THE SEINFELD ENDING SUCKS

I wrote a little essay complaining about The Wonder Years' ending last month. That was kind of fun, so here's some thoughts on another bad sitcom ending: Seinfeld.

Briefly, the problem with Seinfeld's final, two-part episode, apart from the dumb and gimmicky premise (Jerry and the gang find themselves in "sticksville" and somehow wind up under arrest, precipitating a trial which requires character witnesses -- a transparent excuse to bring back a bunch of old guest stars), is that it asserts that Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are uniquely despicable people, which isn't entirely fair. They're certainly not good people -- they're shallow, selfish, petty, lazy, and overly concerned with social niceties, and they get worse as the series progresses -- but they're not really as bad as all that. Kramer is eccentric, sure, and his schemes are sometimes less than ethical, but for the most part he's a big-hearted guy who sticks up for his friends. Elaine is often seen volunteering and doing charity work, especially in the beginning/middle of the series. Jerry is depicted as unfeeling ("that's a shame"), but he's hardly ever mean-spirited. Heck, he bought his father a Cadillac! And George may be a dishonest cheapskate, but even he isn't all bad: in one episode, for example, he feels terrible about the fact that he may have broken up a marriage with an offhand remark. Most of the time, the characters are merely victims of circumstance.

Here's the real reason why punishing the characters for being terrible people seems unfair, though -- virtually every character in the Seinfeld universe is a terrible person, and compared to them, Jerry and his friends are practically saints. Newman is a conniving schemer. Kenny Bania is abrasive and obnoxious. George's parents are insane. Even incidental characters are depicted as rude, jerkish types: the liquor store owner who kicks George and Kramer out of his store in subzero weather, because the place "isn't a hangout,"; the grouchy Soup Nazi; the crude Bubble Boy ("how about taking your top off?"); the Jiffy Park parking lot guy, who smugly tells George to "take it up with consumer affairs" after George finds out his car is being used by prostitutes to service clients; the auto mechanic who steals Jerry's car because he's not taking proper care of it; the Chinese mailman who goes ballistic when Jerry asks him for directions to a Chinese restaurant; and so on. The majority of Elaine's boyfriends are idiots/losers. Kids are universally depicted as shin-kicking brats. There's hardly any nice, normal people at all in this universe. Jerry and the others live in a world of assholes.

So the final episode, which basically accuses them of being the worst people in this asshole-world...sorry, it just doesn't ring true.

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AN ALCHEMY OF MASQUES AND MIRRORS BY CURTIS CRADDOCK

This is a fantasy novel that I picked up a while back, on the recommendation of Lawrence Watt-Evans, and which I finished a few days ago. The two best things about the book are 1) the intricate plot, which is clever and carefully-crafted, and 2) the creative, imaginative world, which is really strange and unique, full of weird magics and interesting concepts. I admit I didn't really care for the pseudo-French and pseudo-Spanish stuff -- I think Craddock would've been better off dreaming up a wholly unique fantasy world, with its own cultural/linguistic idiosyncracies -- but it's not a big problem and I really enjoyed the book overall. I'll definitely be buying the sequel(s). Buy it here.

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MY MUMM-RA COLLECTION

It's getting a little out of hand.



And this isn't even all of it.

Incidentally, Cartoon Network is apparently making a cutesy new ThunderCats series called ThunderCats Roar. It looks like dog shit, sorry.