First, a confession. I am a big fan of the show. I feel it marked a change for the better in television. Yes, it began quite shaky. And I firmly believe that has it appeared in today’s market, it would never have made it to the second season(which is true of many shows that made a mark on the map of the TV landscape).

The team started to find their footing in the third season, and for the following four seasons enjoyed critical and viewer adoration. The eight season saw the departure of an integral part of the show. Co-creator (and voice of assorted characters like George Steinbrenner) Larry David had felt it was time to exit. And who could blame him? He basically left when the show was on top of the world. However, this meant that season eight stumbled around a bit to find it’s way. It became a bit more cartoon-ish. This is not to say it was a bad season. It just was not as strong as four through seven had been.

What really surprised me in re-watching season nine was that, it was a step forward. It was actually quite good. We got to see more of Puddy, and for this fan of Patrick Warburton this is always a good thing. In fact, one of my favorite episodes of season nine is the Burning, in which Elaine discovers Puddy believes in God. What really bugs Elaine is that Puddy seems to have no concern with the future of her soul-he does not try and convert her. He’s downright indifferent (”I’m not the one goin’ to hell.”) and this infuriates Elaine. But the turnabout at the end of the episode provides a solid laugh(as an aside, Daniel Dae Kim of Lost and Angel plays a doctor-it’s one of many fun little early appearances by actors who went on to bigger things-common for Seinfeld).

Then there is the ongoing story following George at his new place of employment, Kruger Industrial. This provides numerous laughs as the head of the company Kruger (Daniel Von Bargen) shows to be the ideal boss for George. Kruger doesn’t care about the quality of his company in the least, allowing for George to scam his way, and even when caught, he doesn’t give up.

Kramer goes through various odd, but funny scenarios, including having an intern and revealing that he has been on strike for the past twelve years, running back to his job at a bagel shop after finding out the strike is over. As always, Richards showed a certain flair for the physical comedy that lasted into the ninth season.

Jerry himself has the traditional stories questioning the boundaries of relationships and ethics (with him usually crossing the line before he realizes it) . The jokes are strong, and the series seemed to be rebounding from the loss of David. I enjoyed every episode, only seeing a few misteps, and it was mainly jokes here and there, though episodes such as the Maid and The Puerto Rican Day have a thrown together feel.

The final episodes of the season suddenly take a turn. I suppose the second to last clip episode is understandable, but other shows have done ” best of clip” based episodes much better. There is just a brief intro from Jerry, and then it is wall to wall clips, no real attempt to make a story around it.

And then there is the final episode. It starts out promising enough. NBC calls Jerry and George in, they want to restart JERRY (the failed sitcom pilot from season 4). All is going great, NBC even giving them use of the private corporate jet. Trouble ensues, ground the foursome in Latham, MA. There they witness and mock mercilessly) a robbery of an overweight man. Unbeknown to the four, there is a new law there, a “Good Samaritan Law”. They are arrested and go on trial. This seems like a good idea on it’s face. But really, it becomes a parade of memorable characters and devolves into a clip show. Which would not be a major problem-if the prior episode had not also been a clip show.

It is fun to see returning characters such Jackie Chiles (Phil Morris) , but the Soup Nazi and the Rye Bread lady and Sidra seem like “showing off”. While the ending is clever (it is, in fact, the conversation that opened the first episode.  Unfortunately, though the ending is clever, funny and entirely appropriate to the series, it does not save the hurried feel.  Certainly, the cast and writers are right-nothing theycould do would have lived up to expectations, but it is hard not to feel some disappointment that the return of Larry David failed to return the golden era.  Had the series ended on a stronger note, i am certain people would remember season 9 more favorably than they seem to now.

One thing that all the Seinfeld sets have excelled at has been the special features.  Thankfully, NBC was able to come to an agreement with Dreyfuss, Alexander and Richards, as the sets have all had great informative featurettes and other assorted extras.  No punches are pulled, they are honest and eye opening.  And season 9 is no exception.   The Last lap featurette gives insight to the decision to end the series, to bring back Larry David and the disappointment with the negative reaction to the series finale.  The commentaries are painfully honest-with writers dissecting their work (especially interesting is the Puerto Rican Day commentary, where the writers defend the episode against the critics that got it banned from NBC and syndication). Noticably absent is any reference to Michael Richard’s meltdown, though it is understandable that the crew would not want to paint the series with that brush.  I can understand how that can make it tough for some to watch the series, it is tough to divorce Richards from Kramer.

The only disappointment for me is that you only get excerpts of the round table discussion between Jerry, Julia, Jason, Larry and Michael.  It looks like an interesting discussion, and we just get blurbs.  The only way to get this feature was to buy the box set of all 9 seasons, but most people I know were purchasing it from season 1 on.

All in all, it was a great set, and I enjoyed running through the memories, and would recommend the season 9 set, in spite of the failings of specific episodes.