I've been on a real Seinfeld binge lately. I watched all 9 seasons over the past couple of weeks and now since I can find nothing else of interest to watch on Netflix I am going through them all again. I've figured out a couple of things in these past few weeks and that is that the first couple of seasons weren't very good as they seemed to still be trying to figure out the various characters' direction, and I think this is just common with any sitcom. Things normally get better after they have some practice, then they hit an apex, and then it fades away.
Seinfeld wasn't exactly like that because except for the series finale, I think that the last season, season 9, is one of the best they ever made.
I also identified what I consider to be the best episode out of all of them throughout the entire thing. This is an episode called "The Betrayal" and it is one of the only episodes that is meant to take place in an international setting.
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Taking place about 1/3 of the way through the 9th and final season. This episode took an unusual turn in that they decided to tell the overall story in reverse, starting at the end and eventually working their way to where they decide to go to India in the first place. I found this to be wonderful because it must have been difficult to work out how they were going to be able to tell the story in reverse and not only have it be funny, but also have it make sense. There are certain things that don't mean a great deal in the context of the show such as why George wont change his boots, but this is revealed much later and when it is, it is pretty damn funny. Until the big reveal towards the end you can see that they keep focusing on George's feet and this is not something they have done with him in the past.
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I would later find out that these Timberland boots were so popular in the eyes of the audience that the company and resellers actually started referring to them as George's boots and the sales of them went up a lot although I don't have any idea how much.
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Going backwards in time was a really refreshing twist on an already very effective show and as far as I know they have never done an entire episode like this again. Even though it is one of the highest rated Seinfeld episodes of all time, they never did it again. I enjoy how they started doing this time travel at more and more absurd intervals especially in the cases involving Kramer.
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Kramer, who is the only member of the gang that didn't go to India, is embroiled in his own problems while the rest of the gang is away and they show what at first appears to just be a stick but as they move further and further back in time it is revealed that it is actually a gigantic lollipop that he has been working on all day.
If you would like to see this very unique and what I consider to be the best (The Jerry, The BEST!!!) episode in this amazing and iconic series, check out season 9, episode 8.