Television Seinfeld: Susan's Death...

VulcanNervPinch said:
Well, it wasn't really 'personal hatred'.
The main cast members thought she wasn't funny and didn't play off of them well.
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The actress was only originally cast because she looked similar to an NBC executive but then the role expanded beyond what they originally intended her to do.
 
The skipped one beat comedically and it felt like this huge void. It was weird.
 
Still can't decide of Jason Alexander really is this much of a blowhard ACTOR or the rest of his life he's just trying to prove he's not George.
 
VulcanNervPinch said:
Well, it wasn't really 'personal hatred'.
The main cast members thought she wasn't funny and didn't play off of them well.
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well she wasn’t funny but I thought that’s how the character was supposed to be and why she was never really a big part of episodes.
 
ufcfan4 said:
I was thinking about ways they could have ended the Susan storyline with the wedding not happening but Susan surviving. One way I thought of that I feel would have worked well is that Susan is alone in Monks having coffee and David Letterman walks in, recognizes her from NBC. Susan- as previously indicated from season 4- is already smitten. Dave talks her up, finds out she was canned by NBC and offers to get her an opportunity at CBS. She invites him to sit down.

End of the episode- George walks into their apartment and reads the same Dear John type letter Jerry had told him not to give Susan earlier in the episode: George. I’m sorry. There’s someone else. I’m really, really sorry.

I feel like it would have been good because it writes Susan out, it references her previously detailed love of Letterman (and the fact that in season 4 george wanted to try to get Dave to help him extricate himself from the relationship), gives Dave a cameo (which he eventually had anyway), and also plays on the fact that Susan ends up using the same crappy, impersonal way of bailing on George that he wanted to utilize at the beginning of the episode.
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I think at that stage though this kind of ending might have been a little too obvious?

I always felt this was Larry David taking the piss out of other sitcoms a bit, the way they got bogged down in drama. So take what would normally be a dramatic situation and turn it into a joke.
 
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Aegon Spengler said:
Yeah see, he calls her “kind and generous and talented” but he’s been slagging her performance (and lack of chemistry) for like 25 years. So maybe I’m wrong and he doesn’t dislike her...but my gut tells me that he wouldn’t be saying that kind of thing if that was the case.
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I don't think he hated on her as a person.....he just didn't gel with her on the show. He found he hard to play off of and couldn't stand working with her....heh.

"She was generous and gracious, and I am so mad at myself for retelling this story in any way that would diminish her," -

"I love her. She's a terrific girl. I love her," Alexander said of Swedberg. "I couldn't figure out how to play off her.
"Her instincts for doing a scene, where the comedy was, and mine were always misfiring," -

"If I had had more maturity or more security in my own work, I surely would have taken her query and possibly tried to adjust the scenes with her. She surely offered. But, I didn't have that maturity or security,"


He later admitted it worked out perfectly well that they didn't gel onscreen.....it made it more realistic and awkward which Larry and Jerry probably loved! lol.
 
TheNinja said:
I don't think he hated on her as a person.....he just didn't gel with her on the show. He found he hard to play off of and couldn't stand working with her....heh.

"She was generous and gracious, and I am so mad at myself for retelling this story in any way that would diminish her," -

"I love her. She's a terrific girl. I love her," Alexander said of Swedberg. "I couldn't figure out how to play off her.
"Her instincts for doing a scene, where the comedy was, and mine were always misfiring," -

"If I had had more maturity or more security in my own work, I surely would have taken her query and possibly tried to adjust the scenes with her. She surely offered. But, I didn't have that maturity or security,"


He later admitted it worked out perfectly well that they didn't gel onscreen.....it made it more realistic and awkward which Larry and Jerry probably loved! lol.
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lol you make a compelling case. Alright he didn't hate her. I guess.
 
Jerry was going to let Ramon, the pool guy who only wanted to be Jerry's friend, die just because he didn't want to give mouth to mouth resuscitation. The main characters were not good people by any metric. That was the joke, which the entire series was based upon.

I liked the Susan character. George was way out of her league. How they wrote her off the show was absurd.
 
Gene Tunney said:
Jerry was going to let Ramon, the pool guy who only wanted to be Jerry's friend, die just because he didn't want to give mouth to mouth resuscitation. The main characters were not good people by any metric. That was the joke, which the entire series was based upon.

I liked the Susan character. George was way out of her league. How they wrote her off the show was absurd.
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Funny moment- Jerry and Newman both refusing to help. “He night die...” “Yeah. Maybe...”

Always thought Wayne Knight’s delivery there was spot on. Such a clutch performance. Thankfully Ramon didn’t die though or that would have been a lot more morbid.

great exchange with Elaine later when he’s explaining the story:

I don’t know how you can show your face there again.

Oh I can’t. I’m banned for life. Newman too. We can’t go anywhere near there.


It was absurd, particularly because there were many ways to write her off. They had the opportunity with the Cary Elwes/Debra Messing episode.

“You could have done a lot better than him.”
 
ufcfan4 said:
Funny moment- Jerry and Newman both refusing to help. “He night die...” “Yeah. Maybe...”

Always thought Wayne Knight’s delivery there was spot on. Such a clutch performance. Thankfully Ramon didn’t die though or that would have been a lot more morbid.

great exchange with Elaine later when he’s explaining the story:

I don’t know how you can show your face there again.

Oh I can’t. I’m banned for life. Newman too. We can’t go anywhere near there.


It was absurd, particularly because there were many ways to write her off. They had the opportunity with the Cary Elwes/Debra Messing episode.

“You could have done a lot better than him.”
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It was a gamble. The Newman episodes were great. Such a complex individual. The actor playing Ramon was also very funny.

Many options. You could have had Letterman, or another media celebrity, become a central character for an episode and charm Susan away from George.
 
Gene Tunney said:
It was a gamble. The Newman episodes were great. Such a complex individual. The actor playing Ramon was also very funny.

Many options. You could have had Letterman, or another media celebrity, become a central character for an episode and charm Susan away from George.
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As I said in my earlier post, I think letterman would have been perfect. Ideal callback to Susan having a thing for Letterman. Could have even had NBC take a little self-deprecating job at themselves with Dave telling Susan he would introduce her to some people at CBS.
 
Aegon Spengler said:
It’s a really sickening ending but also hilarious and very human.

Death of friend as a solution to a petty issue reminds me of David Lynch. (And the Clintons)

Also the actor Jason Alexander hated Susan on a personal level and wanted her off the show.
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I thought they all hated her, she ruined the atmosphere on set or something, that's why she got killed off so I heard.
 
pinger said:
GOAT show.

One of the best measures of whether or not I will like someone is the basic proposition "Seinfeld or Friends".
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lol. I liked Friends but it really can’t hold a candle to Sein in my opinion.

Seinfeld is GOAT sitcom and I’m not even sure it’s particularly close.

Friends is fun but I’d rank Cheers, Frasier, The Office above it.
 
Aegon Spengler said:
lol you make a compelling case. Alright he didn't hate her. I guess.
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you might be right too though. I think at that time he and the cast hated to work with her and wanted her gone. im guessing that as time passed Jason lightened up a bit and matured and realized he was a bit tough on her and he wasn’t blameless in it either.
 
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