• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 11, 2023

It may be just a rumor about nothing, but the word is getting around that Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are working on a “Seinfeld” revival project.

If so, how much do you want to bet it will go to a streamer and not a legacy network?

That’s the trend these days. The greats of network past -- most recently, Paramount+’s revival of “Frasier” dropping Thursday -- head first to the streaming side of the TV business.

They’re not going to the legacy networks that paid millions for them, spent more millions promoting them, and then aired them in premium prime-time timeslots, thus enabling the phenomenal success of these shows in the first place.

Caveat: The networks likely made back these investments and profited from “Frasier,” “Seinfeld” and other megahits of the era, despite the high price of acquiring and airing them.

But that was a long, long time ago. TV is a business, and decisions about where a revived “Seinfeld” -- either a one-off or a new series -- will have nothing to do with sentimentality or old-fashioned notions about loyalty.

But this TV Blog is getting ahead of itself. The rumors about a new “Seinfeld” project came from the cryptic mouth of Seinfeld himself, according to reports that have surfaced over the last few days.

Seinfeld, 69, teased the possibility of a return to the “Seinfeld” universe during a stand-up performance in Boston last Saturday.

The gist of this “reveal” was that he and David, 76 -- the co-creators of the original series -- have been talking recently about a project that will likely be somehow related to the 75-minute, final episode of “Seinfeld” that aired on May 14, 1998.

“Well, I have a little secret for you about the ending. But I can’t really tell it, because it is a secret. Here’s what I’ll tell you. OK? But you can’t tell anybody,” teased Seinfeld, who knew full well this “secret” would go out into the world within minutes, which it did.  

“Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending. Hasn’t happened yet. And just what you are thinking about, Larry and I have also been thinking about it. So you’ll see,” Seinfeld said.

The TV Blog has no idea what Seinfeld’s audience in Boston’s Wang Theatre might have been thinking about the “Seinfeld” finale. It’s been 25 years since the show.

So what can it be? One interpretation is that the two co-creators might be conceiving a new ending for the show, perhaps to improve on the old one or simply make a new one- or two-hour episode about the lives of the show’s characters in the present day, 25 years later.

But Jerry specifically referenced the finale, a show that in its day was hotly debated.

The plot had to do with the four main characters -- Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine -- going on an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris together to celebrate a triumph for Jerry and George: NBC had finally picked up the sitcom “Jerry,” the “show about nothing” that they first proposed in Season Four.

But the trip was derailed when their private jet made an emergency landing somewhere in Massachusetts. There, the four inadvertently violated a local Good Samaritan law when they ignored someone’s cries for help.

What followed was an elaborate trial in which the courtroom was filled with just about every secondary character who was ever on the show and were harmed or adversely affected in some way by the show’s four principal characters.

It was an ambitious storyline, and it ended with the characters in jail following their convictions. The plot also served to “convict” the foursome of all the dozens of times they acted selfishly throughout the run of the show.

The show was seen by an estimated 76 million people. In the days afterward, opinions varied, but in the end, the consensus as it is perceived today is that the finale fell short of expectations.

Perhaps this sticks in the co-creators’ craws and now they wish to revisit it to see if they can do better.

For the record, I thought the “Seinfeld” finale was great. To go off on a tangent here, I also loved the “Sopranos” finale in 2007 -- although many found fault with that one too.

But at this point, all we have to go on are the cryptic comments of Jerry.

A new project would have to have the participation of the show’s stars -- Jerry, of course, Jason Alexander, 64 (George), Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 62 (Elaine) and Michael Richards, 74 (Kramer).

The four were last reunited in 2007, the seventh season of Larry David’s HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The season had the four reconvening for a new episode showing their lives in the present day of 2007.

As for where a new “Seinfeld” project might be seen, Netflix would seem to be a frontrunner because Seinfeld is in business with them. The old show is seen there, and so are various Seinfeld performance specials and his “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” series.

The TV Blog also sees Peacock as a candidate for the simple reason that NBCU has history with the old show, but more to the point, Peacock is lagging behind the other majors and could use a major attraction.

The bottom line is: Who will pay the most for it? Let the bidding begin.