Category Archives: 30 Rock

October 15, 2010 · 1:10 am

30 Rock – “Live Show”

“Live Show”

October 14th, 2010

The most common word I’m seeing in evaluating tonight’s 30 Rock is “experiment,” which is more evaluative than you might think.

We call it an experiment because it wasn’t actually very good. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy tonight’s 30 Rock (I did), or that the episode was a failure (it wasn’t). If the episode had actually lived up to expectations, we’d call it a risk worth taking, or a ballsy decision, but instead we consider it a one-off experiment in order to better reconcile its struggles within the show’s larger creative efforts.

As noted, I thought “Live Show” was fun, and think that there were parts of the way the episode was designed which worked quite nicely, but any deeper commentary built into the episode was killed by the live format. Many of the jokes landed, and a couple of the meta moments were successful, but any character development and much of the potential meta-commentary were lost in the midst of audience laughter.

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Tagged as Alec Baldwin, Analysis, Bill Hader, Birthday, Breaking, Episode 4, Experiment, Fonzie, Jack Donaghy, Jack McBrayer, Jon Hamm, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Live, Live Episode, Liveness, Liz Lemon, Matt Damon, Rachel Dratch, Review, Season 5, SNL, Television, Tina Fey, Tracy Jordan, Tracy Morgan, TV

May 21, 2010 · 3:00 am

Season Finale: 30 Rock – “I Do Do”

“I Do Do”

May 20th, 2010

I haven’t written about 30 Rock in a very long time, so you’d think I’d have a lot to say: after all, “I Do Do” actually had a “Previously on 30 Rock” sequence, which is rare on a show that is usually so off-the-wall that it doesn’t need to worry so much about continuity.

However, this was an aggressively plot-heavy conclusion for the series, so it makes sense that we might need a refresher on why Liz is going to three weddings, and why she would go anywhere with Wesley Snipes, and how smart the show was to have Jack dating two celebrity guest stars so that you really don’t know who he’s going to pick. This being said, however, “I Do Do” isn’t really plot-heavy at all – rather, it just sort of revels in the situation that has already been created, introducing new elements and providing conclusions that do a pretty good job of boiling it down to characters.

There are jokes, and there are plots, but even with some fairly ridiculous star power there is no point in time where all of it overwhelms the ways in which the episode plays out as a story about Jack, Liz and Kenneth, which makes it a successful conclusion to both these storylines and the season as a whole.

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Tagged as Alec Baldwin, Analysis, Avery Jessup, Carol, Cher, Comedy, Elizabeth Banks, Episode 22, Finale, Floyd, Jack McBrayer, Jenna Maroney, Julianne Moore, Kenneth, Matt Damon, Michael Sheen, MOO, Nancy Donovan, Paul, Pete, Pilot, Pregnancy, Review, Season 4, Season Finale, Sky Law, Television, TGS, Tina Fey, TV, Wedding, Wesley Snipes, Will Forte

April 30, 2010 · 2:39 am

30 Rock – “Argus”

“Argus”

April 29th, 2010

I didn’t get around to last week’s episodes of 30 Rock – there were two of them, and I wasn’t able to watch “Khonani” live, and I ultimately didn’t have much to say. The play on the Late Night situation was too straightforward, relying entirely on the “It’s Conan and Leno, but they’re Middle Eastern Janitors!” premise to handle the heavy comedic lifting, and I honestly can’t tell you right now what happened in those episodes. There just wasn’t anything to really latch onto, which is sometimes part of 30 Rock’s charm.

There was plenty, however, to latch onto in “Argus,” and I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way. This is a far more memorable episode than the two last week, but it’s memorable because it’s kind of horribly disturbing. The show never quite manages to unpack Will Forte as a drag queen who impersonates (and DATES) Jenna, so I’m sort of reluctant to say this, but I actually enjoyed the episode overall. The show did three stories which involved Liz Lemon but weren’t about Liz Lemon, allowing Tina Fey to be funny in pretty much every one of them and to sort of depict her life being overrun by the chaos around her rather than one of her own neuroses. It’s not a bad spot for the character, and combined with copious amounts of Grizz and Dot Com and Jack Donaghy talking to a peacock he believes to be carrying the spirit of Don Geiss, and you have an episode that’s too ridiculous to take seriously but too fun to forget.

Which is about what the show seems to be aiming for at its peak these days.

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Tagged as Alec Baldwin, Argus, Don Geiss, Dot Com, Drag Queen, Entertainment, Episode 19, Feyonce, Giant Camp, Grizz, Jack Donaghy, Jenna Maroney, Kenneth, Liz Lemon, NBC, Paul, Peacock, Review, Season 4, Television, Tina Fey, TV, Will Forte

March 26, 2010 · 11:21 am

30 Rock – “Floyd”

“Floyd”

March 25th, 2010

While 30 Rock is a show that rarely has a great deal of forward momentum, I always like it better when it seems like it’s taking me someplace in particular; Jenna’s best story was when she was dealing with her weight, Tracy’s best recent story was when he confronting the uncanny valley, and Liz and Jack are almost always at their best when it feels like they’re confronting something that could last a few episodes or have some sort of ramification for their future.

This does not mean that I don’t find episodes like “Floyd” funny just because 2/3 of the episode is pointless, but it does mean that I prefer the parts of the episode which feel like they have history and a future. I know it’s not typical for the show, and I know it’s not really going to last, but there’s something about Liz Lemon doing something which seems mildly important that just makes me like the show more.

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30 Rock – “Don Geiss, America and Hope”

“Don Geiss, America and Hope”

March 18th, 2010

I don’t think that “Don Geiss, America and Hope” was a particularly strong 30 Rock episode, but I do think that it was a particularly interesting one. You see, the show displayed three different storytelling methods that it does quite often, each shows both the strengths and weaknesses of the show’s current story model. You have your industry parody (the Comcast buyout of NBC becoming the Kabletown buyout of NBC), you have your celebrity parody (Tracy becoming embroiled in a sex scandal ala Tiger Woods), and then you have the deromanticizing of romantic comedy tropes (Liz’s non-relationship with Wesley Snipes).

In all cases, the show is running into a distinct problem: all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again, and the show is starting to become weighed down by this fact. There’s plenty of nice one-liners, and I thought all three of the stories worked sort of well at the end of the day, but these are the same types of stories we’ve seen in the past, and when none of them feel particularly revolutionary and they all appear in the same episode, the show becomes messy more than chaotic, which does little to help the show’s consistency problems.

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Tagged as Adulteraisin, Don Geiss America and Hope, Episode 15, Fresh Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine, Jack Donaghy, Kabletown, Liz Lemon, Michael Sheen, NBC, Review, Season 4, Settling Soulmates, Television, Tiger Woods, Tina Fey, Tracy Jordan, TV, Wesley Snipes

March 14, 2010 · 2:30 pm

Assessing through Assessments: NBC Thursday Comedy Roundup

Assessing through Assessments: NBC Comedies

March 14th, 2010

I don’t have a whole lot to say this week about the Thursday night comedies that’s particularly new, since I’m a few days behind, but I’ve rarely let that stop me before. However, rather than prattling on about all four shows, I figured I’d highlight some passages from other reviews of the episodes; this is an intriguing time for all four comedies from a critical perspective, so there’s some diverse thoughts floating around that I relate with to varying degrees.

And so, in a longer form than I had initially intended, I’ll highlight some of those great reviews and offer my own thoughts on “Basic Genealogy,” “The Possum,” “St. Patrick’s Day,” and “Future Husband.”

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30 Rock – “Winter Madness”

“Winter Madness”

January 21st, 2010

Jack Donaghy has had many relationships in his time on 30 Rock, and while some of them have been adventurous or novel (Isabella Rosellini as his ex-wife, Edie Falco as his congresswoman girlfriend) the rest have been remarkably dull. And while Alec Baldwin is technically capable of elevating any material, and the show has always hired potentially funny actresses to play the roles, his relationships can be a black hole for the show at times. While Emily Mortimer is a great actress, Phoebe the bird bone fiance was painful, and Salma Hayek’s nurse had one decent episode (“Generallisimo,” although I liked the McFlurry story) but never amounted to anything else. And yet, because they’re major guest stars and represent Jack’s main storyline, the characters stick around longer than any other character with such little potential ever would, and the show suffers for it.

I like Julianne Moore, but her character on 30 Rock was a one-joke one-off that should have never developed into anything more. While there was potential in the story for Jack to tap into parts of his past (the episode in which Moore didn’t actually appear but Jack and Kenneth broke into her house actually did this better), the story has spent too much time on her character’s divorce and not enough time on Jack himself. There are some fun bits in “Winter Madness,” and I’m sure the episode was quite enjoyable for Bostonians, but the stories felt as if they weren’t actually creating enough comedy to form anything close to a cohesive episode.

Although American Historian Tracy Jordan can hang out on my television anytime.

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30 Rock – “Klaus and Greta” and “Black Light Attack!”

“Klaus and Greta” and “Black Light Attack!”

January 14th, 2010

When you double up two episodes of 30 Rock, you get a really skewed perception of the series. In some ways, the two hours offers that many more memorable lines, so if you are judging purely based on the sheer volume of laughs chances are that two is, in fact, going to be better than one. However, at the same time, there are two separate episodes which could go wrong at a story level, and the show is not as consistent as it has been at its finest over its four seasons. (You also get the show’s lowest ratings in a very long time, since the show was running without a lead-in from The Office).

The actual content of “Klaus and Greta” and “Black Light Attack” offered a particularly intriguing double dose of comedy, as the character of Liz Lemon went through what seemed like a sudden sexual transformation while normally overtly sexual Tracy Jordan went through a personal transformation in light of his newly conceived daughter. Both episodes were actually quite consistently funny, and the double dose managed to actually feel more strange for Liz than it did for the usually one-dimensional Jenna, creating a sort of fun bizarro world as opposed to a problematic hour of comedy.

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Tagged as Alec Baldwin, Black Light Attack!, Body Pillow, Cheyenne Jackson, Entertainment, Episode 10, Episode 9, Gossip Girl, Jack Donaghy, James Franco, Jenna, Kenneth, Klaus and Greta, Liz Lemon, New York, Randy Lemon, Television, Tracy, TV

December 10, 2009 · 11:36 pm

The Office and 30 Rock – “Secret Santa”

“Secret Santa” x 2

December 10th, 2009

It’s not often that two episodes airing back to back have the same title, so it’s a convenient excuse to blog 30 Rock and The Office together tonight.

Christmas is a holiday that has always been a highlight for The Office (“Christmas Party” is one of its finest hour-long episodes), but to be honest I’ve found that 30 Rock is kind of really bad at it. I don’t know what it is, but Christmas seems to be a holiday that just doesn’t work for the show, primarily because its wackiness doesn’t have that sense of heart that The Office taps into during this, the most magical time of the year.

So, accordingly, the best parts of both episodes entitled “Secret Santa” are those which feel like they’re bringing everyone together in celebration of the season’s message of hope and togetherness, and the worst parts of both episodes are those where that spirit is either ignored or crushed beneath a smothering of unpleasantness.

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Tagged as Accent, Boston, Cheyenne Jackson, CHiPS, Entertainment, Episode 13, Episode 8, Jack Donaghy, Jane Krakowski, Jenna Maroney, Jesus, Jim, Julianne Moore, Kenneth, Kite Runner, Liz Lemon, Michael Scott, Nancy Donovan, Oscar, Pam, Phyllis, Santa, Season 4, Season 6, Secret Santa, Television, Tina Fey, TV, Twilight, Verdukianism

December 4, 2009 · 2:36 am

30 Rock – “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001”

“Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001”

December 3rd, 2009

After writing rather lengthy analysis of the other three NBC comedies, all of which tapped into the emotional recesses of their characters in uncomfortable or telling fashions, it’s refreshing to get to 30 Rock, which tried to do absolutely none of those things.

While it wasn’t an all-time classic, “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001” was a prime example of what happens when you just let Liz Lemon run free. The episode follows a paper thin plot, rarely taking a story to any unexpected or surprising place, but Tina Fey is so inherently in control of this character that she is able to depict Liz’s downward spiral into a Jekyll/Hyde split persona in a way that makes you laugh so hard you forget just how pointless it all is.

It becomes a series of cleverly executed sight gags at a certain point in the episode, demonstrating that even the simplest of stories (even when that story surrounds an element of the show which could be complicated) can elicit laughs within the universe Fey has created here.

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Tagged as Alec Baldwin, Chewbaqueena, Comedy, Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001, Devin Banks, Dr. Spaceman, EGOT, Entertainment, Episode 7, HD Camera, Jack Donaghy, Kenneth, Liz Lemon, Muppet, NBC, Opening Credits, Performer Liz, Season 4, Talk Show, Television, Tina Fey, Tracy Jordan, Tracy Morgan, TV, Will Arnett