Seinfeld | |
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Season 8 | |
No. of episodes | 22 |
Release | |
Original network | NBC |
Original release | September 19, 1996 May 15, 1997 | –
Season chronology | |
The eighth season of Seinfeld, an American comedy television series began airing on September 19, 1996, and concluded on May 15, 1997, on NBC.
The eighth season marked a turning point in the series. It is the first season where Seinfeld himself took creative control of the show after co-creator Larry David left. It also marks the beginning—other than a few episodes from the sixth and seventh seasons, such as "The Understudy"—of the use of cold opens for the episodes, which would continue through most of the ninth season. Seinfeld states that this is because he was too busy writing episodes to create additional stand-up material.[1] As a result, the show began to remove itself from the 'show about nothing' format it had begun life as, and took a far more absurdist, surreal stylistic turn.