by Christopher Kendalls

Created on: October 21, 2007

"Curb your Enthusiasm" picks up where Sienfeld left off, in my opinion, and I while I wasn't ready to see Sienfeld go I think that Jerry had done all that he can with the show and that it had served it's purpose at the time. I'm sure it was a difficult decision to make but if he had kept it going it would have been difficult to leave out on as good of a note at it had. Seeing that the release of the last season of Sienfeld on DVD is near, this is a good of a time to talk about the impact of the show and it's impact on television history.

Before Sienfeld the premise of a show that was "about nothing" was ironic because the nineties appeared to be a period of time that was "about nothing" as well. Earlier shows attempted to hide the fact and tried to be about something; "Mad About You" and shows like "Suddenly Susan" were attempts by the networks to create shows that were definitively about something, yet lacked the strength of many of the great shows in the eighties that were meaningful and memorable. Most of these shows ended up falling into syndication soon after they had premiered though lived a great second life there, like "Just Shoot Me". The end of Sienfeld was very much in line with the end of the decade, and like the nineties, this is where the show should remain and it was a smart way to go out on the part of the writers to insinuate that perhaps the show could pick up after a while once Sienfeld and his friends were released from prison.

It would be interesting to see Jerry Sienfeld become a creative force behind other shows and find a creative way to take his comedy and put it in a form that is relevant to the shows of today, as what he and Larry David did at the time may not work as well now as it did then. But I'm not sure that I really want to see him playing himself on television again; it's sort of like seeing Woody Allen in his own movies retreading the same comedy that was funny in the seventies, not necessarily funny anymore. Plus you run the risk of half of your audience wanting something new and completely different while the other part continues to romanticize what you did over ten years ago. Sienfeld will always remain a relevant force in comedy, but it would be difficult for him to star in another sitcom without comparisons about Sienfeld (the television show) being made.

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