Seinfeld: Season 3 [DVD] [2004]

I bought season 3 alone as i had heard that the first 2 seasons were establishing the sitcom and this is when the series really started to get going into its stride.

There are some truly excellent episodes here with The Cafe, The Nose Job, The Red Dot, The Subway and The Limo and especially The Fix Up being pure comedy gold. however in all the episodes the characters are brilliant and george (on the brink of constant desperation) and kramer (the nicest goofball) really stand out. jerry is more of a constant and whilst not as extreme as kramer/george - is still funny. elaine provides female perspective and balance and certainly keeps the men on their toes (eg the Tape).
the show generally has an undercurrent of unpleasantness which is so refreshing when compared with the dreadful sentimentality of the sitcoms so often in the uk. this is also a cause for much of the humour.

the episodes are always amusing. some will have you rolling with laughter (eg Kramers honesty to one of georges girlfriends...the pez dispenser in the piano recital). some whilst not being laugh out loud funny are very clever and will put a smile on your face. there is rarely a moment when you are sittng there being critical of what you are watching. this is apart from the episode The Pen which is just not funny. Discs 2, 3 and 4 tend to have the greatest quality of episodes.

there are 22 episodes on here and lots of decent extras too. we see the original person that the character of kramer is based on and there are some nice epithets from the cast on the commentaries (e.g. the Subway).

The show is so popular in the states and ran for 180 episodes. having spoken to friends here they fall into 2 camps of love it or loathe it. its great that there will be more seasons to come as i remember seeing some even better episodes later in the series.

i would recommend this to buy. its too much to sit down with on one go obviously but spread out over time it is a real treat to watch and appreciate. and it is also a pick me up too watching george costanza plumb the depths of desperation where "hopelessness is his only hope".

the dvd is easy to navigate around and the whole package is beautifully put together even from the loading screens.

enjoy it and spread the word.

Season 3 is arguably the gold standard for Seinfeld. A good handful of the best-remembered episodes come out of the 1991-1992 run, and it's here that the writing solidified once and for all and Seinfeld had become everything it was supposed to be. It was also one of the higher-profile years as far as the cultural zeitgeist, introducing catchphrases like "These pretzels are making me thirsty" and "I have no hand" into the pop lexicon.

The greatest stride forward in Season 3 was in the ability of the crew to create stories that involved all four of the main cast, often on divergent paths that then converged in unexpected ways. For instance, in the episode "The Suicide," the team begins by being split in two halves. Jerry flirts with his next door neighbor's sexy European girlfriend, prompting a fight and the neighbor attempting to overdose on pills. Kramer needs his vacuum cleaner back from the neighbor, and he maintains a vigil over the man while he's in a coma, accompanied by downstairs tenant Newman (Wayne Knight, appearing for the first time). Jerry is afraid Newman will rat him out for the affair, and so he sticks to the pair like glue.

Meanwhile, George is planning a trip to the Bahamas, and Elaine is fasting while waiting to be tested for an ulcer. When she takes George to a psychic, the pregnant soothsayer warns him away from his vacation, but Elaine's testy outbursts get the two thrown out before George can find out why. George then accompanies Elaine to the hospital, discovering that the psychic is there giving birth. Jerry and Kramer are also there, and the various story lines become hopelessly entangled. Tying them all together? Drake's Coffee Cakes! The convolutions are nearly imperceptible, the comedy moves at a lightning pace.

Many of the stand-outs in this season also involved getting the gang out of their regular New York haunts. There is, of course, "The Pen," where Jerry and Elaine travel to Florida to visit Jerry's parents and get involved in some kerpuffle over an astronaut's pen. More importantly, though, are the episodes that take a cue from the great success of "The Chinese Restaurant" from Season 2 and try to put the crew in an enclosed space where they are subject to the absurdity of the environment. "The Parking Garage," for instance, where they are trapped looking for their car, wandering the many levels of the garage and getting into trouble. Also, "The Subway," which begins with all four of the guys on the same subway train, sees them split to various trains, and then follows the situations they get into on their own.

All the while, the team was getting more courageous and daring with material. Suicide, pregnancy scares, Nazism--nothing was off limits. Even surreal segments, like Jerry's penis playing chess with his brain in "The Nose Job" or the outright parody of JFK in "The Boyfriend." Whereas many series hit a pothole when they achieve a certain level of notoriety, feeling the pressure to live up to their new reputation, the makers of Seinfeld treated its growing popularity as fuel, only getting smarter and more outrageous, and constantly moving farther out on the ledge to see what they could get away with.

EPISODES: * The Note * The Truth * The Dog * The Library (audio commentary with writer Larry Charles) * The Pen (Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David) * The Parking Garage (director/producer Tom Cherones and production designer Tom Azzari) * The Café * The Tape * The Nose Job * The Alternate Side * The Red Dot * The Suicide * The Subway (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards) * The Pez Dispenser (Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David) * The Boyfriend (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards) (featuring vintage introduction by Jerry Seinfeld) * The Fix-Up * The Limo (writer Larry Charles) * The Good Samaritan * The Letter * The Parking Space (director/producer Tom Cherones and production designer Tom Azzari) * The Keys

Have recently got into Seinfeld and working my way through the seasons. Love the show and don't need the DVDs to be of 'gift' quality, but this was a great set considering they weren't classed as new. Thanks.