What's the deal with a Seinfeld reunion?

NEWS DROPPED OVERNIGHT that a reunion of beloved ’90s sitcom Seinfeld might be in the offing, with the show’s creator and star, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, hinting at a possible revival during a stand-up set in Boston on Saturday night.

When asked if he liked the infamous finale to the show, in which the four main characters, Jerry (Seinfeld), George (Jason Alexander), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Kramer (Michael Richards) end up in prison, Seinfeld told the audience he “has a little secret” about the finale of the show.

“Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending. It hasn’t happened yet,” Seinfeld said. “Just what you are thinking about Larry [David] and I have also been thinking about.”

Of course, this rather cryptic little morsel is currently being devoured and digested by the internet. From what little information we have, it sounds like Seinfeld is talking about making a new ending to the original show, rather than a wholesale reboot of the series.

Seinfeld, of course, already had a reunion of sorts back in 2009, when Seinfeld and David staged a revival of the sitcom within the world of David’s show Curb Your Enthusiasm-very meta, very Seinfeld/David. The multi-episode arc saw Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, and Richards reunite a decade after the finale to shoot a special episode. That was a huge deal at the time but obviously wasn’t enough to sate the public or the internet’s appetite for the show.

The fact that Seinfeld mentioned David, is perhaps a clue that whatever they have brewing will once again take place within the Curb universe—the upcoming 12^th season has been shot but does not yet have a release date.

But let’s assume for a minute, that Seinfeld is proposing a fully-fledged reimagining of the finale, if not a whole new season. My first reaction would be to caution the comedian against “doing a Jordan”. Like Seinfeld, Jordan dominated his field in the ’90s, and like Seinfeld, the show, retired in 1998 (actually within a month of each other). Jordan’s competitive drive made it difficult for him resist the lure of the court and he returned to the NBA in 2001 for two perfectly fine seasons with the Washington Wizards, but a long way below the standards he set for himself and what hoops fans expected of him. While it did seem regrettable at the time, history has shown it didn’t in fact tarnish his legacy, as he is still generally regarded as the GOAT.

The difference between these two titans of the ’90s is that Jordan’s initial career finished on the highest of highs, so there was a lot for him to lose in coming back. The finale of Seinfeld, however, while watched by a staggering 76 million people, was polarising. Some thought it too dark, others felt that it was a fitting denouement for four of the most misanthropic characters ever committed to the small screen. Which is why, if Seinfeld is just proposing a re-do of the series’ finale, there isn’t that much to lose.

Given the high watermark the series as a whole set during its nine-year run, the original finale was always going to struggle to please all the show’s fans—endings are hard. A redo of the ending would likely be just as polarising—it’s difficult to see Seinfeld or David doing something straightforward or predictable. But whatever it is they come up with, in all likelihood it will be huge pop-cultural moment that occupies the internet for a week and then we all move on. Great, done.

But what about a full series reboot? It’s hard not to get excited about the prospect of these four characters navigating and dissecting life in 2023, offering up withering diatribes on texting, social media, influencers, TikTok etc: “What’s the deal with everyone walking around with earbuds these days? What are they all listening to? The other day I saw a guy without earbuds. I asked him what he was doing? Guess what he said: silent walking.”

At the same time, you do wonder if the times have changed too much. Like other ’90s stalwarts, Friends and Sex and the City, is Seinfeld too white, too privileged a milieu for today’s TV viewer to stomach? Would efforts to diversify the cast be conspicuous or strained, as many labelled the SATC remake And Just Like That?  It’s difficult to see Seinfeld and David doing the same. It also doesn’t help that Richards pretty much got himself cancelled back in 2006 for a foul-mouthed racist rant.

I suspect Seinfeld and David are all too aware of the risks involved in a full-scale reboot, which is why they will likely take the safer and more meta route of doing something on Curb. That could be viewed as a cop-out—they get to make a reunion show or redo the finale without the risks of a full-scale effort, while remaining faithful to the show’s meta roots.

If that’s the way it plays out, I for one, would be disappointed. Jordan’s Last Dance doco showed that sometimes it’s worth shooting your shot. And besides, the show about nothing was always about everything. And these days, there’s a whole lot of nothing around for its characters to sink their teeth into.

Reboots: the hits and misses

Frasier

The reboot about a pompous Seattle shrink returned to screens over the weekend and so far has been met with largely warm, if not outright glowing reviews. In the new series Frasier, (Kelsey Grammar) has relocated from Emerald City and returned east to Boston, where it all began back on Cheers. The cast has been subtly diversified and no one appears to have gotten hurt. There’s a chance this gets renewed, finds a dedicated audience and a new generation regards it as their show and looks puzzled when you say none of the new characters are a patch on Niles (see The Office US version, also mooted to be up for a reboot). A chance.

Arrested Development

The original series ran from 2003-2006 on Fox before being revived in 2013 for season 4 and again in 2018-19 for season 5, both of which were considered underwhelming. Michael Cera, who played George-Michael Bluth blamed the show’s disappointing response on the more chaotic filming process on Netflix, in which different scenes from different episodes are filmed at once, compared to the original series, where one episode was filmed per week.

And Just Like That

The Sex and the City reboot went out of its way to be inclusive and diversify its cast with middling results. Critics largely panned the show but it has been renewed for a third season, which shows even if people cringe-watch, they’re still watching.

How I Met Your Father

The reboot of the late aughts/early 2010s hit How I Met Your Mother picked up the baton only eight years after the original’s finale aired. Perhaps it was too soon. The reboot, starring Hilary Duff, failed to capture an audience and was cancelled after two seasons.

Dr Who

The legendary British saga about a time-traveling adventurer stopped producing regular episodes in 1989. Sixteen years later, Russell T Davies relaunched the series for millennials. The new Who honours the show’s roots and mythology even as it challenges it, with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Doctors—the former the franchise’s first female doctor, (Jodie Whittaker) and the latter its first Black doctor (Sex Education’s Ncuti Hatwa).

Twin Peaks: The Return

It’s shuddering to think how the question of ‘who killed Laura Palmer’ would have occupied the internet these days, given the extent to which it dominated the zeitgeist back in the mid-90s. Creators David Lynch and Mark Frost’s 18-episode revival in 2017 was far less soapy, turning the surrealist small-town mystery into a dimension-hopping acid trip.

Cobra Kai

You could argue the Netflix megahit is less of a reboot than a small-screen continuation of a movie franchise. But the way the show knowingly and winkingly leans into its inherent cheesiness and the deftness with which it incorporates and continues the original story, while introducing a new generation of characters, is frankly breathtaking. Allowing Johnny Lawrence, once the antagonist, now something of anti-hero, to share POV status with Ralph Macchio, meanwhile, is a masterstroke.

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