It’s been 24 years since the series finale of Seinfeld, and people continue to debate whether it was “a terrible way to sign off – with wretched excess” or “a great ending to a great series.” (Those were both taken from the User Reviews section of the episode’s IMDb page, which is still very active.) “The Finale” probably doesn’t appear in too many lists of the best Seinfeld episodes; in fact, Wayne Knight, who played Newman on the continuously-popular sitcom, thinks it might belong among the show’s worst episodes.
“I think I’m like the rest of the public as far as the finale goes. I don’t think you can end that show in a way that would work,” he said during a recent appearance at Pennsylvania’s Steel City Convention (via Comic Book). “The idea of doing a retrospective winds up feeling like a clip show, so I think that they tried to pay tribute to all of the people who had walked through that set, all the great performances, all the great people. And it didn’t quite land in the way that they wanted.”
“The Finale” works better in theory (putting the four main characters on trial for the crummy things they’ve done) than it does in execution. But I still enjoy the episode, although not as much as one of the other ideas pitched for the finale, which is that Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer would meet at the “coffee shop with nothing to say.” People would have been so mad. Like, The Sopranos finale-level mad. Maybe on Curb.
(Via Comic Book)
