The most important thing in serial TV comedy, especially popular comedy that is potentially multiseason and has a future in syndication, is to maintain homeostasis. When you watch a Seinfeld episode from season two it looks and feels the same as one from season five, and this is intentional. Even when the characters experience great emotional and interpersonal growth, we forget about it and start from scratch the next episode. Any advances potentially breaking the status quo, like in the story you describe, have to be nixed last minute so that the next episode can make sense. Then when they are all aired out of order in syndication it isn't weird.

Have you watched a Seinfeld recently? I tried a few months ago and it wasn't doing it for me. I mean, the laugh track and look of the show make it look so dated. Watching the 30 Rock live show with the laugh track in it made for a very strange show compared to a normal week's viewing experience. I didn't even know there were shows on that still had laugh tracks.

Also, back to Seinfeld (although no one is talking about Seinfeld besides me, so I don't know why I'm talking about it), the humor on that show is pretty dated too. Either that, or it became such a cultural zeitgeist that what was funny and outlandish then is just par for the course for our generation.

In other news, I happened to walk past the diner that is the exterior shot of the diner they hang out in. Weird.