The Sheinhardt Wig Company doesn’t mess around. Win a Best Comedy Series Emmy for their NBC subsidiary, and they’ll take good care of you. They’ll even pry Jerry Seinfeld from his top-secret honeycomb (in luxurious Greniarnia?) to kick-start your second season with a much buzzed about cameo. (Have you heard he has a Bee Movie coming to theaters near you?)
Yes, life is good at 30 Rock, and things are lining up for ol’ Liz Lemon. Sure, ex-boyfriend Floyd had traded the hamlet of Manhattan for the big time — Cleveland — but as Seinfeld pointed out, that relationship is far from kaput. Lemon’s obviously not over him, but do we want him back? Do we need him back? It’s only season 2, folks. Give our girl some room to breathe. To grow. To eat ham sammiches while wearing a South Korean funeral dress.
Speaking of eating, there was nothing mystic about the pizza Jenna inhaled during hiatus. Jack nailed it when he said, "She has to lose 30 pounds or gain 60. Anything in between has no place on television." Well, perhaps there is room for her on Are You Stronger Than a Dog? or America’s Top Pirate but certainly not MILF Island. (Quick question: Are Jack’s midseason replacement titles any more ridiculous than SciFi’s Who Wants to be a Superhero? or NBC’s Age of Love?)
I do have a few bones to pick, though. While Seinfeldvision was a clever and ironic way to incorporate Seinfeld, his appearance led to my parietal lobe being seared by the mental imagery of Tracy’s threesome with Elayne Boosler. More importantly, the Jack I love and respect is cold and calculating. I don’t want to see Jack Bauer at a Greenpeace rally, I didn’t care for JR Ewing’s little-known stint at Habitat for Humanity, and part of me died when Jack Donaghy folded under pressure and bawled like a child. Maybe that cardiac episode did some real damage after all. Paging Dr. Spaceman.
I re-added 30 Rock to my DVR lineup and boy am I glad I did. The cast is just shimmering, they’ve really got it going on. Even seemed to leave the much-beloved Seinfeld in the dust with their wacky ways.
Yes, yes, ’30 Rock’ is awesome…
But where on earth is the TV Watch for ‘The Office’!!?!?!?!?
This show is awesome. I like how more characters are being featured, and how hard did you laugh when this went down:
Liz: I’m not you, Jack. I’m just me.
Jack: Don’t say that, Lemon. You’re better than you.
The Emmy was well deserved.
Kenneth was the star last night. His reaction when in Seinfeld’s presence was perfect. “Call of your goons!”
Last night’s premiere was great. MILF Island, Are You Stronger than a Dog?, and Mystic Pizza: The Musical. Hilarious! Seinfeld’s interaction with Liz, Jack, and Kenneth was priceless, and I loved the South Korean funeral dress. Hopefully, more people tuned in because of Seinfeld’s appearance and the ratings will go up, because this show is proving why it won the Emmy.
South Korean funeral dress = $4,000 ham napkin
“Are Jack’s midseason replacement titles any more ridiculous than SciFi’s Who Wants to be a Superhero? or NBC’s Age of Love?)” No, they’re really not. And that’s hilarious AND sad.
This recap was VERY insightful for being so brief and I agree about Jack: Season 1 Jack never had broken down and cried in front of a powerful player (his one freakout about acting happened with only Liz around on an empty stage). Still, his comment about Jenna was hilarious and maybe you’re right about this being some sort of residual effect from his heart attack.
I also enjoyed Liz’s Seinfeld impersonation (but I enjoyed Seinfeld being insulted by it more) and Tracy’s completely off-the-wall comments continue to crack me up. “Oh no, did a Korean person die?”
20 hot moms, 50 8th graders-MILF island!!!
when jenna wore that striped dress, i was on the floor.
I’ve loved this show from the start; Lemon and her boss are the best, Seinfeld or no Seinfeld (never liked him, so sue me). Having said all that, the NBC intern, Kenneth, stole the show last night. He deserves an Emmy all by himself.
Very disappointing and unfunny start to the season. This show was wildly inconsistent the first year and that doesn’t appear to be changing. It has some pants-wettingly funny moments but it also has a lot of clunkers.
I would watch MILF island.
I’m with Lalalala. This episode was a microcosm of the show — wildly inconsistent. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes dull. They need to lose the attempted character development, take a page from Seinfeld and just stick to the zany “about nothing” plots.
Wow, what a downer! I’m afraid network pressure to lighten up on all the Industry speak waters down the show to just another workplace comedy – and a not-very-funny one at that. Seinfeld sucked, Jack should never be bawling, Tracy Morgan is a travesty…the show was only funny when Jenna was onscreen. Jumped the shark already?? Keep it TIGHT, fast and FUNNY, Tina!
Oh, and I SO disagree with Will below. “Do nothing” shows are the worst – 30 Rock shines when it picks up threads started 4 episodes and creates a throughline. Have it be ABOUT something and let the zaniness spiral around that.
While I thought this episode was good in an “that was OK” way, I think people’s expectations are way too high. The pilot and first few episodes were “uh, ok” and there were a few not great episodes through the year (Tracy at the Source Awards comes to mind). I thought this was a fine episode although Seinfeld was distractingly not funny. (Although I think first-season Jenna is so wildly self-centered that she would have never shown up to work with extra weight. She would have gone to “rehab” or something.)