Seinfeld's angsty wordplay is perfect for an irritable lockdown audience

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 23, 2021

Though Seinfeld can get a bit too whiny about the perils of being rich, famous, married, white and in your sixties, his powers of observation regarding the absurdities of everyday living are undiminished.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2020

Jerry Seinfeld's new stand-up special is a precisely tooled and precisely funny piece of work from a comedian who mastered his craft decades ago but never stopped working on it. It's also a throwback to an older form.

| Jun 17, 2020

The man poised to become comedy's first billionaire knows how to sell corny as classic better than just about anyone else standing up in front of a mic today. And occasionally, his swims through familiar waters end in some pretty deep pools.

| May 21, 2020

It seems sad to think that in this instance, Seinfeld is riffing on a problem that has become a public-health crisis rather than a laughing matter.

| May 18, 2020

Maybe in a few more years Seinfeld's act will turn as grouchy, petty, and misanthropic as [Larry] David's. If so, Jerry might revert to being one of the best standups instead of merely the richest.

| May 11, 2020

Seinfeld presents as an ordinary shmoe at one with the common man, save for his ability to weave shared experiences into comedy gold. Still bearing that signature high-pitched voice of exasperation, he strikes a high laugh-per-minute rate from the get-go.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 11, 2020

With his trademark cheery crankiness, the comedian holds forth about going out, getting out and dining out - and even performs a stunt.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 9, 2020

So much of 23 Hours to Kill could be pulled right out of the interstitial comedy-club scenes on his 30-year-old sitcom, and there's joy in seeing an older pro still earning big laughs.

| May 7, 2020

Whether talking about food, cellphones, relationships or the U.S. Postal Service, this felt like a 1 percenter struggling to find anything new to say about life, because he won't truly address how much his life has changed since the mid-1990s.

| May 7, 2020

It is, for better or worse, exactly what you'd expect from a Jerry Seinfeld stand-up special in the year 2020.

| Original Score: 5/10 | May 6, 2020

It's a tonic for all of us suffering withdrawal symptoms since ordinary life was put on pause. Thoroughly recommended.

| May 6, 2020

Half of it sucks; half is great. It's too simple as a way to summarize the special, because both parts are the same comedian using the same techniques, and all of them are some version of Seinfeld.

| May 6, 2020

Helicopter sky-dive apart, there's nothing daring about Seinfeld - but if 23 Hours to Kill is safe, it's also, usually, sparkling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2020

Most refreshing is the way age has found Seinfeld leaning into the bleak nihilism that has always laced his comedy, the dark undercurrent of his material now evolved past the point of misanthropy into a full-throated disgust for the human race as a whole.

| Original Score: B | May 6, 2020

23 Hours to Kill is like catching up with an old friend.

| May 5, 2020