Jerry Seinfeld and his pals pulled the third biggest audience in the US
Ten years ago tomorrow, 75 million Americans sat around their televisions - the third largest audience of all time - to witness the end of one of the greatest comedies of the 20th century. Seinfeld was a phenomenon in the US and was so successful NBC were prepared to offer Jerry Seinfeld $5m per episode to continue - the cast of Friends were earning "just" $1m per episode at the height of their success.
But in the UK Seinfeld never caught on and for a show that was built around the inextricable frustrations of modern life, often coupled with righteous indignation - personified by the ever put-upon George Costanza - this seems strange. Especially when we seem to pride ourselves on such traits.
Erratic late-night scheduling on BBC2 certainly didn't help and perhaps now in the age of Sky+ Seinfeld would have thrived, but successful shows usually overcome such things to find an audience. Perhaps the shallow nature of the characters and the nihilism inherent in the show, which led to its label "a show about nothing", turned British audiences off. But when you consider the success of almost every other US import to these shores there is one noticeable difference - resolution.
While Scrubs has JD's constant voiceovers to bring episodes to a conclusion, Frasier had the story arc of Niles and Daphne to follow alongside lessons for Frasier, and Friends continually showed the characters maturing and learning at the end of each episode, Seinfeld purposefully did the opposite. Episodes frequently ended in situations that were immediately forgotten at the beginning of the next, the characters starting with a clean slate once again, having learned nothing from their experiences. Larry David, the show's co-creator, famously insisted on a strict "no hugging, no learning" rule on set and in one episode Kramer (Jerry's neighbour against whom all other wacky next-door neighbours pale in comparison) tells Jerry, "You know the important thing is that you learned something," only to be rebuffed, "No I didn't!"
It seems striking that while The Office, our defining sitcom of the 21st century so far, gave us an out-of-character happy ending with Tim and Dawn together and David Brent having at least not embarrassed himself on a blind date, Seinfeld ended with the four main characters, not married, not successful, not even happy, but sitting in prison about to start a one-year jail sentence. When it comes to comedy, perhaps we Brits are less sophisticated than we like to think.
