Masters of their domain: the 20 best episodes of Seinfeld
20. The Chinese Restaurant (season two, episode 11)
Seinfeld is, notoriously, a show about nothing, and this episode – about waiting for a restaurant table – is a perfect example. Plenty of tiny things do happen, of course – George has his name changed to Cartwright, Elaine compares herself to a hog and a panicstricken Jerry converses with a woman whose face he can’t place – but The Chinese Restaurant is proof that the plot really isn’t the point.
19. The Summer of George (season eight, episode 22)
The show had more than its fair share of great guest stars, and the season eight finale sees three collide: Amanda Peet plays Jerry’s demanding new girlfriend, Molly Shannon is Elaine’s stiff-armed colleague and Raquel Welch appears as a terrifyingly aggressive version of herself. A subplot in which Elaine calls out sexism is a rare jaunt into progressive territory.
18. The Cafe (season three, episode seven)
George’s plan to fake an IQ test goes awry, while Jerry provides business advice to the owner of a failing eatery in the smuggest – and most misguided – way possible. As a character, the Pakistani restaurant owner Babu Bhatt is uncomfortably cartoonish, but what saves this episode (and makes it a classic) is that the joke is squarely on Jerry and his self-congratulatory interior monologue.
17. The Parking Garage (season three, episode six)
Misplacing a car at a multistorey car park is a premise that could fuel many a sitcom. But this is Seinfeld, so instead of the usual wisecracking, we have a profound meditation on death, a throwaway subplot involving Scientology and absolutely zero consolation by the episode’s end, when Kramer car fails to start.
16. The Dinner Party (season five, episode 13)
There is a strand of Seinfeld episodes that deal exclusively in mindbending exasperation: this is one of them. Hamstrung by dinner party etiquette, driven to distraction by bakery bureaucracy, poisoned by a cookie (breaking Jerry’s 14-year novomit streak) and blocked in by Saddam Hussein (maybe), the friends’ scream-inducing outing makes going to a dinner party seem like a living nightmare.
15. The Limo (season three, episode 19)
One of the show’s most high-concept conceits involves George conning his way into a limo by pretending to be the real occupant – who turns out to be a neo-Nazi leader. It’s the little details that make it: George’s terse incar phone call with his mother, his willingness to embrace fascism if it means getting the girl and Kramer’s swiveleyed conspiracy theory about Jerry’s real identity.
14. The Puffy Shirt (season five, episode two)
“No hugging, no learning,” goes the Seinfeld writing room’s most famous maxim – a uniquely brutal take on the sitcom format. That aversion to any substantial change means when George lands a life-changing job as a hand model, his luck must speedily unravel. It does, dramatically, backstage at The Today Show, on which Jerry has just moodily donned a ridiculous shirt.
13. The Sniffing Accountant (season five, episode four)
Prolonged sniffing and a trip to the bathroom convinces Jerry that his accountant is a drug addict, so Kramer decides to pose as a dealer to catch him out. The resulting physical comedy – which climaxes with a surprise photoshoot in a toilet stall – is among Kramer’s best (and most restrained) slapstick, which for a man who can turn literally anything into an absurd sight gag is really saying something.
12. The Little Kicks (season eight,
episode four)
It’s not often Elaine is the butt of the joke, but it’s nice when it happens. After an office party, her standing at work plummets: she’s convinced George is the root cause, but her horrendous dance moves are actually to blame. Meanwhile, Kramer’s foray into film bootlegging goes as badly as you’d imagine, and somehow ends with Elaine enjoying an early form of viral fame.
11. The Gum (season seven, episode 10)
Kramer is refurbishing a run-down cinema; to ensure its success, he needs to convince George’s schoolmate Lloyd Braun that he is completely sane. The mirror-image subplot involves George trying to convince another old friend that he, too, is completely sane. The image of George chasing her down the street in a Henry VIII costume shouting “I got it from The Institute” is one of Seinfeld’s most giddily broad moments.
10. The Marine Biologist (season five, episode 14)
Unusually, this episode is set in motion by Jerry’s lies – a stupid Tolstoy-based one to Elaine, and a wellintentioned one about George being a marine biologist to the latter’s college crush. The resulting action involves golf balls, a beached whale and an electronic organiser, but it’s the way the storylines are eventually woven together that makes this a feat of sitcom plot engineering.
9. The Invitations (season seven, episode 24)
Seinfeld plots usually revolve around the trivial, but the arc in which George has cold feet about his impending marriage is profoundly sinister. After wishing her dead, George’s fiancee, Susan, does die, and the foursome’s reaction is outrageously cold. Even bleaker, George wastes no time in weaponising his almost-widower status. Proof that the show could be unflinchingly dark when it put its mind to it.
8. The Strike (season nine, episode 10)
After Larry David left Seinfeld at the end of season seven, there was much talk of a decline in standards, but this gloriously slogan-heavy episode (“a Festivus for the rest of us”; “The Human Fund: money for people”) is proof there were later-season gems. It also allows Frank Costanza to show his true, diabolical colours. It’s not often you say poor George, but: poor George.
7. The Slicer (season nine, episode seven)
Another late triumph: it’s Jerry’s turn to put his foot in it for a change by belittling his doctor date. In turn, she ends up involved in George’s plot to procure a topless photograph of his new boss, Mr Kruger, after accidentally airbrushing him out of a family photo. The Kramer-abetted caper that ensues is high-concept comedy gold.
6. The Bizarro Jerry (season eight, episode three)
When Elaine friendzones an ex, he becomes a mirror image of Jerry, with George and Kramer-lookalike friends to boot. The new trio’s kindness and productivity leaves her disenchanted with Seinfeld’s premise, AKA “coming into this stinking apartment every 10 minutes to pore over the excruciating minutiae of every single daily event”. In reality, it’s a taste of how boring the show would be if its leads were actually good people.
5. The Subway (season three, episode 13)
The foursome’s train journeys take them in very different directions: Kramer wins on the horses, Jerry befriends a nudist, George ends up naked and handcuffed to a bed and Elaine experiences a deeply relatable anxiety spiral when a jam-packed subway stops for no reason. Plus, there’s a great opening riff on Death of a Salesman (no hugging, no learning, no patronising).
4. The Fire (season five, episode 20)
This episode is part of an extended arc in which Kramer publishes a coffee table book about coffee tables. However,
the main event here is George reacting to a fire at his girlfriend’s son’s birthday party in the most selfish and cowardly way possible, thereby cementing his position as the fictional character who best embodies the truly terrible person inside us all.
3. The Opposite (season five, episode 22)
Many of the greatest Seinfeld episodes centre on George unexpectedly rising up the power rankings (see also: The Pez Dispenser). Here, he lands on an amazing life hack: he simply acts against all his better instincts. The results – success with women and a dream job with the New York Yankees – leaves The Opposite bordering on feelgood entertainment, albeit in a warped, Seinfeldian kind of way.
2. The Contest (season four, episode 11)
After his mother catches him doing “that”, George vows never to masturbate again. And so begins a challenge: who can remain “master of their domain”? All have their temptations – Jerry is dating a virgin, Elaine does aerobics with John F Kennedy Jr – but, as usual, George’s situation is the most morally repugnant. A masterclass in sneaking taboo topics into mainstream entertainment.
1. The Pilot (season four, episode 23/24)
With Seinfeld, the more meta the better – and it doesn’t get more self-reflexive than Jerry filming a sitcom based on his life. The audition process – including Kramer’s disastrous attempt to win a part as himself – is gleefully knowing without being navel-gazing, while George’s health-scare storyline is a sublime take on the genre (“I want to be the one person who doesn’t die with dignity!”). An amazingly sophisticated, deeply funny outing from the smartest show in sitcom history.