I am growing to love this show as I watch more of it. As someone said in a previous thread about 30 Rock[feigns looking for previous thread] Oh well, couldn’t find it.
Anyway, as some said before, this show does a great job of making cliches fresh and funny.
But the part of this episode that really killed me was when Jack returns to Brian Williams’ office and we see Kenneth is in the middle of washing a painted message off the wall. All that was left of the message was:
Again, definitely some funny funny bits last night. I still don’t think they get how to write a whole half-hour of TV. The Brian Williams stuff was funny.
The way that Lemon’s date fell apart was classic.
“Say what number cousin we’d have to be that would make this all right.”
Weak night for Tracy Morgan. I still think he’s funny, though.
I can’t remember the last show that made so much fun of its sponsoring network (probably The Simpsons and Fox, though that’s a much easier target). Shows like Studio 60 involve fictional stand-ins, but 30R not only has NBC the butt of many jokes, but last night had them name-dropping real people at the network too. Overall, a very funny show (and Tina Fey just keeps getting hotter and hotter).
Wow, I did not see the incest angle coming! Simply brilliant!
[geekstuff]At $700/ounce (I haven’t looked it up) and 12 troy ounce/pound, a suitcase with a million dollars worth of god would weigh close to 120 lbs. It would have killed the joke, but the concept would work if you just had the suitcases sitting on the ground in front of the models, and the model would lift (or attempt to lift) the case only after the contestant made their choice.[/geekstuff]
I thought the most hilarious bit was when Alec Baldwin’s character was describing his previous year’s experience in the welding shop, and he holds up a piece of misshapen metal with some sort of grille in it, and says (completely ingenuously) “I made this.”
I was in stitches.
I think that Alec Baldwin really has outstanding comedic timing and presence. His recent stint hosting SNL also had some funny moments, and i think it’s no coincidence that the only funny sketches that night were the ones that he was in.
I really want to like this show, and for the most part I think it’s funny and hip. But my loathing for Tracy Morgan keeps me from coming back as a regular. His bits and subplots are stupid, predictable and (as always) completely unfunny. He’s a fourth-rate comedian with rotten timing and an unrated actor who couldn’t carry a scene in a wheelbarrow. Maybe I could just mute the sound whenever he’s on screen. . .
After a little bit of reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that 30 Rock is really an updated version of Mary Tyler Moore and Liz Lemon is Mary Richards - a good hearted, unmarried woman in her 30’s who is the only thing keeping her show from careening into total chaos.
The twist is that Jack is to Ted Baxter as Charles Emerson Winchester was to Frank Burns – a much more intelligent and capable nemesis with flashes of humanity.
Having said all that, it is my favorite new show this season.
I was only half-watching last night and didn’t get to play my favorite game. Where was Rachel Dratch this week?
I love this show. I love that they’re willing to poke such vicious fun at themselves, the network, and GE. They painted Brian Williams as an obnoxious, room-trashing drunk who goes to the liquor store every day at noon. They make fun of GE all the time. They made Conan O’Brian look like an uptight ass. And always to very good effect.
And their sense of comedic timing and placement is brilliant. Not just Alec Baldwin, but the writers of the show.
For instance, in the scene mentioned in the OP, they cut to a shot of Kenneth erasing something off the wall, obviously written there by a drunk Brian Williams. It said:
KAT
COU
SU
Now, if it had said,
KATIE
COURIC
SUCKS
it wouldn’t have been half as funny. The creative people on the show got that. A lesser show would have written out the whole thing and hammered the audience with it.
“Today, Kenneth, I’ll be your bottom. And I want you to ride me hard!”
I too love how Liz is a geek. Like when her friend tells her if she wants a man, she’ll have to stop making Star Trek references, and Liz, all offended, says, “Star Wars!”
As always, Alec Baldwin was great. I also loved how Kenneth jumped from naive (a toaster oven) to worldly (long list of compensation worthy of a Hollywood agent).
Am I the only one who thought Liz should’ve just kept dating The Hair? Anything further out than first cousins hardly seems icky. Or maybe I’ve just lived in North Carolina too long, where you can indeed marry your first cousin. But not your double first cousin, 'cause that would be gross.
