Last night, I had a strange and unnerving experience.
I saw an episode of Seinfeld that I’ve never seen before.
I mean, how is that possible?
It was called The Wait Out, and while it’s certainly not a classic instalment, it’s by no means unmemorable. It has the physical comedy of the jeans, it has a brilliant call back in the shoelaces bit, it has George, Jerry, and Elaine in a tussle, it has Elaine concocting the scheme.
It even has the dumb subplot of Elaine’s bad driving, which would have stuck in my craw, not just for the unoriginal idea born from the wrong-headed premise, but also because it has no payoff whatsoever.
So how have I never seen this episode before?
I watched the show religiously when it first aired on BBC2 here in the UK, recording episodes to re-watch again and again. I admit I missed the odd one, and when schedules were changed, my VHS recordings went awry. This is the reason I had never seen The Doll before I got the DVDs, and why I hadn’t seen the endings of some episodes. But it doesn’t explain why I have never seen The Wait Out before last night. I have watched those DVDs over and over and over again, ever since I first bought them. Was there a glitch on the disc that meant it always skipped that episode? I did give the disc a gentle wipe before slipping it into the drive last night. Did that clear the glitch? Unlikely.
Or am I imagining a whole new episode? Did I hallucinate it? Are all the web pages about it some elaborate prank my friends are playing on me?
Is it some weird, backwards Mandela Effect?
Has anyone else not seen The Wait Out before now?
I can’t even be excited about seeing a WHOLE NEW EPISODE of Seinfeld for the first time in years, because this whole experience has freaked me the fuck out.
Help me. Tell me how this happened. Please.
