What is it? The greatest US sitcom ever written.

Why you’ll love it: You may roll your eyes when someone says Citizen Kane is the best film ever made, but the truth is, it deserves the title. So, too, with Seinfeld, king of sitcoms, never to be equalled. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld’s late 80s ensemble piece about nothing at all, somehow became the biggest sitcom of its time, loved by millions; it maintained its quality throughout, and is still the benchmark that others strive for. But you can’t reproduce alchemy like that.

When Jerry Seinfeld (Seinfeld), Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George Costanza (Jason Alexander) and Jerry’s wild-eyed neighbour Kramer (Michael Richards) appear on screen together, it is like the pieces of a puzzle sliding neatly into place. Each episode is essentially one small stone, chucked into a puddle: a wallet is stolen, George is caught masturbating by his mum, Jerry scratches his nose but it looks as if he is picking it. As the ripples spread outwards, the strands of three perfectly structured A, B and C plots miraculously mingle into standalone masterpieces.

Most episodes come back to the comforting premise that Jerry and co don’t really like other people and when they give them a chance and go on dates with them or try to buy soup from them, they ultimately end up back where they started, standing in Jerry’s apartment, unable to lead truly separate lives. And that doesn’t even have to mean a will-they-won’t-they? subplot for Jerry and Elaine. The two are exes, have been there, done that and defused that tension long ago. In Seinfeld, Elaine gets to be one of his friends, just like the men do. Kind of revolutionary for a US sitcom of that era.

Friends, that other NYC-set comedy behemoth, did resort to romantic diversion and went on long enough for viewers to see how the writers did it, not that it made them any less clever. But for me, Seinfeld kept its mystery, always took a different exit off the roundabout from the one you expected, and maintained its sense of the surreal right up to the end. The final episode features the four friends facing trial and imprisonment for their “callous indifference” to other people with incidental characters from previous episodes called as character witnesses.

Before co-creator David moved into the full-blown comedy of embarrassment with his comparatively modern-feeling Curb Your Enthusiasm, this was his and Seinfeld’s golden moment as the masters of the traditional studio sitcom. The setting switched from apartment to diner to street scene, but you could put those characters at the bottom of a bin and they would hold your interest. I recommend a breakfast Seinfeld before work to start each day with a zing.

Where: Amazon Prime.

Length: All 180 episodes of the show’s nine glorious seasons. And only 23 minutes a pop.

Stand-out episode: A straight toss-up (ahem) between The Contest, in which the friends see who can go the longest without masturbating, and The Soup Nazi, in which Elaine is banned from the best soup joint in town.

If you liked Seinfeld watch: Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), Arrested Development (Netflix).