But I don’t wanna be a reboot!
The era of the sitcom is in great decline, as the era of reality TV and streaming have turned the once most popular form of scripted television into a relic of the past. Newer sitcoms may not make much of a mark anymore, but older ones are still popular on syndication and streaming. Shows like Friends, The Office, and Everybody Loves Raymond have all been gone for a decade or more, yet they’re still part of our culture because they never truly left us.
No sitcom was bigger than Seinfeld. Running from 1989-1998, every episode seemed to bring a new water cooler moment and a new phrase that took over the lexicon. Seinfeld hasn’t produced a new episode for a quarter of a century now, but you can find it all over TV, and the series sold for massive amounts on both Hulu and Netflix. Seinfeld still thrives, but after recent shocking comments by Jerry Seinfeld, could the series be coming back to thrive again with new material? Let’s hope not.
What Do Jerry Seinfeld’s Comments About ‘Seinfeld’s Series Finale Mean?
Most TV shows, be they a sitcom or something more serious, ebb and flow in quality. A series might start out great, then fade in quality over the seasons as the writers run out of ideas or beloved cast members leave. We’re looking at you The Walking Dead! Sometimes a show like The Office is near cancelation in the beginning, only to later find their voice and an audience. Then there was Seinfeld. Outside of its odd pilot, it was a hit from the beginning and only got bigger every season. By the end, it ruled TV. Sure, there’d be a bad episode here and there, such as the much-maligned “The Puerto Rican Day,” but nearly every time fans tuned in for another instant classic each week. Then came the series finale in 1998. The anticipation for Seinfeld’s last episode was immense, but instead, we got the most divisive episode, in which the Seinfeld clan find themselves on trial for their misdeeds and go to prison. Perhaps it’s what they deserved, but it’s not what fans deserved.
That episode has always been Seinfeld’s odd duck. We’ve had no choice but to accept it for what it is. It might come up in lists for most hated TV finales, but hey, at least we have everything that came before it. If that’s the end, so be it. As it turns out though, that might not be the case.
The gang did return for a Seinfeld reunion during a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which stars Seinfeld’s co-creator Larry David, leading to a few minutes of a new episode, but that wasn’t canon. It was more fun than anything. That could be about to change, as Jerry Seinfeld recently made headlines. During a standup show in Boston, an audience member asked Seinfeld if he liked the finale. The co-creator of the show replied, “Well, I have a little secret for you about the ending. But I can’t really tell it because it is a secret. Here’s what I’ll tell you, OK, but you can’t tell anybody. Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending. Hasn’t happened yet. And just what you are thinking about, Larry and I have also been thinking about it. So you’ll see, we’ll see.”
’90s Sitcom Reboots Have Been Disappointing
So what did Seinfeld’s mysterious answer mean? Even Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who played Elaine, didn’t know, telling The Guardian, “Yeah, I just saw [that news] last night. And I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.” Now, is she playing dumb, or is the actress behind one of Seinfeld’s biggest characters in the dark about the series that made her so famous?
Seinfeld’s response could mean anything. Is the group coming back for the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, or is there something smaller planned like a Super Bowl commercial? If the latter is the case, now is certainly the time to be getting prepared for that. What many seem to think is that Seinfeld is hinting at a reboot. If you don’t like how something ended after all, the easiest thing is to start it again, creating a new ending.
It’s understandable to jump to that conclusion. Sitcom reboots have been tried many times in the last few years. Right now, Frasier is back on Paramount+, but should it be? The original sitcom was one of the best ever, winning a plethora of Emmys over its eleven-season run, but the reboot seems small and timid, with so many characters we loved gone, and Kelsey Grammer at times feeling like he’s phoning it in inside a lesser world. Murphy Brown was a huge deal in the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s, but when it came back for an eleventh season a few years ago the ratings were bad. Audiences had moved on. Did you know there was even a Mad About You reboot? It might have been popular in the 90s, but in 2019 it showed up for a shortened season as a Spectrum Original and made no impression at all. Do we want to see Seinfeld suffer a similar fate?
Even ‘Seinfeld’ Wouldn’t Work as a Reboot
Now, if any show could pull off a reboot, it’s Seinfeld, since it’s still so huge now in culture. But how would it work? Are the Seinfeld four now out of jail and back to living their sad, single lives as if nothing ever happened? Do we want Jerry and George (Jason Alexander) at the diner complaining about their love lives in their sixties? Or do we give everyone a family and kids? To do so would almost be a betrayal of their characters. If anyone seemed destined to be alone forever, it’s them.
It seems like a long shot to even be able to get everyone back together at the same time. Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus keep themselves incredibly busy. Then there’s the Michael Richards problem. Kramer may have been one of the greatest characters ever, but the man who played him has never recovered from his racist meltdown during a standup show in 2006. Would audiences forgive him, or is Michaels forever canceled?
There’s also the question of where Seinfeld would return to. The days of monstrous ratings are over. Streaming options and cable have made it impossible for tens of millions to watch the same show at the same time anymore. Would a Seinfeld reunion end up on Peacock or Netflix, becoming something we now binge alone on our phones rather than a shared cultural moment? That feels sad and small for something that was so big.
There’s one reason more than any to never have a Seinfeld reboot. It’s not the risk of it being horrible. No matter what, we still have the original series. That doesn’t change. It’s that a reboot goes against what Seinfeld was. Bringing it back is giving in to nostalgia. Nostalgia is everywhere, from TV to movies, and lately, it’s failing. How many people cared about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? Audiences demand something new and different. Seinfeld was famously a show about nothing, where no one ever learned a lesson. There was definitely no nostalgia allowed. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld need to learn a lesson here. 2023 tells us nostalgic reboots don’t work. Unless the plan is for something simple like a commercial, let Seinfeld rest. Keep the characters in jail where we left them. Letting them out is too big of an unneeded risk.
