In Search of Nothingness

For eight seasons, NBC’s “Seinfeld” was pound for pound the funniest comedy on the planet, such a gas that some of us still crack up recalling bits and pieces of its cosmic past and the wondrous nonsense surging from its gifted cast and writers.

Its ninth season, though, is proving to be one season too many.

Not in the ratings, which show “Seinfeld” still omnipotent at 9 p.m. Thursdays and breast-feeding the 9:30 comedy that follows, this season’s fortunate suckling being “Veronica’s Closet,” already a smash hit. That means Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry), Jason Alexander (George), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine) and Michael Richards (Kramer) are cost-effective and earning their kadzillions.

But creatively, the juices seem to have dried up.

Of the four episodes that have aired this season, only one--in which that geeky futurist, the K-man, acquired a young intern as a go-fer for his latest loopy venture, Kramerica--even faintly echoed “Seinfeld” of old. And that was only a brief flashback to glory within an episode that was otherwise mediocre. As the other three have been. That includes last week’s, which dwelled on blood giving and had some moments, but still desperately needed a transfusion of its own.

A month’s worth of bad episodes may be a routine way for most series to start a new season, but it’s news when “Seinfeld” opens with four consecutive bummers.

As if Alzheimer’s had set in, something once there--a sparkle, a gleam, a vision, a sense of self--is now missing. It’s hard defining the difference, but here’s a stab.

Where once the comedy of “Seinfeld” was natural, fluid and smooth, now there are brush strokes.

Where once you marveled at incompatible elements of utterly contrived plots being joined so seamlessly, as if they had written themselves, now you’re very aware of the writing and efforts in the creative process to press things together with Velcro.

Where once “Seinfeld” took something small and bounced it off the moon, no longer is a moon in sight.

You can almost see the bright, young comic minds of today’s “Seinfeld” standing on their tiptoes and straining to write to the level of the former “Seinfeld,” so much of which seemed to have been drawn from life experience, not a model. The series has had its clunkers before this season, but not many.

Yet now the cheap one-liners are more frequent, the comedy broader--the eccentricities of the four selfish, self-absorbed, back-stabbing, likably loathsome best buddies having been magnified to the extent that no one seems quite the same anymore.

It’s the writing that’s faltered, not the cast. Perhaps after all these years, there’s just nothing small and trivial left to say with these characters. The cast member least affected has been Richards, whose stunning physical comedy is so intuitive that he is able to create with the least amount of script. Seinfeld, Alexander and Louis-Dreyfus are less fortunate.

Some of “Seinfeld’s” best off-camera creative talent have departed through the years. Heading the list is co-creator Larry David, the oft-described twisted, dark soul of the series, who left after the 1995-96 season. Another “Seinfeld” old hand, Peter Mehlman, left after last season. And now, for whatever reason, “Seinfeld” is just not funny anymore.

Why are so many millions still watching? It can’t be because they haven’t noticed change. Perhaps many are hanging on out of loyalty, or like some of us, they keep hoping that this will be the week that “Seinfeld” regains its sweet touch. Seinfeld himself was quoted recently as promising improvement and mentioning three coming episodes in particular that he felt certain would persuade lapsed “Seinfeld” groupies that the series hadn’t declined.

If so, bravo. If not, we’ll always have the reruns. And yada, yada, yada.

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RISKY BUSINESS. Now that NBC’s “ER” has its showy live episode out of the way, prime time’s other medical series is taking the real creative risks.

That would be CBS’ “Chicago Hope,” which last Wednesday served up a dazzling hour that artfully used singing and dancing by cast members to illustrate hazy fantasies in the brain of Aaron Shutt (Adam Arkin) as he lay comatose with an aneurysm.

That fine old NBC series “St. Elsewhere” once did a spectacular near-death sequence, and ABC’s memorable “Moonlighting” incorporated silky musicales on two occasions.

“Chicago Hope” was right up there in the stratosphere with them. Making song-and-dance performers out of non-musical actors (sweet-singing Mandy Patinkin being an exception) in episodic TV is an epic challenge. But this was great, great work, a bold concept executed with intelligence and grace.

In fact, the entire hour, including Arkin’s work as the stressed-out Dr. Shutt en route to his own critical illness, was just fabulous. And far from being gimmicky, the musical elements gave the hour a texture and surreal dimension.