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I am – Hercules!!

Seinfeld: The Complete Eighth Season was the series’ next to last, and the first without creator/showrunner Larry David. Jerry breaks up with soulmate Jeannie Steinman (Janeane Garofalo). George is charged with running the foundation named in his dead fiancée’s honor. Kramer begins fighting children. Elaine becomes president of J. Peterman. Jerry meets a beautiful girl with “man hands.” George enters the “forbidden city” where the supermodels hang out. Elaine meets “Bizarro” versions of Jerry, George and Kramer. Elaine demonstrates her dancing acumen. George thinks the photomat girl is up to something. Newman accuses Jerry of mail fraud. Jerry discovers his girlfriend’s (A.J. Langer) mentor is dating Bania. Elaine dates a guy obsessed with an Eagles song. George is rejected by a religious cult. Kramer lets Japanese people sleep in his chest of drawers. Jerry’s career-day booking is bumped. Kramer is menaced by neon Kenny Rogers Roasters signage. Jerry and Kramer switch personalities after they switch apartments. George discovers giving up sex makes him a supergenius. Lawyer Jackie Chiles goes after Big Tobacco on Kramer’s behalf. Jerry discovers in his self-storage cubicle bags of mail Newman never delivered. Kramer takes canine meds and begins to turn into a dog and bites Newman. Elaine dates a “bad breaker-upper.” A store posts Jerry’s bounced check. Elaine’s boyfriend discovers he’s bald. George dates a convict. Kramer gets into cockfighting. Kramer is vexed by girlfriend Emily’s (Sarah Silverman) “jimmy legs.” George investigates his parents’ health and wealth. A destitute Jerry has to sleep in his parents’ Cadillac. George thinks of a witty comeback far too late. Kramer regrets his living will when he learns people can recover from comas. George interviews foundation scholarship candidates. Elaine buys stories from Kramer to ghostwrite Peterman’s biography. Jerry dates a girl (Christine Taylor) everyone else dislikes. George avoids a breakup by hiding. Elaine is put in charge of a foundation honoring someone who never existed. Elaine discovers she lives outside a Chinese restaurant’s delivery zone. Jerry’s girlfriend (Kristin Davis) uses a toothbrush that fell into a toilet. Elaine alienates with her disdain for “The English Patient.” Jerry is challenged by an 80-year-old (Lloyd Bridges) to a weightlifting competition. George builds a bed under his desk. Jerry is suspicious of his dentist’s conversion to Judaism. George is suspicious of his girlfriend’s use of the phrase “Yada yada yada.” Jerry frets about his position on his girlfriend’s (Lauren Graham) speed-dial. Newman and Kramer plan rival millennium parties. Kramer launches a reality bus tour. Elaine finds her idea for a muffin-top store stolen. Seat-filler Kramer gets a Tony award. Jerry begins dating a girl (Amanda Peet) with a live-in boyfriend. A three-month Yankees severance package precipitates plans for a “Summer of George.” Other season-eight guest stars included Bob Odenkirk, Kyle Gass, Ben Stein, Danny Strong, Bruce Davison, Melinda Clarke, Rena Sofer, Debra Messing, Gedde Wantanabe, Alex Trebek, Derek Jeter, Raquel Welch, Molly Shannon, Brenda Strong, John Michael Higgins, Kathryn Joosten, Chelsea Noble, Neil Flynn, Jack Riley and Robert Wagner. As per tradition, the new set is packed with commentaries, deleted scenes and mini-docs (including one focusing on creator Larry David’s departure).

Rescue Me, brainchild of comedian Denis Leary and writer Peter Tolan (“The Larry Sanders Show”), is easily my favorite of the FX hourlongs, and one that gets better with each season as volatile and libidinous firefighter Tommy Gavin (Leary) continues to embrace his heroic levels of insanity (which seem now far less tragic than they did when the show launched). Leary and Tolan wrote eight of season three’s 13 episodes. Teddy’s in jail for avenging the death of Tommy’s son. Tommy’s nephew is boning a hot teacher. Mike and his male roommate grow closer. Sean grows closer to Tommy’s crazy sister and turns into a zombie. Tommy’s brother grows closer to Tommy’s ex-wife. Franco enters a battle of wits with his girlfriend’s developmentally challenged brother. Tommy gets to date somebody who looks exactly like Marisa Tomei, as if Callie Thorne and Andrea Roth weren’t enough to make his head explode. The season comes in both a standard-definition DVD and Blu-ray edition. To anticipate the question? The series’ fourth season launches next Wednesday on FX.

Mission: Impossible: The Complete Second Season saw Jim Phelps take over the Impossible Missions Force from Daniel Briggs. This is no small thing. Jim Phelps was the only character to transition into the motion picture franchise. The series’ only standing set was Daniel Briggs’ apartment. Until the series’ only standing set became Phelps’ apartment. We got to see no one else’s apartment. Not Paris’. Not Casey’s. Not even Dana Lambert’s. We never learned anything about their lives outside the job, unless those lives were somehow germane to the mission. For the run of the series (and the 1980s sequel series), Briggs and Phelps were the only full-time employees of the Impossible Missions Force; everybody else had day-jobs. Willy Armitage made his living as a circus strongman. Barney Collier ran an electronics company. Rollin Hand made his living as an actor/magician. Cinnamon Carter was an actress/model. Phelps was the guy who saw the most tapes self-destruct on his way to toppling crimelords and dictators. He would go on to convince William Shatner that he went back in time. The original “Mission: Impossible” kind of ruled, more popular in its day than “Alias” was at its peak. It launched alongside Desilu’s “Star Trek” back in 1966, but lasted longer – longer, in fact, than any espionage series ever.
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