Seinfeld, Volume 1 and 2

Reviewed by PETER CALDER

Don't get me wrong. I'm not some sort of Seinfeld nut. But if I hadn't been living in New Zealand when the DVD box sets of the first three seasons were released, I would have had to move here because the discs are available a month (more or less, 33 days actually, which is 792 hours) ahead of the US release.

So, there you go. I have it in proportion. You can't let this sort of stuff take over your life. It's unhealthy. When I sat down to watch Seinfeld at 7pm on Prime one night and found they'd replaced it with an Australian game show full of screaming women, I didn't overreact.

The racking sobs stopped within probably 40 minutes, the weeping would have lasted only two days, three days tops. Hell, I sat staring glumly into space for less than a month and the doctor tells me that I can probably cut down on the medication after Christmas.

I can understand how people might not enjoy the American sitcom which was famously described as "the show about nothing". I understand the same way as I understand that some people don't enjoy test cricket as much as I do, or don't hate Wagner as much as I do.

In fact, I never caught Seinfeld in its first run. I happened on the now-legendary pilot and it didn't really register. It seemed like a show about four deeply neurotic, self-absorbed, petty, childish New Yorkers who never seemed to do anything.

But I started watching it during the re-runs and finally realised what is so wonderful about it: it's a show about four deeply neurotic, self-absorbed, petty, childish New Yorkers who never seem to do anything. Well, three, actually. Kramer is the model of a well-balanced human being, the kind of person I want to be when I grow up.

Among the show's many incidental pleasures are its unforgettable subordinate characters: Jerry's neighbour, the deliciously odious Newman (Wayne Knight); George's father Frank, played by Jerry (father of Ben) Stiller, who dreams up an alternative Christmas called Festivus in which people air grievances instead of exchanging presents; Elaine's musclebound boyfriend Puddy and manic adventurer boss, the catalogue king J. Peterman; and the soup Nazi.

But the writers' sense of the ridiculous and their unerring feel for the pulse of modern urban malaises makes this the sitcom for people who don't like sitcoms.

In a survey conducted by the British Film Institute some years ago to find the best British television programme of all time, Fawlty Towers came out on top by some margin. It struck me that part of that series' success lay in the fact that its makers realised the need to quit at their peak. The makers of The Office seemed to have the same wisdom.

But Seinfeld flies in the face of that wisdom. The show ran for an extraordinary 180 episodes over nine seasons and there is scarcely a dud among them. The two four-disc box sets being released next week include seasons 1 to 3 with enough extras to satisfy the most diehard fan. For most of us, the shows alone will be enough: that whiplash bass ushering in a commercial-free 23-minutes will deliver a frisson of pure pleasure.

If you've never "got" Seinfeld, don't despair. Get the set for someone who does, and borrow it immediately.

* Seinfeld, Volume 1 and 2, $89.95 each.