Sein-ing Off

Caryn James

Thursday, May 14, 1998 | 10:26 a.m.

It's as if we've all tacitly agreed to go crazy.

Tonight, the cable channel TV Land will stop regular programming for an hour and hang out a sign saying it'll be back after the "Seinfeld" finale. In Wednesday's episode of "Dharma and Greg," the couple decided to have sex in public and chose the perfect time: when the rest of the world is watching the last "Seinfeld." And that's just the hype NBC is not responsible for.

Since Jerry Seinfeld decided at Christmastime that this season would be his show's last, "Seinfeld" has been at the center of the longest, most carefully orchestrated goodbye in television history.

The hype has become excruciating. The tone of this farewell suggests manufactured hysteria, not an outpouring of affection, despite the show's immense popularity. With a wink, the public has willingly bought into this game leading up to the final episode, the story of which is shrouded in a top-secrecy that is the most attention-getting gimmick of all.

Like it or not, the end of "Seinfeld" has become an inescapable communal experience. And in a deceptively lighthearted way, "Seinfeld" mania reveals a longing for community that highlights television's unifying social role. That longing echoes the series' content, with its tight group of characters and the shorthand communication of friendship. Knowing a "Seinfeld" catch phrase such as "master of your domain" makes you an insider, even if you're one of millions.

"Seinfeld" is the defining comedy of manners for the '90s, and the best, but it is not unique.

The lack of sentiment about the last "Seinfeld" reflects the show's own dry-eyed attitude and its era. (The finale begins on NBC at 8, with a selection of "Seinfeld" clips scheduled to run about 45 minutes; the actual last episode runs about an hour and a quarter.)

Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason and Mary Tyler Moore gave us characters who are still beloved. "Seinfeld" gave us hilarious but essentially unlikable, petty characters who would be annoying in real life: Kramer (Michael Richards), the goofball savant; George (Jason Alexander) and Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), each caught in a revolving door of relationships and jobs; Jerry, the droll bystander, observing and commenting on it all, refusing to take life seriously.

Like all comedies of manners, "Seinfeld" insisted that the meaning of life is in the silly details. (A Pez dispenser is important in a plot about a recovering drug addict.) But the show's comic exaggeration hit plenty of nerves and revealed much about society.

"Seinfeld" was a virtual Miss Manners about sexual and emotional decorum. (How many dates do you get before you have to break up in person, not on the phone?)

And when George's fiancee, Susan, dies after licking toxic envelopes for her wedding invitations, his relief suggests a deep fear of being trapped in marriage and ending up like his parents, fighting about a loaf of marble rye. In another classic episode, "The Rye," his middle-class parents are insulted when Susan's posh parents fail to serve the bread the guests brought to dinner. Furthermore, "You're supposed to serve cake," George's humiliated mother screams on her way back to Queens. "We're sitting there like idiots drinking coffee without a piece of cake!"

Such subtexts don't have to be intentional. They rise from the series's astute observations and from its elevation of sharp dialogue to an honored position. Language becomes action in "Seinfeld," an approach that suits a show about a stand-up comic. It shouldn't be surprising that Jerry Seinfeld's best-selling humor book was called "Seinlanguage," or that the show has propelled phrases such as "yada, yada, yada" into ordinary conversation.

"Seinfeld" is leaving a bit past its prime. This season it has shown signs of losing its edge. But the ending of "Seinfeld" insists on television's crucial role in culture, however absurd the contagious hysteria may seem.

As the off-screen Seinfeld wrote in "Seinlanguage": "TV has so much power. I know it does, because I bought the Ginsu knife."