Amid the buckets of new Netflix offerings for May, multiple comedy specials will arrive to deliver some laughs during these difficult times. That line-up includes Jerry Seinfeld, who will drop his second (although still rare) stand-up special for the streaming giant on May 5. Expect him to keep mining everyday life for humor in the minutiae, while the title of this special, 23 Hours To Kill, and the teaser, suggest a diversion into James Bond-land. The villain who’s taunting Jerry in the above promo bears (what I assume is) an intentionally lukewarm resemblance to Christoph Waltz, who portrayed Blofeld in 2015’s Spectre, but the mood here is much more Austin Powers than anything serious.
Will the Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee host take on villains during this stand-up special? Netflix’s press materials don’t reveal the answer to that question while favoring a more straightforward description. That is, we’ll see Seinfeld offering his trademarked “sharp angles on everyday life, uncovering comedy in the commonplace” from NYC’s Beacon Theater, where he (obviously) filmed this special several months ago. Even though the promo shows him maneuvering to outsmart a villain, the onstage portion of this teaser moves to a bit that we’ve already seen associated with Jerry Seinfeld. He riffs on a subject — gaps underneath bathroom stalls — that previously surfaced (through the mouth of George Costanza) in a 1995 Seinfeld episode, “The Postponement.”
I’m choosing to believe that this subject’s repetition, which has been noted elsewhere and will be recognizable to die-hard Seinfeld fans, is meant to work some magic. There must be a reason why Netflix chose to highlight this bit from the special in a teaser, right? Maybe it’s a message that Jerry will insert some welcome nostalgia that might transport us all back to a simpler time. Clearly, this special was filmed before our current situation, but if there’s anything that Seinfeld’s talented at doing, it’s inviting us to fixate upon seemingly insignificant details to find humor in unexpected places. That’s comfort-comedy, and a meditation upon the absurd, if you will, but we’ll see how far into the past Jerry Seinfeld dives when this special arrives on May 5. For now, enjoy this spiffy poster.
