Seinfeld: Season 5 (1993-1994)

I found the first few series mildly amusing and interesting at best, but season 4 raised the bar a little. I've just finished season 5 on DVD and it's easily the best yet. The best parts of Seinfeld are George (Jason Alexander), Kramer (Michael Richards) and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). The weakest bit is Jerry Seinfeld himself. I find him to be watchable most of the time, but generally he's irritating - his acting ain't great and he's OTT delivery can spoil jokes for me. This should be a problem in a show called Seinfeld, yet because I really like the rest of the cast I keep watching. 

George is brilliant, he's such a sad-sack misanthrope, and everything goes wrong for him. If I believed in karma I'd say it's because he brings everything on himself. This season made George an even better character to watch as, jobless, he moved in with his parents, played hilariously by Estelle 'Mrs Potato Head' Harris and Jerry 'Mr Pinky' Stiller. Their interactions provide many of the show's biggest laughs. 

The other big laughs come from Kramer, who's so wacky and out there he could be from a different show. He's much like Friends' Phoebe, the odd one out who also happens to be the funniest, and therefore doesn't seem to get as much screentime as the others. Elaine's great too, although sometimes, as much as I love Louis-Dreyfus, she can be a bit annoyingly OTT too. 

I noticed this season how many girlfriends and boyfriends the characters get through - there's often at least a new one between the 4 of them every episode, i.e. every week! What hussies they all are! This confuses me about the time scales of the show since the new girlfriend often seems to have been around weeks/months before the show begins. Haven't they gone out with everyone in New York yet?? This leads to revisiting past girlfriends as George did this season when he took Lisa Edelstein out twice. Jerry's taken out Courtney Cox this season, while Elaine got Judge Reinhold. Kramer doesn't get enough girlfriends, but he has been trying to promote a coffee table book, about coffee tables. Hehe. I will watch the next series, because once I've seen Seinfeld I'll be better informed to revisit Curb Your Enthusiasm, in particular reference to the more recent season I haven't seen that has the Seinfeld reunion episodes.