My Review of "Seinfeld: Season 1"

Seinfeld: Season 1 first aired back in 1989. I have always shyed away from the first 3 seasons because they never appealed to me but here I am revisiting them. To my surprise these episodes aren't as bad as I remembered them. The building blocks are there and they never totally delineated far from the original concept.

It all starts with the pilot episode which they call "The Seinfeld Chronicles". Here we get introduced to the original three cast stars, Kramer (who is called Kraller in this episode), George and of course Jerry.

Jerry has a dilemma as he's likes this girl and she's invited herself to Jerry's place. She's absolutely ambiguous as to whether she actually has romantic interests in Jerry or not. George is trying to help Jerry crack the code but even he's at a loss for words when he actually meets her. It's a fun episode and fits to the dynamics of the group's storytelling later on in the series.

The second episode is about Jerry and an old friend of his. Jerry doesn't really like hanging out with this old friend but feels obligated as they've been life long friends. It's time for him to break up with his old time friend. How do you do that sort of thing? This was a pretty funny episode where they make tie ins with romantic relationship break-ups with plutonic friendship break-ups. We also get introduced to Jerry's friend Elaine.

Then the third episode opens up a little more about Jerry and Elaine's relationship. They used to be romantically linked but now they're plutonic friends. Things are a little awkward when Elaine brings him to a birthday party and Jerry finds a romantic interest. Due to the awkward relationship between Jerry and Elaine, Jerry has to stake out this romantic interest instead of asking Elaine outright for more information. I liked this episode because it builds upon the background of Elaine and Jerry. It also builds some potential storylines for later on.

The fourth episode is where Elaine housesits for Jerry. Kramer unfortunately leaves the door open and Jerry's place gets robbed. This opens up a conversation of Jerry moving to another place that George found a listing for. Unfortunately, upon showing Jerry the place, George realizes how great a deal the place is and the two fight for the place. A pretty funny episode that helps build upon our characters.

Finally we have an episode about George trying to make it rich through the stock options. He convinces Jerry to join him on this get rich scheme situation and when Jerry buys in he doesn't realize how much stress it is. There's a roller coaster of emotions as the stock starts to dip in value. This episode is pretty interesting as they bring back the love interest character from episode 3. Ultimately this episode doesn't really go anywhere but it again further builds upon the personalities of our main characters.

Through each of these episodes I can see the building blocks of what would later become a bonafide hit. All of the characters are exactly the way that I remembered them and even the tone of the show has stayed consistent throughout the series. There are a few surprises in casting as I didn't remember that there was a different actor who played Jerry's dad initially. Small changes to names and scenarios. It is essentially the same though. They even add building blocks for things to come like the engineering work of Art Vandalay.

Overall, I was surprised I enjoyed this season as much as I did. It was pretty fun with a lot of things that I didn't expect. Some of the jokes are a bit dated as we don't deal with bank tellers or checks. Still this was a product of its time and it still stood the test of time. I have to give this season a 7 out of 10. Very fun and interesting watch especially if you're a fan.