Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Seinfeld: The Stake Out Review

Some of these episodes of Seinfeld are from the minds of these writers during its nine season run. A good chunk of them coming from Larry David, who wrote The Stake Out with Jerry. The basis is Jerry and Elaine talking about a friend Elaine knew when the two were together A deal is made where Jerry goes to a get together at a bar for the friend and Elaine goes to a wedding with a number of Seinfeld family members.

At the bar, Jerry makes small talk and jokes with a woman who works in law. He can't believe how beautiful she looks, but can't make any moves because of Elaine sitting next to him. He does catch the name of the law firm. This is also the first episode with the parents of Jerry, Morty and Helen. Jerry explains his situation to them, which Morty suggests a stake out, and Jerry gets George to stage a thing at the law firm.

Things do go smoothly with Jerry and Vanessa, the law firm woman, but go a little sour when Elaine catches wind of what happened. That's the gist with this episode. While it is focused on him, there is a bit of fear in him. As Jerry explains to his parents, he doesn't feel comfortable with saying certain things regarding other women to Elaine. Maybe it's the idea of saying something to a person you used to go out with, but are friends today.

Speaking of friends, Elaine gets the big focus in this episode, having a handful of scenes despite most of them in the beginning of it. George and Kramer don't have many scenes compared to the first two episodes, but George has his defining moment with the architect idea, something they would use throughout the entire run. Also the name Art Vandelay would be used. Kramer is simply comic relief. For the parents, it's a little different. While most will think of Barney Martin as Morty, Seinfeld had a different route in 1990 with Phil Bruns. Bruns version is a little more natural and not as buffoonish compared to Martin. Helen is a character that stays the same throughout its run, with Liz Sheridan playing the mother role of Jerry's pretty well.

It's a stepping block into the direction of having Seinfeld become the way it would dominate television once audiences started noticing a few years later. The humor is there. How the characters are feels like they have ironed out a few things. Just getting all four equal time on screen is the thing that they had to fix back then. This is a solid episode and hits the right stuff in its short first season.

Score: 7 out of 10

Next week's review has Jerry thinking of moving out to another apartment.

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Geeks and Jocks: Bonus Episode 7

 Bonus episode https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ryan-sullivan1gaj/episodes/Bonus-Episode-7-e27h1a2