text: Web series have famously become an outlet for creators for whom it affords opportunities and freedom of expression that they can’t get in traditional media—Joss Whedon, Felicia Day, Issa Rae of Awkward Black Girl. But now the Web has also attracted the attention of stars who have all the freedom and attention they need. Tom Hanks went online this week to launch Electric City, his so-far pulpy and enigmatic dystopian animation series. And Thursday night, Jerry Seinfeld premiered his series of webisodes, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, about, well, that. 
   
   Let us be clear: Jerry Seinfeld does not need the Web. Seinfeld could walk into any major broadcast network today, say he wanted to make a new show about, say, vacuum cleaner repair, and executives, after fainting, would rush to get the checkbook lest he change his mind. Jerry Seinfeld, let me remind you, got NBC to make The Marriage Ref. 
   
   Seinfeld does not need the Web, but that doesn’t mean that the Web might not, in many ways, be better suited to what he wants to do now: drive around, have some coffee and talk to his comedian buddies about comedy, while you watch. 
   
   (MORE: Online Blockbuster?: Tom Hanks’ Electric City Debuts on Yahoo) 
   
   That’s pretty much what there is to Comedians in Cars—available at Crackle and the series’ own website—in which Seinfeld’s first guest is Larry David, co-creator of the Seinfeld sitcom. Well, no: his first guest is his antique 1952 VW Beetle, a gorgeous collectors’ item that Seinfeld described lovingly but with a dry observation about its meekness: “If, like me, you feel that true humility is always in short supply, this is the car for you.” 
   
   It’s a curious statement to introduce the series with, since there is something arguably… un-humble about making a show, the premise of which is showing off your fantastic car collection en route to picking up your old collaborator and reminding us of one of the greatest triumphs in TV history. But it’s never not interesting to get the Beatles back together, and when David slides into the car, the observations start flying: about David’s fussy dietary habits, about the car’s peculiar (and awesome!) “semaphore” style turn flags, about the etiquette of ordering tea when your companion is having coffee. 
   
   There’s something appealing about the idea of Seinfeld, a guy who could command the legions of Hollywood at the slightest command, deciding instead that he already has a pretty good life, opting to do low-stakes comedy and schmooze with his pals in a state of semi-retirement. It’s fun, and it can be intriguing, especially when David and he get not just to making jokes, but to discussing, in a sidelong way, how and why jokes work. 
   
   Toward the end, they talk about why David would opt to smoke a cigar rather than a cigarette when working on Seinfeld and ruminating on the show. Trying to get at the difference, David pantomimes the act of smoking both: a cigarette is fast and nervous (he mimes sucking at his fingers tetchily), while a cigar is contemplative (he takes a slow, thoughtful fake drag). “A cigar takes time!” Jerry pipes in, in what could either be a documentary conversation moment or a scripted exchange from the show Seinfeld. 
   
   (MORE: Issa Rae of Awkward Black Girl on the Future of the Web Series) 
   
   The show feels it’s meant to be casual and spur-of-the-moment, but it sure doesn’t look that way. The video is crisp, rich looking and edited within an inch of its life. It cuts quickly, every second or few, to a different perspective on the comedians, to a luxurious-looking crema on a cup of coffee, to a detail on the car or a plate of pancake. Seinfeld has put as much meticulous energy into making a casual conversation look highly produced as David, with Curb Your Enthusiasm, puts into making a highly planned operation look utterly casual. 
   
   The whole aesthetic is a little distancing, and it gives the show a feel of watching a 13 1/2-minute long commercial. But for what? Just for how good a time these guys are having, being themselves, being with each other, having coffee and breakfast at God knows what hour in the day. 
   
   “You continue to have one of the finest minds I’ve ever met,” Seinfeld tells David, earnestly, after the cigar analysis. “You know I take that as a great compliment,” returns David warmly. Adds Seinfeld: “Here’s an analysis of something by two idiots that no one else is doing.” Aren’t they? Or maybe they are, in diners and on YouTube channels, and simply not issuing highly produced and promoted video of their doing it. 
   
   Regardless, talent is talent, and I can’t blame Seinfeld and David for knowing and acknowledging how much they have. But by the end of that exchange, it feels like we’ve receded away as viewers rather than having been brought into their intimate circle; I feel like I should ask if anyone needs me to freshen up their coffee or if I should just clear the table. 
   
   None of which is to argue that they’re not right: these guys really are the Lennon-McCartney of comedy, and still it’s intriguing and fun in any format to watch them get together and jam. If you’re not interested—well, no harm, no foul is the attitude of this webisode. Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t need the Web, he doesn’t need TV either, and if you find other ways to spend your time than with him, his coffee and his cars, he’ll do just fine. ||||| Hollywood types and TV observers are fond of bemoaning that there’s no such thing anymore as a Seinfeld-style megahit — the culture has become far too fractured for 35 million people to agree to tune into anything on network television at the same time (save events like the Oscars and the Super Bowl). But watching the first episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s new web series on Crackle Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, I began to spin a highly speculative What If in my head: Had Seinfeld wanted to make Seinfeld in 2012 instead of 1990, would he have made 22-minute episodes for TV? Or 13-minute episodes for the Web? 
   
   Given how much fun he seems to be having here, and how much fun I had watching it, I suspect it would’ve been the latter. CICGC‘s first episode features Seinfeld picking up his Seinfeld co-conspirator Larry David in a 1952 azure blue Volkswagen Bug, and taking him out for coffee and breakfast at the Los Angeles diner John O’Groats. To a light, jazzy underscore, the two old friends proceed to dither and debate over day-to-day minutiae like the contemplative power of cigars over cigarettes, the freeing quality of boxer briefs over standard briefs, and David’s fastidious dietary philosophy. They occasionally graze past weightier topics — David reveals that his decision to stop drinking coffee helped lead to his divorce — but for the most part, the episode feels like Seinfeld boiled down to its essential spirit: Highly entertaining talk about the trivialities of life, with no silly “plot” to get in the way. David pretty much says as much to Seinfeld at the end of their meal: “You’ve finally made a show about nothing.” 
   
   Check out the full episode below: 
   
   There’s a real pleasure in watching good friends enjoy each other’s company so deeply, but it will be interesting to see how this web series develops when Seinfeld is hanging out with someone he’s known for far less time, like Ricky Gervais. What did you make of this first episode? What was your favorite line? (Mine: “You cannot parade in briefs.”) Will you check out the show next week? 
   
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   Read more: 
   
   Watch new trailer for Jerry Seinfeld’s web series ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ 
   
   Tom Hanks’ dystopian web series debuts on Yahoo 
   
   ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee': Seinfeld taking Monk’s Cafe on the road? ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| "You have finally done the show about nothing." So proclaims Larry David during the first episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld's return to the comedy treadmill after an absence spanning a little over a decade. 
   
   The show, which launched on Thursday, follows a basic format: each episode will see Seinfeld pick up a chum in a vintage car, then drive to a restaurant for a hot drink and perhaps a snack. Cameras follow them, fly-on-the-wall style. They talk. Hilarity ensues. 
   
   Next week, the show will co-star Ricky Gervais; later in the season, Alec Baldwin. If you're a fan of Seinfeld, or its awkward stepchild Curb Your Enthusiasm, you'll be charmed. If not, you may find things meander. For better, or worse, the 15-minute show seems to be unscripted. 
   
   There is, of course, a ring of familiarity about this. In fact, judging by the first episode (all others are top secret for now), Seinfeld might almost be accused of stealing the format of his "show about nothing". 
   
   How so? Well the car journey portion, filmed with Go-Pro dashboard cameras, is essentially a rip-off of Robert Llewellyn's series Carpool. The restaurant scenes recall Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's semi-improvised gastronomic travel documentary The Trip. At times, the resemblance is positively eerie. 
   
   For all that, there's at least a whiff of innovation about Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. It's nothing to do with the format, or punch lines, but revolves around the way people are supposed to view it. Put simply: it's a TV show you can't see on TV; it can only be watched over the internet. 
   
   Seinfeld's decision to forgo television – in favour of Crackle.com, a Sony-owned site – comes at a watershed moment for television's relationship with the internet. For years pigeon-holed as an experimental medium, used mostly for discovering fresh talent, online TV projects are now attracting blue-chip Hollywood stars. Tom Hanks launched his new project – a dystopian science-fiction animation called Electric City that he created and voices – via Yahoo. And the veteran TV anchor Larry King announced he was coming out of retirement to launch a weekly chat-show on Hulu. Netflix is venturing into TV production, with shows such as Lillehammer and Arrested Development, while Will Ferrell these days seems to spend most of his time online in Funny or Die sketches. 
   
   The online trend is partly driven by money, since the web accounts for a growing portion of overall ad spending, and partly by changing viewer habits, since the growing ubiquity of smartphones and tablet computers helps draw eyeballs to digital programming from traditional media. 
   
   But the Hankses and Seinfelds of this world, who have enough money for this lifetime, appear to also be drawn to the internet for artistic reasons. It allows them to experiment creatively without having to worry about interfering network executives, clunky TV timeslots, spiralling budgets and the other Hollywood blights. 
   
   "When I work with established TV stars, they're often interested by the freedom the internet provides," says Justin Gayner, the founder of ChannelFlip, a British online TV network that has made shows with Harry Hill, David Mitchell, and Richard Hammond. "The bigger the star, the more confident they are to experiment online. If they have conquered the Everest of TV then the internet is a new mountain. And the spontaneity of it all seems to remind them of their roots in stand-up comedy." 
   
   Seinfeld, then, is returning to comedy so he can play around. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is primarily a show about wasting time. (As David observes, early in the debut episode, "nobody can waste time like you and me".) And what is the internet, if not the perfect medium for wasting time?
target: – Looks like Jerry Seinfeld has trumped himself in his quest to make a show about "nothing." His new Web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, has Seinfeld chatting with comedy buddies (like Larry David and Ricky Gervais) while driving, snacking, and—you guessed it—having coffee. Reviews are mixed after the first episode: "If you're a fan of Seinfeld, or its awkward stepchild Curb Your Enthusiasm, you'll be charmed," writes Guy Adams at the Independent. "If not, you may find things meander." Still, "there's at least a whiff of innovation" because the show "can only be watched over the Internet." "The whole aesthetic is a little distancing, and it gives the show a feel of watching a 13 1/2-minute long commercial," writes James Poniewozik at TIME. "But for what? Just for how good a time these guys are having, being themselves, being with each other, having coffee and breakfast at God knows what hour in the day." Seinfeld and David "occasionally graze past weightier topics—David reveals that his decision to stop drinking coffee helped lead to his divorce—but for the most part, the episode feels like Seinfeld boiled down to its essential spirit: Highly entertaining talk about the trivialities of life, with no silly 'plot' to get in the way," writes Adam Vary at Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog. "The first episode has enough for car and comedy fans alike to come back for next week," writes Travis Okulski at Jalopnik. "However, will Seinfeld have the same rapport with comics he isn't as close to he does with David? And will the cars be as interesting? I hope." See the show's first episode on Crackle. (Or see what happened to "Seinfeld the chicken.")