The Seinfeld Channel

I have spent an exhausting six months watching Seinfeld. Exhausting because it’s on most prominently at 12:05 a.m. (i.e. the 12:05 that comes just after midnight). Watching because somehow I largely missed Seinfeld in its original run (there was a dark period of 3 or 4 years in the somewhere where I had a small black and white TV that only picked up CHEX, a sort of toy CBC station in Peterborough). As a result of this, Seinfeld has always seemed like some deep dark secret pool of cultural references that I didn’t quite get.

I’m happy to say that after this tiring marathon (in recent weeks it’s been 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. on Fox Rochester, and 12:05 a.m. on ASN), I believe I’ve now seen every episode. And so while I’m not yet at the stage where I’ll turn away from an episode of Seinfeld if it throws itself at me, I no longer feel the need to pursue the affair. Thank goodness.

That said, I have cause to wonder why in the panoply of digital channels there isn’t The Seinfeld Channel. There’s a channel that plays only westerns, one that plays only action movies, one that plays only Dave Chalks Computer Talk and other annoying tech weirdnesses. There even appears to be a channel based almost entirely around reruns of Three’s Company and Hogan’s Heros.

So why not The Seinfeld Channel? I suspect that it’s the kind of channel that people actually would pay $2.95 a month to subscribe to… just think: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you turn to, say, channel 345 and you can watch an episode of Seinfeld. No more waiting until after Spin City or ATV Nightside. All Seinfeld, all the time.

If there are any impressarios reading, I’m ready and waiting to sign up.