Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday! Coverage of Curb Your Enthusiasm will begin soon. In the meantime, I’m excited to set the figurative table by resurrecting an entry from this blog’s decade-long run. Here’s how it works: I’ll provide a link to a piece that I first published many seasons back, and then I’ll offer a bit of updated commentary. But, as I always caution, please be gentle; this early article is from a long time ago, and my standards have changed as I’ve changed — I’ve improved as a thinker, a communicator, and a television-watcher.

So, let’s revisit… The Ten Best SEINFELD Episodes of Season Seven: https://jacksonupperco.com/2017/05/30/the-ten-best-seinfeld-episodes-of-season-seven/

In terms of legacy, Curb Your Enthusiasm is the 21st century extension of Seinfeld’s idea-driven ethos, only updated by a single-camera approach and the unique sensibilities of “prestige TV” that most cable and streaming platforms have since adopted for the half-hour form, such as fewer episode orders, longer runtimes, and less consistent scheduling. In fact, Curb had its finger on the pulse of the genre — we’ll talk more about that soon. Yet so much of its identity is, again, a continuation of Seinfeld’s, evangelizing that ’90s classic’s charms and ensuring the maintenance of its relevance, even internally. That is, Curb deliberately frames itself in relation to Seinfeld… which makes sense, given that Curb star and creator Larry David also developed Seinfeld and helmed its first seven seasons (along with its controversial series finale). In this new show, where David similarly offers a semi-autobiographical concept about a funny guy playing a version of himself, the success of Seinfeld looms large, with the 1999 mockumentary special that inspired the series literally defining Larry’s character as the real-life George Costanza — a notion reiterated throughout Curb’s run, including in several metatheatrical arcs that directly involve the show: Larry’s attempted sitcom with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Season Two, his Seinfeld reunion in Seven, and finally, his knowing build-up to a redo of that controversial finale in Twelve. From start to finish, Curb affirms its connection to Seinfeld, winking about their shared traits and history. Of course, there are differences too; for instance, Curb doesn’t have to reckon with the initial low-concept triviality and false “show about nothing” branding that stuck with Seinfeld, even as its weekly idea-driven apparatus became narratively bigger and more complex, creating dissonance in both the storytelling and the supposed relatability of the characters, which David affronted by jokily condemning them at the end. No, Curb is obviously not about “nothing”; it’s about a Hollywood George Costanza, wallowing in petty grievances and exacerbating misfortunate through his own foibles and schemes. And while we can maybe relate to his annoyances, we know darn well that he is not a reliable proxy for us in a world that resembles ours. Thus, Larry can be like the Seinfeld characters at their worst — here in Season Seven — but with a premise that fully supports him. See? He does learn lessons…

Come back next week for another relevant sitcom rerun! And stay tuned for a new Wildcard!