Seinfeld (Series, The) (DVD)

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10) "The Strike"-George invents the "Human Fund," Kramer goes back to work at H&H Bagels after a 12-year strike, and Jerry dates a "two-face."

11) "The Dealership"-Jerry decides to buy a new car from Elaine's boyfriend, George accuses his mechanic of stealing a candy bar, and Puddy's insistence on high-fives puts Elaine off.

12) "The Reverse Peephole"-Puddy puts Elaine off with his "man fur," while Jerry and George have wallet problems and Kramer installs a reverse peephole.

13) "The Cartoon"-Elaine draws a cartoon for The New Yorker, George dates a woman who reminds him of Jerry, Kramer takes a vow of silence, and Jerry feuds with Sally Weaver over her one-woman show. Kathy Griffin guest stars.

14) "The Strongbox"-Kramer gets a strongbox for his valuables, George's girlfriend won't break up with him, Elaine dates a homeless man, and Jerry gets suspicious of a neighbor.

15) "The Wizard"-Jerry gets his father an electronic organizer, Elaine thinks her boyfriend is black, Kramer retires to Florida, and George lies to Susan's parents about buying a house in the Hamptons.

16) "The Burning"-Now it turns out that Puddy is religious. Jerry, meanwhile, is driven nuts by his girlfriend and George picks up the slack for his boss. But the funniest thread? Kramer and Mickey perform disease symptoms for med students.

17) "The Bookstore"-Jerry sees Uncle Leo shoplifting, George gets in trouble for taking a book into the bathroom, Elaine gets drunk at an office party and makes out with a co-worker, and Kramer and Newman start a rickshaw business.

18) "The Frogger"-George becomes obsessed with the Frogger video game machine, while Kramer grabs caution tape from a police station and Jerry dates a "sentence finisher."

19) "The Maid"-Jerry dates his made, George gets a nickname, and Elaine gets burned over a new area code.

20) "The Puerto Rican Day"-The four friends get stuck in traffic during New York's Puerto Rican Day parade. Mario Joyner guest stars.

21-22) "The Chronicle"--Jerry looks at clips of the past nine seasons.

23-24) "The Finale"-En route to Paris, the gang's plane has to make an emergency landing in a small New England town and they witness a mugging. And they're arrested for doing nothing to stop the victim. Jackie Chiles defends them at their trial, with a ton of character witnesses forming another look back.

Video:
Remastered in High Definition, the 1.33:1 video really looks sharp, even stretched to fit a 16x9 widescreen television screen. The colors are vibrant and there isn't much in the way of bleed or pulsation. What more can I say? The episodes look better than ever.

Audio:
The sound quality is almost as good, with English and French Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and subtitles in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. No complaints here.

Extras:
Right from the beginning Sony did "Seinfeld" right, with great packaging (four single-sided discs in clear-plastic keep cases with a double cardboard slipcase) and great bonus features. This season provides more of the same.

Highlights: "The Last Lap," which has the cast and crew reminiscing about the final days of production, and "Scenes from The Roundtable" (excerpts from a conversation with the four actors and Larry David some nine years after the show ended).

I've always liked the trivia track and Sein-imation cartoons, and there are three of the latter here. The gimmick this disc is "The Betrayal: Back-to-Front," a re-edited version in which the story starts at the end and works backwards (which is actually the normal way--the episode aired had a non-standard narrative structure).

As with other "Seinfeld" sets there's a fairly substantial blooper reel, and nine of the episodes have "Inside Look" brief featurettes that give you a little background. There are also deleted scenes from 15 episodes, including the finale. All of them are pretty short and insignificant except the cut footage from the ending, which runs 15 minutes long and has some nice moments.

Finally, the "Yada, Yada, Yada" commentary tracks give us writers David Mandel, Alec Berg, and Jeff Schaffer ("The Voice," "The Maid"), writer Steve Koren ("The Serenity Now"), Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, director Andy Ackerman and writer Bruce Eric Kaplan ("The Merv Griffin Show") on one of the better commentaries, writers Brian Henry, Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin ("The Slicer"), writers David Mandel and Peter Mehlman ("The Betrayal"), Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, Patrick Warburton, and Andy Ackerman ("The Dealership," "The Strongbox"), Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, Warburton, and writer Spike Feresten ("The Reverse Peephole"), writers Steve Koren and David Mandel ("The Puerto Rican Day"), and writer Dan O'Keefe and Andy Ackerman are joined by the man himself, Jerry Seinfeld ("The Strike").

Bottom Line:
What a way to go out! Over nine years, "Seinfeld" squeezed every last drop of nothingness out of life and made us all laugh at the characters'--and our--idiosyncracies. Though it didn't an Emmy for any of the five categories in which it was nominated, this last season is as strong as any of them.

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