Jerry, George, and Elaine try to get a seat at a Chinese restaurant.

Written by: Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld
Directed by: Tom Cherones

Sometimes you bear witness to a cosmic shift. This is famously the episode where people locked onto what Seinfeld was doing – not only is it on record as being the first Seinfeld episode to get high viewing numbers, I’ve often spoken to fans old enough to remember when it first aired who said it was either the first episode they watched or the first episode where they decided it was must-see television. Now, I came to the show in 2019, so I can’t and won’t speak for those people, but I do think there’s interest in my perspective as a late Seinfeld fan. TV Tropes had a page called “Seinfeld” Is Unfunny, which refers to the general concept of latecomers to classic, influential works finding them cliche, even when they created the cliche in the first place. Seinfeld was used because it was so influential on the sitcoms of the Nineties – with its unsympathetic protagonists, criss-crossing plots, and above all, the conversations about nothing. Many went back to Seinfeld and were unimpressed by what they’d seen a million times.

Obviously, I came to it when it had passed into history – when even the ripoffs had faded away and the influence of Seinfeld had become clearer but also harder to quantify (Star Trek: TNG sits in a similar place right now). And obviously, I found the reality of the show more complicated than that; there’s a spirit to this show that nobody has quite managed to replicate, and it helps of course that I watch the show because it’s funny, not because it’s radical. That said, it was “The Chinese Restaurant” where I felt that effect of unsurprise. I am so used to plotless narratives about pop culture and banal experiences – as well as episodes set in one location for extended periods – that nothing about this really had that shock to me that the rest of this show did. Works ranging from Spaced to Shortpacked! have operated on this logic, and indeed taken it much further.

That said, this is a great half hour of television. The funny thing about it is that it does convey the feeling of being stuck in one of those half-spaces of life – waiting rooms, break rooms, other people’s houses before anyone else has woken up – without actually being entirely plotless. There are three main runners here: Elaine wanting to eat, George wanting to call Tatiana, and Jerry trying to figure out who that woman is (with a side order of wanting to avoid his uncle and also see Plan 9), with the maître d’ acting as an obstacle to most, though not all of these plots, as well as them bouncing off each other. It then comes down to a simple question: how do these characters preoccupy themselves in this little space? These days, the answer would mainly be ‘look at my phone’, and the sheer amusement we get shows that maybe we should be paying attention to these banal irritants.

There are two lines that get me, here: Elaine complaining about the way people act when they get ‘chosen’, and Jerry goading her into a dare with the idea of giving these people a story about some weirdo they’ll be telling for the rest of their lives. Sometimes that’s all life is – not looking for comfort, but for a great story to tell. I’ve certainly found a lot of irritating banality a lot more bearable since thinking of it as like Seinfeld, or something that would make a good Seinfeld episode, or even as a jumping off point for a Seinfeld-like line. They say almost any kind of suffering is endurable if you have the right story to filter it through; Seinfeld provides a context for stories that were just kind of dumb and funny.

TOPICS O’ THE WEEK

• Oh yeah, this is the one where George yells about society and how we’re living in it. It’s a genuinely spectacular line – sometimes there’s a comedy line that hits a truth so fundamental to the universe that you feel like you’re seeing the face of God, and “You know, we’re living in a society!” is up there with the “I used to be with it” monologue from The Simpsons. I love an interpretation I read once that suggested George meant to say “we’re living in a society of laws” but tripped up his words a bit. I also love that people seem to forget the followup, where the guy apologises to George for taking so long on the phone and George meekly accepts it.
• You can hear Larry David in the group of old people reacting to Elaine’s request.
• “Hey, what stinks in here?” is such a great dumb line. It’s so specific and you know Larry David actually heard it somewhere.
• Ending the episode with “Seinfeld, four!” is an obvious joke to make, and the obviously correct one. It calls forward to the car failing to start in “The Parking Garage”. Honestly, the whole story conveys what it’s like when a seemingly simple task overcomplicates itself.

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Next Episode: “The Busboy”