Time Killed the TV Star; Or, Kramer vs. Kramer

A few weeks ago Mel, Paulina, Liz, and Jamie were over and I decided that we were going to watch some Seinfeld and it was going to cause them to fall in love with the show and want to watch every episode, and then we could make allusions to the show together and laugh for a long time (like what I do with Tejas all the time!) Well, we watched two episodes, they laughed a few times, and then they went on with their Seinfeld-free lives. It appears my pipe dream was not to be. (side note: possible title for a book: "Pipe Dreams: Smoking Hallucinogens and the Vaporizer Revolution" [or, perhaps more fitting for my writing style, "Pipe Dreams: How Super Mario Bros. Helped Unclog the 1980's Plumber Shortage"]) I really do wish they would like that show, and I think they would love it if they watched it for a while. Right now the Beatles' "Let It Be" is playing, and if that's a sign that I should give up on this endeavor, then I'm just going to ignore it. Maybe one day, they'll see it on TV and watch it, and it'll be a really good episode from the 4th or 5th season and they'll laugh really hard and decide maybe they'll want to watch some more the next time it comes on. Baby steps. Anyways, I'm not here to complain that my friends aren't watching my favorite TV shows. Well, that's not the only reason I'm here. So let's press on.

In high school, I watched almost exclusively comedy shows (save for that strange month-long obsession with 90's Law and Order). The four shows I will talk about here, and the shows I watched a lot during that time, are Seinfeld, Scrubs, The Office, and South Park (note: after finishing this, it turns out I didn't talk about South Park or the Office at all. Oops). Everyday, I used to come home, turn on the TV, and watch a recorded episode of one of these shows. First was Seinfeld, from 7th grade to my freshman year; next was the Office, during my sophomore and junior year; then Scrubs, during junior and senior year. South Park I watched online in about four or five months after my senior year of high school and during the first few months of college. In all of these shows, I would watch an episode, then rewatch it a few weeks later, then probably watch it again at some point. Suffice to say, I have seen just about every episode of these show (up to Season 4 of the Office and Season 7 of Scrubs, all of Seinfeld and South Park) at least three or four times. In some cases, like Seinfeld, I've seen most episodes probably five or six times. It will get to the point where I can recite the lines that the characters say through most of the episode. Anyways, so after this I would usually have a backlash where I wouldn't watch the show because I oversaturated it, and then after a few months or years I could start watching it. For example, after my freshman year I didn't really watch Seinfeld again until maybe senior year. Anyways, later on, when I would start watching the shows again, I noticed I was drawn to the earlier episodes of the show, usually the first two seasons or so. I was not sure why I did this, and have been thinking about this a lot. When I started rewatching Seinfeld, I would mostly focus on the episodes from 1989 to 1991, and maybe some 92's. (I'm going to be talking Seinfeld here for a while, then maybe bring in the other shows every once in a while as examples. Maybe.) These were the first few season of the show, the ones that were generally overlooked in favor of the most popular episodes from 1994 on. So, why would I only care about watching the older episodes of Seinfeld, and not the newer ones? Here a few different explanation I could make about it, and whether I think they're right or wrong. (The next part might be a little boring to you, so if you want feel free to skip the next three paragraphs and read from there)

1) The older episodes were not as talked about, and as a "true fan" I felt I should know these episodes really well and watch them more than normal people who watch the show: ok, this one sounds pretty pretentious, but think about if you're a fan of a band. I know I love the Beatles, and when I see a bootleg album that looks interesting I'll download it (here's a great link for that btw http://tinyurl.com/29bczpc). Or, if you really like Eminem or Jay-Z or someone, you'll look for basement tapes or unreleased mix tapes or something like that. You know, you want the stuff that most people haven't heard, because of not only the insights you'll gain from them (more on that later), but because as a real fan you've taken the time to look for this and you're rewarded with stuff most people haven't heard. So, I thought for a while this was why I wanted to watch these episodes, but I've decided that that isn't the case. Considering Seinfeld is such an old show, and hardly ever talked about these days, just being a fan in high school makes you a "true fan". I'm one of the only people that watched Seinfeld religiously in middle school and high school, so there's no reason for me to feel like I had to watch the older episodes just to be a "better" fan than other people.

Well, I've pretty much run out of wrong reasons why I thought I'd watch the older episodes. To be honest, for a long time I just didn't know, I just found these episodes to be better. They weren't necessarily funnier, or more heartfelt; I just liked them. In Seinfeld, I think the reason I like the old ones better (finally getting to the point of this post...) is because I felt like I was just spending time with the people I had grown to know and love. Now, for some Seinfeld history (don't worry, not too much).

Seinfeld is considered a "show about nothing". In that sense, there was no plot twist like in most shows (where the main character has just gotten off a divorce or just married or there's something different about him/her that drives some episodes), and the episodes dealt with the daily lives of the characters. One episode would be about finding a car in a parking garage, another would be about waiting for a table at a chinese restaurant, etc. It's just people going about their lives. Because of this seemingly lack of plot, much of the show relied on the characters. There's George, who tries harder than anyone I've ever seen at not working; Jerry, whose distant, sarcastic observations were so terrific it caused me to emulate that personality; Kramer, the compulsive, spastic neighbor who is always entangling himself in other people's probelms (while creating many of his own); and Elaine, the girl who tries hard but always seems to fail. Of course, these are what these characters become as the show progresses. When the show starts, they're just four normal people living in New York. That, I think, is why I love watching the older episodes: the characters are like real people. They're not stereotypes or one-dimensional, they're just people (this does not apply to Kramer, who was always sort of one-dimensional). George's character was one of a lazy person, and this defined his actions much of the time. But he was not always lazy and deceitful. Much of the time he did what anyone else would do. I often say that in the earlier episodes "personality defined actions", while in later episodes "actions defined personality". By this, I mean that at the beginning, the characters were regular people just like you and me, and like you and me they had personality traits. Jerry, the stand-up comedian, was observant and somewhat distant. Because of this, he would act like this sometimes, making witty observations about other people and generally not embroiling himself in problems. But other than this, he went about his life normally. George was a normal person with a lazy personality, so every once in a while he would cut corners or do something to make things easier for himself. However, later on in the show, the characters became archetypes of this. Jerry was always the one who would make sarcastic, biting observations about others in misery, George would be lazy and angry, and Elaine would be quick-tempered and incompetent. Their actions were predictable, and they acted like this at all times, and so their personalities became like this.

As I watch a show, I grow to love it and cherish it, and I feel like the characters exist and I know them intimately. I know what has happened to them, I know how they think, etc. In older episodes, the characters are generally more rounded, and not as much is going on in the plot (or at least, what is going on is more realistic and every-day. In the earlier episodes, I feel like I am just watching some people go about their lives. They aren't in the middle of something crazy that wouldn't happen in real life, they're not archetype characters that exist only on TV, they're just normal people going about their day. I love these characters so much, and I feel like by watching the old episodes, I am spending time with the people I love. I can hang out with Jerry as he tries to handle George's girl problems and the awkwardness of being friends with an ex, or be with Elaine while she tries to make a name for herself at her job. It's like I'm getting an inside look at who these people are, and just enjoy some time with them. I don't know if that sounds really pathetic, but I don't care. I love the first season of Scrubs because J.D. is what I would expect a first-year medical intern to be be like: quiet, observant, trying to do well but often overwhelmed, has crazy thoughts in his head, sometimes funny. Later on, he becomes somewhat one-dimensional in that he is either slapstick funny with his inner monologues and his antics, or completely serious about dramatic stuff. Nobody is completely serious one minute and completely silly the next, people are usually a mix of them. In the first season, J.D. is a real person, and one of my friends.

Now, many of you have seen the fatal flaw in my thought process. These characters are not "real" in any form of the word; they are things made up by other people and played by other people. The situations they are in are contrived, and their personalities are decided by a group of writers. Honestly, I don't know how to reconcile that with my feelings about the characters. I guess I'm just going to ignore it. There's also no point in watching earlier episodes of the show in hopes of learning more about the character, because the character is made up and thus has to change over the course of a show as the people who make him change. Eminem was still Eminem five years ago, obviously with different viewpoints but still with the same background. By listening to the Beatles' early music, you can retroactively see where their music was going to go. You can track how Kanye West has changed over the years. You cannot do this to characters on TV, as they have no history, have nowhere to go, and only exist in the moment. You can fake this as best you can for as long as you can, but eventually it will fail because the mind that created this character will change, and invariably so will the cahracter. Alas, it would appear that all we have of the characters we know and love are those short 20 minutes in which we can spend time with them and enjoy a few adventures. I guess that's all I can ask for.