Passing The Sitcom Torch

As Cheers says goodbye after 11 seasons, the Seinfeld era is ready to begin

Flash forward to the year 2000. Seinfeld, the NBC sitcom starring Jerry Seinfeld as one of a quartet of angst-ridden New Yorkers, is finally going off the air after 10 acclaimed seasons. For the gala final episode, Julia Louis- Dreyfus makes a return appearance as Elaine (the movie career didn't work out) and meets her successor in the cast, Melanie Mayron. In a typically Seinfeldian life-imitates-art riff, George (Jason Alexander), now head of network programming, tells Jerry his sitcom is being canceled. Kramer (Michael Richards), elected to Congress in the eighth season, finds himself involved in a sex scandal. Meanwhile, Jerry...

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