Customer Reviews

Seinfeld: Season 3 (PAL)

5 star:		(88)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While there were some select excellent episodes during the first two seasons of Seinfeld, I've always thought Season three was when the show really hit its stride and found its comfort zone where it would remain for the next six years.

This season really defined the whole irreverance of the show and the pure ridiculous idiosyncracies of the characters. Among the great episodes of season three:

"The pen" Jerry visits his parents in florida and Jack Klompus gives Jerry the famous Astronaut pen that writes upside down.

"The Library" The library asks Jerry about a book he checked out in 1971 and never returned, so Jerry looks up an old girlfriend for his defense against a library cop. Phillip Baker Hall is priceless as the Libray Cop Bookman.

"The Subway" Everyone has an uncommon experience while going their separate ways on the subway. George meets a beautiful woman who distracts him from his intended destination, a job interview. Jerry falls asleep and then wakes up across from a fat naked man and winds up discussing with him, the New York Mets & Coney Island.

"The Pez Dispenser" Kramer joins the "Polar Bear Club." Jerry gets one of Kramer's Pez dispensers which makes Elaine laugh during a piano recital of George's girlfriend, and that puts their relationship in jeopardy.

"The Boyfriend Parts 1 & 2" Jerry meets Keith Hernandez and wants to make a good impression. Meanwhile, George is out of time on his unemployment and he works harder than ever on his scheme to get a 13 week extension. He tells the unemployment office he was really close on Vandelay Industries, a company that makes latex products and whose main office is Jerry's apartment. Kramer and Newman hate Hernandez back to a time when they were allegedly spit on by him; however, Jerry supports the "second-spitter theory." The First of Many legnedary Episodes.

There is commentary on several episodes and many more extras. This is the season that would catapault Seinfeld to top 10 status!

The third season of Seinfeld is when some of the really great stories came out, making this set a must have for fans of the show. Of course, I loved Seinfeld over its entire run, watching the premiere when it first aired and then watching the series till it ended, so I may be a bit biased in favor of it. The episodes are presented in the order they were filmed rather than the order they aired, which actually makes the continuity better for this set. The special features are only so-so, and I did not bother to look for hidden bits like the first set had, so there might be more to see.

As with the first set, there is for each episode a brief making-of retrospective with various cast and crew sharing their recollections. It is interesting to watch, and the different people giving commentary keeps it from seeming too repetitive. I like the Notes About Nothing, which gives subtitles of minutiae, like Girlfriend and Boyfriend Counters for the cast, Kramer Entrance Counter, things like that.

The best part of this set, like the first set, is the outtakes. While I did not actually time it, I believe that there are more outtakes in this set than in the first set. I watched it three times before moving on, as I laughed so hard at them. Some were already shown on other discs with the pertinent episode's short documentary, but they are still hilarious.

The behind-the-scenes stuff is OK, if a bit dry and somewhat padded in length by clips from the shows themselves. The audio commentaries that can be run are pretty disappointing. There are none with all four cast members, which would have rocked, but some have three (all but Seinfeld), likely due to the money issues that delayed this set so long in the first place. I only listened to a couple, with Kramer, George, and Elaine speaking, as that was the closest to the cast as was available. Not bad, but for 22 minute shows it seems clear to me that they did not put that much time and effort into it. I also would have loved all four cast members together for one of the interviews, but maybe that can happen on a later set.

All in all, I am happy with the purchase, even if the features are not so great, mainly because I love the show and can now watch whichever episodes I like whenever I want. And I am eagerly awaiting the rest of the series, as the later seasons just got better and better.

I've seen these episodes dozens of times each. I love this show; I love the characters; I love the pencil-thin plots; I love Kramer's scemes; I love Elaine's antics; George's predicaments; Jerry's shallowness; Newman's evilness; Tom Cherones' directing; Larry David's writing; and just about everything else that makes this show Seinfeld.

So of course I got the DVDs for the extras and Colombia doesn't disappoint. Bloopers, unused stand-up material, interviews, commentaries, production notes, photo gallery, and an out-of-place (sort of) Spider-Man II trailer, and inside looks at the making of individual episodes. This DVD set is the ultimate for any DVD fan.

It's not without its faults though. My biggest gripe was with the "Kramer vs. Kramer: Kenny and Cosmo" featurette on the Season Three DVD. The description on the back mistakingly identifies it as a comparison between the real-life Kenny Kramer and the Cosmo Kramer of the show. Once you get five minutes into it, however, you realize it's a documentary about Michael Richard's devotion to giving a good performance on the show.

That in itself is not bad. Michael is a very interesting person and he does reveal some stuff I hadn't known about, but it's the principle of being misled that upsets me. Kenny Kramer is mentioned at the beginning, but it shows a mere three quick clips of an interview with him aboard his reality bus. Honestly, more about Kenny is said on the "Seinfeld story" NBC special.

But the rest is great. Season Three isn't my favorite, but it is pretty good. It marks the point where Seinfeld really became the show it was for the rest of its run. A show about four greedy New-Yorkers with no respect for society. Or nothing, whichever you prefer.

The best commentaries are the ones with Julia (Elaine), Jason (George), and Michael (Kramer). There's also an option called "Notes About Nothing", which is a subtitle feature that will analyze every moment of the episode and give you useless facts. But then... isn't that what the show was about?

Hello Seinfans, here is what I found on release dates for future volumes of Seinfeld on DVD according to a guy going by the alias of Mr. MV who claims to have gotten the info from Sony:

Volume 3 (season4) - May 17th 2005 (confirmed)

Volumes 4 & 5 (Seasons 5 & 6) - Xmas 2005

Volume 6 (Season 7) - June 2006

Volumes 7 & 8 (Seasons 8 & 9) - Xmas 2006

Mr. MV reveals his motivation for revealing the release dates:

"As for coming on here and passing on insider details; I'm a fan of other things which I wish I had an insider for to get information about my favorite show. I'd like to think I'm banking my karma points."

This release schedule seems plausible and I hope it helps in this trying time.

This far exceeded my expectations for this DVD release (especially considering it was from Sony). Digitally re-mastered, and the extras are never-ending. I was fearing 80 dollar prices initially, but at these prices, they're a giveaway. Impressed. Very impressed.

If you're a T.V. Seinfeld fan you will absolutely love the DVD's. The scenes that are cut to insert commercials by syndicators are restored on the high quality DVD versions. I grew up in the United States and had always liked the series from television. I was married while living/working/studying in China in 2002 and bought the DVD's for my wife on our coming to the United States in 2005. She had never seen Seinfeld before and had never been exposed to this style of humor or the slice of American life that the series presents. We have watched the DVD's over and over again and they never fail to make us laugh and lift our spirits when we've had a bad day. We utilize the closed captioning option and it has been a great help for my wife in acquiring an understanding of casual English usage including slang, and idiom. On a more serious note, owning so many seasons and watching the episodes regularly makes you realize the sad truth that much of American life really is focused on the themes of myopic self-interest presented and ridiculed in this series. I sometimes worry that individuals may actually see the series as a validation of their lack of ethics, morals, and connection with the Creator instead of as a revelation and jabbing at today's inappropriate social dynamics; just as the Archie Bunker/All In the Family series did in the 1970's.
The DVD sets include great special features from "How It Began" to "Making a Seinfeld Episode", deleted scenes, behind the scenes commentary from cast and creators, never-before-seen standup footage of Jerry, original NBC promotional ads and trailers, outtakes and bloopers, and much, much more. It's obvious that a lot of thought and work went into producing the DVD sets and I can't wait until the remaining seasons come out for sale at Amazon. After all; "Who wouldn't love Jerry?"
Episodes included in this set are:
Season 3 - The Note, The Truth, The Dog, The Library, The Pen, The Parking Garage, The Café, The Tape, The Nose Job, The Alternate Side, The Red Dot, The Suicide, The Subway, The Pez Dispenser, The Boyfriend, The Fix-up, The Limo, The Good Samaritan, The Letter, The Parking Space, The Keys.

The season three DVD's have many of my favorite episodes. I was also impressed by a reasonable amount of special features. I think they have more to offer than the Simpsons DVD's as far as special features. Commentary by the cast members is especially enjoyable. Also Notes about nothing adds even more replay vaule to these hillarious Episodes. Season 3 is definatey worth getting.

F i n a l l y the wait is over! Fans of this series, which defined an entire generation and beyond, are breathing a collective sigh of relief that the actors finally got it together and ironed out the bumps to make this DVD release happen. Perfect timing before the holidays!

The writing in this show was ingenious. Jerry and Larry had their entire hands on the pulse of New York City and its inhabitants. From major to minor details, you will find subtle and sometimes outrageous tidbits of life in every show. It's facinating to watch how each episode winds up smoothly connecting each separate story, scene for scene, which unfolds in one laugh after another. This was no ordinary sitcom. For anyone who didn't watch this in the '90''s, now is the time to grab ahold of a classic comedy masterpiece.

Season 1 & 2 are great, but this set, Season 3, is a MUST HAVE, containing memorable classics like The Pez Dispenser, The Boyfriend, The Keys, and The Pen. The extras are fabulously fun to watch, you'll laugh just as hard if not harder at the outtakes and bloopers. The crisp, clean quality of each episode makes our old VHS copies horrible in comparison. For years we suffered through shows in syndication, trying desperately to complete each season with minimal commericial interruption...but alas, our reward -- this is the gift to give yourself, the Faithful Fan, who now can sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy hours of non-stop entertainment, Seinfeld style!

"Seinfeld" continues to be sponge worthy in this great DVD boxed set of the third season. The third season consists of 22 episodes. All the episodes are the uncut original episodes that aired on NBC (most of the episodes in syndication are usually trimmed by a minute or two). The boxed set has a slipover case. Inside the inside slipcase each disc is nicely housed in individual slim DVD holders. Season Three has 9 commentary tracks (if I'm counting correctly)featuring Jerry and Larry David, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander on a trio of episodes and writer Larry Charles & Director/Producer Tom Cherone on the remainder. Deleted scenes, unused stand up bits, promos and a sly featurette on the real Karmer make this a generous set particulary when compared to the bare bones releases for other similar (although not as funny) series.

Overall, the high definition transfer look very sharp. The good news is that even though the show was videotaped, the quality of the picture and sound for most of those analog episodes continues to look great. The blacks are solid for a videotaped program and the colors are as real and true as they appeared over a decade ago. Sound is also quite good on this set. Clearly, Columbia took a lot of care in transferring the show. Considering they could have just dumped it on the market with only the episodes and no extras and commentaries, I'm a happy camper.

For a show about nothing this boxed set spends plenty of time and space talking about the something special that made this an outstanding show. We get 9 commentary tracks from Jerry, Larry David, writer Larry Charles and Jason, Julia and Michael the other part of the fab four. All in all, it's a generous boxed set filled to the brim with extras.

"Kramer vs. Kramer" allows the real life inspiration for Cosmo Kramer to comment on his fictional counterpart. Kenny Kramer comes across as wacky and weird as Cosmo but a little scarier in that he occupies real space. We also get outtakes, bloopers (watch Jerry and the cast screw everything up and make the screw ups almost as funny as the scripts) and deleted scenes from episodes that ran a little but too long. "Master of His Domain" features the stand up material that introduced much of the third season that was shot but never featured in the show. You can well imagine which episodes they were intended for and guess pretty accurately without seeing any info on the subject. "Sponsored by Vandelay Industries" features the funny promo ads and trailers that NBC ran to promote the show. "Inside Looks" provides a glimpse behind-the-scenes as to what was really happening when various episodes were shot. There's also some discussion about improve on the set, what inspired the various episodes and the chemistry that the ensemble cast had together. We also have the chance to see trivia about the various episodes but, more importantly, two slightly different versions of the pilot episode that play a bit different as well. It's like entering the Bizarro Universe from Superman at times.

There's also cool production notes about the making of each episode that appear at the bottom of the screen. If you can multi-task you might appreciate the trivia and other info imparted about each episode. "Seinfeld" is, indeed, sponge worthy.

In the wise words of Don Imus... "I've never met a smart person who didn't have a sense of humor." I say amen to that and quite honestly reckon that what we witnessed on our TV screens for what now seems like 9 very short seasons was a sort of pure, "whipped up out there somewhere in the stars" kind of entertainment genius that TV in it's current apocalyptic preoccupation with reality dribble and cookie cutter sit-coms may sadly never capture again. But thank the almighty we can now unleash this comedic lightning in a bottle whenever we need a crack like fix of "nothing" by just dropping a DVD into a tray, dimming the lights and pretending it's Thursday night in 1991 all over again. You know honestly I'm a bit suspicious as to the motives of people who would waste their time writing a review about something they obviously don't get and know very little about, I know "nothing" and subtlety are hard concepts to grasp sometimes but if you let yourself go and quit waiting for someone to lead you to the "one-liners" to drink you might just appreciate the fact that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David figured that the audience was smart enough to get "it" without "it" being shoved down their collective throats. They understood that the laughs and loyalty they would earn by not dumbing the whole process down by resorting to pathetic ratings period tricks like offering viewers "an emotional Seinfeld we'd never forget" or having Elaine and George get married in the season finale' to find out next season it was all just some twisted dream sequence would be much more rewarding in the end. I guess it's sort of like when they say you should never talk about politics or religion at a dinner party, I think I'll ad Seinfeld to that list, bottom line is, if people don't get it, they never will so why argue the facts? It's just a dirty shame they find themselves prisoners of such a bleak humorless little rock of a planet. Now as far as the DVD goes, even without the fantastic extra's (which go to 11) it's Seinfeld on DVD... `nough said! Heck I would have been satisfied if they'd released it dubbed in Bulgarian and had packaged the whole thing in smelly old mildew ravaged newspaper! And that thing about smart people having a sense of humor... I guess the fact that I love this DVD and can't get enough Seinfeld makes me a freaking genius, a genius that can't spell mind you, but a genius that knows how to laugh!