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Not perfect, but Seinfeld is Seinfeld. Ah, Seinfeld. The yardstick by which all sitcoms are measured. Could anyone have guessed the impact this series would have on the western world? Looking at the 18 episodes in these first two seasons, probably not. But then again, you are probably not buying this DVD set just for the episodes, right? Which is why I won't devote much time to the episodes themselves; it's the extras that warrent review. Seinfeld is Seinfeld, and the episodes are notorious. Chances are, you've already seen them all already; you may even own them (VCR!). Sure, it'll be nice to revisit them every now and again, but these are the first episodes, and on their own merit they are far from outstanding, certainly not what we've come to expect from Seinfeld as the series progressed. So a few short words on the episodes themselves, then to the main course - the extras. The episodes themselves are not quite up to par. It's understandable; after all, everyone was still finding their way. The characters are still forming (with the exception of Jerry, who remained pretty much the same throughout the series). The episodes often suffer from the inexperience of the writers and producers; the pacing is often off, and there are the occational gaps, dead moments, strange breaks, inappropriate transition points, etc. It gets better towards the end of the second season, of course; by then the characters begin to resemble what they will later become, and the mechanics click much better. The content improves as well; watching the first few episodes, you can understand why the series was struggling in the ratings. The first truely full force "Seinfeld" episode in the entire lot is "The Chinese Restaurant" (not surprisingly, it was the one the network had the hardest time approving). Another problem with these episodes is that some of the more daring and fresh approaches they introduced, which made them pack a better punch 15 years ago, are lost on today's audience, who by now has a higher shock tolerance. The mentioning of a period or bowel movements, which may have been rare in sitcoms in the early 90s, can now be the entire subject of an episode. Still, it's fun to see the origin of things, to track the development of character traits, and to be able to say, "Hey, that's the first time they did that!". As I've mentioned, the main value expected from the DVD (At least in my opinion) is the extras. These, unfortunately, are a mixed bag. Sure, there's lots of stuff. There's a "How it began" documentary; there are "Notes about nothing" - subtitle notes that run through the episode for every episode; there are "Inside looks" segments for most episodes; there are voice-over commentaries for six episodes; there's a bloopers segment, an extra standup segment (standup bits of Jerry that didn't make the shows) and a few more trivial things such as photo galleries, previews, and Tonigh show segments. All in all, there's a wealth of trivial and trivia spread around the four DVDs. But quite frankly, some of the most interesting items are too few, too short, or too sparse in interesting information. For me, the greatest dissappointment comes from what is possibly the most important extra in any DVD - the voice-over commentaries. Only about a third of the episodes have these, and most of those are very sparce in interesting details. Especially dissappointing are the commentaries by Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards, which are pretty banal ("oh, that's a nice dress; no it isn't! yes it is!"). Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld do a better job, and so does writer Larry Charles, but they do only four episodes. I was seriously hoping for more, because these are the most interesting extras there are - taking you to the heart of episode, with thoughts, notes, anecdotes, etc. I was surprised that the pilot episode, for example, didn't have voice over commentaries; surely there would be a treasure trove of information. The "Inside looks" are nice. These are interview sniplets with the cast and crew giving brief insight into each episode. Unfortunately, some of them are pretty short, and many of them are rehashed from the "How it began" documentary (which is great, by the way). Then there's the "Notes about nothing", Trivia tracks that run through the episode. These are very interesting and in general add a lot of information on things like casting choices, changes in scripting, and occationally trivia bits on references made by characters. In some episodes they repeat things that were already covered in the "inside looks". Then there's a technical problem - they sometimes to run too fast, and it's hard to read them before they dissappear. They can flash as fast as three a second - that's a bit much, and quite unnecessary, considering that other times several minutes can go by without a single note appearing. The bloopers segment is great, but short. I would have imagined they had more to show after so many episodes (but of course I could be wrong). A nice touch is showing previews from the bloopers in season three (Jerry Stiller!!!). The previously unseen standup is also great, and deleted scenes are interesting (even if there are no more than about 10 minutes of them from all 18 episodes combined). The rest of the stuff is pretty minor, if nice (Especially the Carson show bits). There's lots of stuff here, to be sure. I would have liked better quality, and in some areas, more quantity; but over all, it's still enough to leave the trivia hunters satisfied. So it's not a full meal - you still won't leave hungry. Spongeworthy? Sure, why not.