to the tricky subject of masturbation before, and only on “Seinfeld”, which never actually said the word (“Master of your domain” is the now famous catchphrase), could the ridiculous scenario come off as comedic genius. David won Best Comedy Writing, Michael Richard’s sealed the first of his three Supporting Actor wins when Kramer slaps down his money, “I’m out,” and the miracle of November ’92 that was “Seinfeld” kept on rolling along at an unbelievably funny pace.
3. The Pick: Jerry dates a model who may or may not think she saw him picking his nose at a street stop; Kramer accuses Calvin Klein of stealing his cologne fragrance that smells like the beach, and Elaine’s Christmas card is candidly X-rated, when she “misses a button” during the photo session. A tour de force for Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as Elaine’s predicament snowballs into a catastrophe, but Richards steals the show again, modeling underwear for Calvin Klein, much to the praise of his executives; “His buttocks are sublime.”
2. The Visa: George dates a lawyer who is suing Elaine, and thinks Jerry is dark and depressing; Kramer punches Mickey Mantle, and Jerry somehow gets Babu Bhatt deported, a year after ruining his life in “The Café”. Kramer reenacting his ouster from Mantle’s fantasy camp is Richards’ physical genius at it’s best, but nothing beats Brian George’s Babu when he’s waving his finger at Jerry and slowly calling him a “very very bad man”. The concept isn’t much different from “The Café”, but the dinner scene where Jerry purposefully tries to be unfunny, for the sake of George’s relationship, is in itself entirely hilarious.
1. The Bubble Boy: On a weekend trip to Susan’s cottage, George loses Jerry because of his fast driving, visits the home of a sick kid in a bubble, and plays a game of Trivial Pursuit for the ages. This episode, co-written by David and Charles, is a prime example of Jason Alexander’s unique ability to turn George Costanza into a frustrated pathetic anti-hero, getting into a shouting match with the wicked Bubble Boy over the difference between the Moors, and the typo “Moops”, to which George claims victory. Jerry has a few good lines at the expense of his girlfriend’s awful laugh (“I can’t date a girl with that kind of laugh, it’s like Coco Chanel going out with a fishmonger.”), and Brian Doyle-Murray is perfectly deadpan as the Bubble Boy’s calm father, but this masterpiece belongs to Alexander, who remarkably never won an Emmy for his unbeatable performance as Costanza.
The Academy never got it right as far as Alexander is concerned, but they did get one thing right; “Seinfeld” was arguably the best television show of ’92-’93, rivaled only by season four of “The Simpsons” (which, in a heavenly television year, was also their best season) and it’s Emmy win for Best Comedy series, it’s only such victory, was a much deserved win for a show about nothing, that became terrifically something.
“Seinfeld, Season Four” is out on DVD now, featuring deleted material, episode commentary, and special documentaries about the season Larry Charles likened to “Sgt. Pepper”, because it was just that good.
by Adam Suraf