By the time Seinfeld reached Season 7, it was already firmly established as one of the top shows on TV. But Jerry Seinfeld and series co-creator Larry David still had plenty of stops to pull out to keep the show at the top of its form. This is the season where George--yes, George (Jason Alexander)--gets engaged. Elaine (Julia Louis Dreyfuss) judges her dates to see who is "sponge-worthy." Jerry deals with low-flow showerheads, buys Chinese gum, and tries to date Debra Messing. And Kramer (Michael Richards) solidifies his own essential Kramer-ness by putting a hot tub in his living room, going around town in Joseph???s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, buying jeans so tight he can???t take them off, and taking advice on court strategy from his caddy. If there is a unifying theme in this season, it would be growing up (or rather, futile attempts to grow up), as Jerry whines to George right off the bat, "What are we doing? What kinds of lives are these? We???re like children, we???re not men." As a result, marriage emerges as a theme, and George proposes to Susan (Heidi Swedburg) in Episode 1. And because George is, well, George, things inevitably go downhill from there.

But it???s not all navel-gazing. After all, this is the season that gave us "The Soup Nazi," and years later, "no soup for you" is a still a pop culture touchstone. Other classics include "The Calzone" where Jerry points out that Elaine???s boyfriend never asked her out; "The Bottle Deposit," featuring Kramer teaming with Jerry???s nemesis, Newman (Wayne Knight), to make millions out of a bottle deposit scheme; and "The Cadillac," where Jerry???s gift of a Cadillac to his parents inevitably leads to trouble, to name just a few. In due course through the season, all attempts to grow up inevitably, and hilariously, fail. That seems to be the world of Seinfeldian existentialism. Seven seasons in, who wants to see these characters actually change anyway when it???s so much more fun to watch them flail in their own skins? --Daniel Vancini, Amazon.com.

For many years I considered Seinfeld to be the best thing on television. Even in the first uneven season, it was clever, irreverent and utterly unpredictable. When the show really hit its stride, and NBC moved its slot to Thursday, I rarely made any Thursday plans because that was "Seinfeld Night"

I'm saying all this because I want to make it clear that when I give Seinfeld- Season 7 a lackluster review, I am speaking as a VERY big fan. I know there's no accounting for taste, especially when it comes to humor. Often the very thing that one person finds hilarious will leave another absolutely cold. Sometimes it's the very knowledge that a certain joke has limited appeal that makes it so much more funny to the few that do "get it". This was, or course, part of Seinfeld's original allure--It always seemed to be a little bit outside of the mainstream.

Nevertheless, as a diehard fan, I have to say that Season 7 was the season that lost me. It was midway through this season that I considered myself no longer to be a fan of the show. And before you assume it had something to do with the "Death of Susan" storyline, it didn't. I stopped watching regularly long before that episode aired, and only saw it years later as a rerun. My growing distaste had more to do with the changing tone of the show itself. Seinfeld was never really the "show about nothing" that it described itself as, but it had proved adept at creating outrageous scenarios from events in everyday life. The episodes that I considered to be the very best were the ones that revolved around ordinary situations (Fighting over a parking space, visiting the parents in Florida, waiting in a Chinese restaurant, an airport pickup) and ordinary people trying desperately to maintain a sense of normality while events spins out of control. It's easy to see co-producer Larry David's influence over these shows, and it's also easy to see the earlier seasons as precursors to David's later bit of genius Curb Your Enthusiasm. With Season 7, David's influence was less obvious, and of course in the last two seasons it was gone altogether. By that point, Seinfeld had morphed into a comedy of the absurd - Funny people doing funny things, with "hilarious" results. Sometimes they did manage to hit a genuinely humorous note, but gone was the unifying theme of ordinary life which acted as a structure for the earlier shows. Gone also was the beautiful pacing and wonderful comedy writing of the earlier seasons. Starting with Season 7 (perhaps even as early as Season 6) the writers seemed desperate to cram as much as possible into each show, and the pacing suffered as a result. It's hard to imagine Kramer's lengthy exchange with George ("Do you ever yearn?") from the finale of Season 3 ever appearing in the last 3 seasons - The writers (and possibly the audience?) no longer had the patience to savor that type of dialogue.

The first episode of Season 7 starts off strong enough with Jerry's "What are we doing?" speech that sets the pace for the rest of the episodes in the set, but as the season progresses the individual stories become less and less satisfying. There are a few chuckle-inducing moments, mainly coming from some of the newer recurring characters, such as Elaine's longwinded boss, J. Peterman, Kramer's Johnnie Cochranesque lawyer, and Jerry's annoying comedian-colleague Kenny Bania. So Season 7 does have it's moments, but they are much fewer and farther between than in the earlier seasons, and there are very few of the laugh-out-loud moments that first attracted me to the show. As for the two most famous episodes from this season: "The Soup Nazi" and "The Sponge", I can't agree with the conventional wisdom. Emmy or no Emmy, "The Soup Nazi" was an average episode at best with two very weak secondary storylines. Ditto with "The Sponge" which was additionally handicapped by the fact that the entire plot seemed to be centered around adding another catch-phrase to the Seinfeld lexicon. A telling comment about Season 7 came from my wife (also a big Seinfeld fan) as we were watching "The Seven", one of the less impressive episodes. She said, "Are they adding a laughtrack? Has that background laughter always been there?" I replied, "They've always done the show in front of a live audience - The laughs just seem fake because the jokes aren't funny". That unfortunately is the last 3 seasons in a nutshell.

In conclusion, I'm afraid that the best thing that I can say about Season 7 of Seinfeld is that it is far superior to Seasons 8 and 9. As I mentioned, it has its moments, and is still far above the low standard set by the average American sitcom. For that reason I will reluctantly rate it 3 stars instead of 2, but if you like the concept of a "show about nothing" or are a big Larry David fan, you will probably be disappointed. One of the other reviewers recommended Season 7 as the Seinfeld to purchase if you were only going to buy one set. Obviously I disagree. I would say Season 5, with Seasons 3 and 4 as close runners up.

Having slowly watched all the seasons on cable reruns or DVD, I must say that season 7 has to be strongest along with season 4, with season 5 not far behind. The reasons I rank season 7 so highly? It has such a high number of outstanding episodes and it has a story arc (like season 4) this time about George, which keeps you really glued. Having George get engaged was a stroke of genius as he spends the whole series trying to get out of it but can't. He even tries to score with Marisa Tomei (playing herself) after telling her he's engaged! We also meet some of the most memorable characters of the show like Jackie Chiles, J.Peterman, the Soup Nazi and The Street Toughs.

The stand-out episodes (for me) are:
The Engagement,
The Soup Nazi,
The Hot Tub,
The Rye,
The Sponge,
The Wink,
The Secret Code,
The Pool Guy,
The Gum
and The Doll.

It is also the last season with Larry David after which the comedy depended more heavily on slapstick and less on dialogue as a result. If you only ever watch one season make it this one.

After finding season 6 of seinfeld something of a chore in parts it was refreshing to find season 7,the last with larry david at the helm,something of a winner,season 7 returned to a more comfortable plateau and the results are spellbinding for the most part.
Many have said that after season 6 that the show fell to a death and spiralled out of recognition in its quality,i have found season 7 and 8 to be great while i have yet to see season 9,the final series,i find that argument redundant.
Season 7 is filled with classics,too many to mention i suppose and while this series cant rival the magic of season 5 it doesnt have to stand in shame when compared to other series at all,great.

Series 7 has one of the strongest starts of any Seinfeld series - the first five episodes are classics, and in fact critically acclaimed episode 6, The Soup Nazi, is actually quite disappointing in comparison.

As always, the mix of characters is the key here - George's anxiety is upped a notch with his impulsive engagement, and works brilliantly against the relaxed Jerry; Elaine is back on form as a confident woman - deciding whether her date is "spongeworthy" - and there are some great set pieces with Kramer, particularly the sequence of events that end in him striding down the street in classic pimp outfit.

The production of the DVD is first class as usual, with 'Inside Looks', commentaries and deleted scenes for most episodes, along with docs and bloopers. There's one problem: the Inside Look for episode 1 does give away the (brilliant) ending of the series, as it assumes you've already watched it on TV - but that aside this is intelligent, clever, well written and often genre-pushing comedy at its best.

Season 7 of Seinfeld is notable for its weakness when compared with the previous series. It doesn't really get going until disc 2; I don't recall laughing hardly at all at disc one, and even when it does get going it's a fairly hit and-miss affair. Perhaps it's just me but I found the most critically acclaimed episodes very mediocre, i.e. The Soup Nazi.

That said there are a few memorable episodes such as 'The Wig Master', 'The Calzone', 'The Sponge', 'The Rye', 'The Caddy', and 'The Cadillac'. The last episode where Susan dies was a mistake I think; it did't offend me, it just wasn't funny. You can do death in a sit-com but just not how it was done here.

Not my most watched season of Seinfeld by a long way but still worth a look for all Seinfeld fans.