SeinWorld

louWhen Seinfeld was nearing the end of its run, talk surrounded which character would be spun off into their own TV show.

Were any of them strong enough to carry their own shows, though? Because as much as each character is iconic, as different as they each are, they’re also part of a set: Jerry, George, Elaine, Kramer. They each represent a different facet of the human psyche, so they complement one another in how they function independently, and as a whole. Could any of them carry their own show week-in, week-out?

Popular shows have often tried to spin off characters. The Brady Bunch came up with the sequel The Brady Brides, which followed Marsha and Jan in their marriages. More recently, Friends span off Joey into his own show, but only with moderate success.

Happy Days had several spin-offs: among them, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, and Joanie Loves Chachi. Interestingly, the two spinoffs that enjoyed success are Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy – they deal with guest characters we didn’t know much about. Meanwhile, the spinoff featuring main characters – Joanie and Chachi – was so unsuccessful, the two were reintegrated back into the Happy Days family.

I think in some cases characters only work because their ensemble provides them context. Subtract the ensemble, and where do they go? Joanie and Chachi pursued a music career, but that’s not really who the characters are in Happy Days. They’ve become something else entirely – facades we recognize on an aesthetic level, but who’ve now lost their emotional connections.

That’s something they kept with Frasier Crane in Frasier. Of course, although Frasier was part of the Cheers ensemble, he wasn’t a foundational character built to serve the show. He was brought in later to be part of the Sam-Diane love triangle, and because he had to be able to compete with Sam as Diane’s love interest, he was a lot more wholly formed. Even in later seasons when Frasier had become a regular, he was part of the clique, but also quite separate from them – smarter, accomplished, career-oriented, and then given his own family.

When he was spun off into Frasier, there was a lot to work with. He became a radio psychiatrist, which was an adjunct to who he was anyway. Then they created facets of that ensemble psyche – his brother Niles, a more neurotic version of who Frasier had been during his early run on Cheers; and their father, Martin, who was a contrast. They created their dynamic.

Could George, Elaine, and Kramer have done that with a new cast? What could you have done with any of them independently? George stuffs something else up? Elaine has more bad dating experiences? Kramer does something whacky? Even Jerry minus those other three wouldn’t be as interesting.

But what I thought (at the time) would’ve been nifty was a sitcom where each episode was based on a different character from the Seinfeld universe. One episode might’ve been about Crazy Joe Davola; another episode could’ve been about Babu Bhutt. And so on. There were nine seasons worth of characters, and some you could’ve revisited.

Television generally doesn’t work like that, though. Things like Black Mirror, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, etc., might be a different story every week, but episodic television features regular characters that build-up a following, so we tune in each episode to see what happens next.

Given Seinfeld’s longevity, though, and just how culturally entrenched it became, it did have enough goodwill that people might’ve tuned in weekly to see which character we’d be revisiting, and in what predicament they’d find themselves.

And it could’ve been a new episodic format in comedy.

I even had the name of the show: Seinworld.

It’s a little bit late now, but I always thought that would’ve been interesting.