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By
WAYNE KLEIN
"Seinfeld" became "Master of
his Domain" with the fourth season of the series.
The cult hit finally found a massive audience
during season four. Not that there's anything
wrong with that! For a show about nothing there
are plenty of extras on this great boxed set.
Jerry and George pitch their idea for a show about
"nothing" to NBC, Kramer manages to burn down the
house of George's new girlfriend Susan. The only
things to survive the fire are letters writer John
Cheever wrote to Susan's father testifying to his
gay relationship with her father. Kramer manages
to flip of his junior minds into a friend's body
during surgery. A college writer discovers what
all that bickering is about between Jerry and
George when Elaine jokingly "outs" the two
friends. It's all in a season's work for the men
who destroy the Bubble Boy's plastic home.
Columbia has sprung for the best for "Seinfeld."
The series is presented in high definition with a
picture much, much better than what has been seen
in syndication. "Seinfeld" was originally shot on
35mm film so some of the grain visible was
inherent in the original film. I didn't detect any
analog defects nor did I see any digital ones that
were noticeable. The sound has nice presence and
the dialog is crystal clear.
First off, we get the original broadcast version
of "The Handicap Spot" featuring the late John
Randolph ("Seconds," "Serpico") as George's
father. When the role was recast for consistency
sake the producers went back and reshot Randolph's
sequences with Jerry Stiller. Jason Alexander who
performed with Randolph on Broadway does a
touching introduction for the original broadcast
version of the episode. Randolph's take on Frank
Costanza is quite different from Stiller's. While
Stiller would make the role his own and take the
character to absurd new heights, it's nice to have
Randolph's performance available again. The
syndicated version features Stiller as George's
father.
"Inside Look" features interviews with the cast,
production crew and writers discussing key
episodes such as "The Bubble Boy," "The Cheever
Letters," "The Opera" and others. A side note to
writer Larry Charles—trim your beard guy you look
like an escapee from a mental institution. Michael
Richards comes across as a bright, articulate guy
the exact opposite of his TV persona. We also get
deleted scenes, outtakes with the cast cracking up
or forgetting their lines during scenes and NBC's
original promo spots for the series.
"The Breakthrough Season" discusses the series
jump from cult favorite to superstardom. Larry
David mentions how his idea for a story arc that
reflected the real world pitch to NBC was received
with mixed feelings. Nevertheless, Warren
Littlefield was supportive of the risky venture
and luckily the NBC crew had the foresight to see
how the show could breakthrough to a massive
audience. There's also a discussion on the
difficulties that David faced with "The Contest."
Luckily, the NBC censors had no problem with the
episode because masturbation is alluded to but
never mentioned outright. Michael Richards also
discusses on "The Opera" about Kramer's fear of
clowns and how that drove the comic elements of
the story for his character. If you look very
carefully at the menus you'll also find a number
of amusing Easter eggs planted throughout each
disc.
Hands down the best commentary tracks are by the
trio of Jason Alexander, Michael Richards and
Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Sadly, Seinfeld's
commentaries were recorded without the other
members. It's too bad as the synergy between the
four of them would have been fun to hear on their
commentary tracks. Nevertheless, the trio of
Alexander, Richards, Louis-Dreyfus only speak when
they want to bust each other's chops or have
something to say about the shooting of the
episode. Larry Charles comes in second with
fascinating tidbits about the episodes he wrote.
For example, "The Trip Parts 1 & 2" features
Charles commenting on how NBC approached
producer/writer/co-creator Larry David about doing
an episode set in Los Angeles. David wasn't
interested so he gave Charles free rein to create
two episodes that represents his bizarro world
take on "Seinfeld." Jerry Seinfeld's commentary
tracks sound the least comfortable of all the ones
recorded here.
"Notes About Nothing" offers a text commentary for
the episodes. The are filled with extraneous
information about the episodes, some of the jokes
and some of the topical people that are referred
to within each episode. They also provide
interesting tidbits about the production of each
episode. Although they can occasionally be
annoying, they're pretty interesting on the whole.
For the "Seinfeld" virgin, this really is the
first essential season to see. It captures the
writers-performers-directors at the peak of their
game. The fact that they were able to continue at
that level for 3 more seasons is astonishing.
Featuring some of the classic key episodes that
the series is best remembered for, "Seinfeld: The
Complete 4th Season" looks exceptional in this
high definition transfer. From here on out
"Seinfeld" was not only "Master of His Own Domain"
but also Thursday night "Must See TV" on NBC
throughout most of the 90's. |
