Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

It's Eddie Murphy, launching the season in Episode 1, who leaves the biggest impression. ... Affable entertainment and the occasional candid moment from Seinfeld and friends.

Mostly for the die-hard Seinfeld (and "Comedians") fan, these are more often about the guy who picks up the check than about his guests. But at their best, they're--what else?--funny.

The twelve new episodes are slightly snappier than earlier ones, which sometimes allowed silences to speak of easy companionship or productive awkwardness. But the fundamental structure abides: Jerry and his passenger drive around, hang out, grab a bite to eat, and enact a chummy discourse on topics ranging from the philosophy of humor to theories of everyday life. It’s nonnutritive, but it has some pep.

Usually, the conversations are entertaining or substantive enough to distract from that fact. But it’s harder this season--either because of Seinfeld himself, the times in which we are living, or some combination of the two--to overlook how out of touch the whole exercise, including Seinfeld, sometimes seems. No one would ever accuse Seinfeld of being woke, but there are times in Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee when he seems to be the anti-woke.

A mostly uninspired new season.