Goodbye, prime time — hello, prison

Martin Kuz

Friday, May 15, 1998 | 10:08 a.m.

It's over and it was spectacular.

Or at least it put an end to all the hype.

After nine years of nothingness and weeks of unrelenting buildup, "Seinfeld" is no longer the master of its domain. Thursday night's series finale on NBC, which was expected to draw an estimated 78 million viewers, saw Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer fade into eternal syndication -- wearing orange prison jumpsuits, no less.

As usual, the show offered no hugging, no learning. Just the usual ration of laughs for "Seinfeld" devotees, including a couple of dozen who turned up at the BarKing Frog bar on Spring Mountain Road, where the last episode was broadcast on a 10-foot high screen and shown continuously throughout the night for swing shifters getting off work.

"It was perfect," said Dawn Canepa, 25, who joked that she plans to hang out at the Frog more often now that her Thursday nights will be free. "They got it right. It was just like all the other shows."

Almost. At 75 minutes, the last "Seinfeld" played out at more than twice the show's typical length. It was preceded by a 45-minute tribute show, comprised of clips and outtakes from past episodes, that proved again why "Seinfeld" -- like "Cheers" in the 1980s and "M*A*S*H" in the '70s -- reigns as this decade's defining sitcom.

The finale was one last bit of evidence. The plot, if that word ever really applied to this weekly piece of mind candy, went a little something like this:

NBC calls to resurrect the sitcom pilot Jerry and George wrote five years ago. The four pals take a joy ride on the company jet, only to have it make an emergency landing in Latham, Mass. There they witness a portly man getting carjacked and mugged, but instead of helping him out, the habitual do-nothings stand by and quip away. (Jerry: "There goes the money for the lipo.")

But the joke's on them. Hauled off to jail for breaking a new Good Samaritan law, the foursome are put on trial, with nine years of shallowness to live down. The prosecution trots out a litany of witnesses to testify to their lack of character: the virgin who learned the details of the infamous contest, the Soup Nazi, the Bubble Boy, George Steinbrenner, Sidra (she of the "spectacular" breasts).

Jackie Chiles tries his Johnnie Cochran best to fast-talk his clients out of their jam -- a person cannot be a "guilty bystander," he argues -- but to no avail. The judge gives them each a year. The episode closes with Jerry working on his stand-up act in front of his fellow inmates. "Anyone here from cell block D? I'll speak slower then."

For an event hyped more than the Second Coming, the finish satisfied Trisha Martin. While bummed over the show's demise, the 30-year-old food server and comedian will quench her "Seinfeld" yen with never-ending reruns.

"A lot of shows, like 'Ellen' and 'Roseanne,' get too gimmicky at the end. They do things that aren't within the typical character of the show," Martin said. "But this wasn't a let down. They got a little bit of everything in there."

Which to some viewers -- even the most loyal -- was the problem.

"I love the show, it's my favorite show on TV," said blackjack dealer Phil Finelli, 38. "But it was just a little disappointing tonight. You wanted to see the new stuff, but it kept getting kind of slowed down with all the flashbacks."

Added 27-year-old Victoria Tanada: "Putting them in jail for a year? Lame, lame, lame. Lame with a capital 'L.'"

Lame, lame, lame, eh? As Elaine might respond:

Yada, yada, yada.