That’s my philosophy. Those two shows covered a lot of ground, maybe all the ground there is, with “TZ” taking on global politics, the environment, civil rights, time, and space, and “Seinfeld” covering manners, human nature, and urban life.

So I was browsing the Thursday TV schedule, and it made me think of NBC’s high point, when “Seinfeld” and “ER” were Thursday night staples. Now, NBC is a network that barely features comedy, focusing instead on serial drama and reality shows, but it once was a comedy king. Fortunately, you can still find “Seinfeld” on TBS and Hulu when you need it, which is a godsend.


In some ways “Seinfeld,” which ran from 1989-1998, has aged, in that references such as “The English Patient,” Mary Hart, Merv Griffin, and “Last Tango in Paris” might need to be clarified for young viewers. The haircuts and clothes are passé.

But in most ways, “Seinfeld” remains not only as funny and clever as ever but also painfully true. The show perfectly captured all the petty things that can color human relations — the little competitions, the little annoying habits, the little betrayals between friends. While most sitcoms — then, and, to a great extent, now — have obligatory and knee-jerk happy endings, with apologies made and lessons learned, “Seinfeld” refused to take that path. It wouldn’t sand down its sharp edges to make viewers feel better.

By unearthing all the trifling negatives about people — especially people in close proximity, such as the population of New York — the show made those negatives seem funny. And by making them seem funny, the show defused them a bit.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.