the lead performer many of the longtime seinfeld contributing writers stepped up during this time period and attempted to help the show fill larry david's absence however they weren't able to fill it in exactly the same way the show changed it got goofier larger and in some ways more traditional in a quintessential non-traditional way jerry it's not what you think it is it's two roosters pecking at each other what yeah seinfeld's solo seasons of the show had a fingerprint to them as much as the other seasons bear david's authorial stamp examples of the show becoming loopier and more extreme in these last two seasons include season NUMBER_TOKEN episode NUMBER_TOKEN the chicken roaster written by alec berg and jack schaefer might be the hypothesis of the jerry years of seinfeld it sees that kenny rogers roasters setting up shop across the street so kramer and jerry agree to switch apartments causing them to switch personalities jerry becomes energetic and over the top you don't know what it's like in there all night long things are creaking and cracking and that red light is burning my brain creamer adopts the placid calm and sardonic one-liners that jerry usually spouts like oh yeah i like this idea when you break it down and really examine the gear shift in the creative approaches between the two time periods there's a stark difference between these two groupings of episodes they serve as a real body of evidence about the irreplaceable nature of larry david's creative contribution the character of george is objectively never as strong as larry david leaves jason alexander's portrayal of george is still the same but the writing for the character is never as on point george goes from being a vindictive petty self-sabotaging malcontent to someone whose primary concern is saving a frogger cabinet that has his high school best score on it he goes from being the initiator of drama and conflict as a manifestation of his neuroses and flaws to being a purely reactive character jerry seinfeld seemed more interested in retreading familiar narrative real estate or branching out into these loopy and yet more traditional arenas ironically larry david's darkness and cynicism arguably held back the show after a point after the formal invention and genre breaking ground had been traveled the show had reached a wide audience the david voice was bound to turn off people with its sharp edges and rough areas when you look at the life of the show the final two seasons were when it truly became a cultural phenomenon could this have happened without seinfeld softening the edges and positioning the show into being an unfamiliar take on familiar tropes maybe maybe not but i think it's still safe to say that larry david leaving broke seinfeld and well that's all we have this week what do you think did seinfeld go off the rails was it even better after larry david left and as always please subscribe to the nerdstalk channel in order to stay up to date with everything happening with the nostalgic channel
START_INTERACTION_TOKEN and well that's all we have this week what do you think did seinfeld go off the rails was it even better after larry david left and as always please subscribe to the nerdstalk channel in order to stay up to date with everything happening with the nostalgic channel END_INTERACTION_TOKEN