Many popular sitcoms had a slow and steady rise in quality and/or ratings, especially in the pre-streaming era. "Parks and Recreation", for example, struggled hard in the first seasonit slowly improved throughout its second season, and it wasn't until its third season (after Adam Scott and Rob Lowe joined the cast full-time) that it really hit its stride.

The hit '90s show Seinfeld also took a while to take off. The writers and actors didn't hit their stride until the third season, and it wasn't until its fourth season that it became clear that "Seinfeld" was a full-blown hit. The first three seasons saw the threat of cancellation, but around the point of "The Outing" (the acclaimed Season 4 episode that coined the phrase "not that there's anything wrong with that" that spread even outside the fandom) it was clear that "Seinfeld" is here to stay.

However, the slow and steady nature of the show's rise in popularity is somewhat overstated. Yes, it took the show four seasons to become a true hit, but it's easy to forget that the first season only had five episodes and season 2 was only twelve. In terms of what the standard number of episodes in a television season looked like at the time, that uncertain early period of "Seinfeld" really lasted less than two full seasons. When fans advise new viewers to "skip" the first few seasons to get to the good stuff, that's not as tall an order as it sounds.

So why was the first season of "Seinfield" so short? It was mainly because the pilot was hated by test audiences. As I would like TV Guide later reportit was normal for many NBC pilots to receive bad feedback, but the hate for the first episode of "Seinfeld" was on another level. Some of the notes were, "None of the (supporting characters) were particularly likable" and "No segment of the audience wanted to watch the show again."

99% of the shows that were so hard moved by the test audience would never make it to the air, but since some of the NBC studio heads enjoyed it—including future NBC resident Warren Littlefield—they took a chance anyway. the show. In July 1989, they released the first episode of The Seinfeld Chronicles, but there was no season attached to it. The episode existed entirely on its own. It wasn't until that episode got decent ratings and reviews that NBC wondered if maybe those test viewers were just a bad bunch. They soon ordered four episodes for the rest of the first season, which was due to air in May of the following year. It was basically the TV executive equivalent of dipping your toe in the water.

Much of the credit for "Seinfeld" goes to network CEO Rick Ludwin, who took money out of the network's summer specials budget to give "Seinfeld" those extra summer episodes. As Littlefield said of him in a 2005 interview“He wasn't afraid to put himself on the line. A bunch of people might say, “We're in trouble. We don't know what to do." He would say, “Here's the show, we have to believe in it. Not many people will stand up, and he did... Rarely.

As much as the first season of "Seinfeld" was attacked by the show's own fans, the reviews at the time were more positive than people remember. A critic for Daily news noted that while that first season's decent ratings were probably due to it airing right after Cheers — a very lucky time slot, similar to what Friends would benefit from five years later — she claimed this was "one of those happy coincidences where a quality program gets good ratings."

The same critic compared Seinfeld to The Simpsons, which also had its first episode in 1989: "(Seinfeld) hasn't taken on a life of its own, like the ubiquitous Simpsons." But NBC picked up the summer replacement for next fall, and that's a small victory for good television."

It's a good comparison, because even though The Simpsons was a massive pop-culture phenomenon from day one, its first season today has a similar reputation to the first season of Seinfeld. Both rookie seasons are widely regarded by fans as weaker seasons. it would follow, because with hindsight we understand how capable the play was of being better. But by the time the first seasons of both shows aired, critics didn't have gems like "Homer at Bat" or "The Soup Nazi"Compared to them, they had to take Season 1 on their own terms, and those terms were still pretty flattering."

On Sunday Oregonian praised the first season of Seinfeld as a "low-key sensation" and criticized The Washington Post praised the first five episodes for their "casual charm". Of course, much like the reaction due to the bad influence Barth in the early seasons of The Simpsons, the first season of Seinfeld still had its fair share of haters. I think Seinfeld is caught between stand-up comedy and situation comedy, and the result is schizophrenia. wrote one critic"On paper, it probably looked great, one of those bold new concepts that was sure to catch fire."

One thing is clear between the positive and negative reviews: no one knew how big the show would become. Even Seinfeld himself, during an interview while the first season aired, didn't think the show would ever be the main thing he was known for. "My life is doing stand-up in nightclubs," he he told the Daily News-Journal. "That's what I do. The TV series is a project."