In an age where we’re constantly qualifying our favorite television shows with reasons like “the kiss between Kurt and Blaine was so good” and “well Archer is a badass,” it comes as a relief that we don’t need to do much explaining for 30 Rock.
Unlike other shows that depend on the already Auto-Tuned catchiness of Top 40 songs and dancing celebrities or plot twists involving merry-go-round relationships between cast members, 30 Rock survives solely on its writing.
It pins its success on Tina Fey’s self-deprecating humor and Alec Baldwin’s handsomeness/magnificent acting skills. Sometimes it teeters on the edge of the ludicrous (and can fall off when in Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski territory), but it usually stays on top with just the right amount of cultural commentary and political sass.
This week’s “100” episode proved that behind lazier episodes like “Queen of Jordan” there’s a team of writers still capable of spitting out sharp dialogue.
30 Rock cranked out an hour-long episode this week in which Liz Lemon, played by Fey, tries to bring Tracy Jordan, played by Morgan, back to TGS (The Girly Show) before it gets cancelled. Jordan has been absent from rehearsal under the guise of doing philanthropic work in Africa.
After some investigation Lemon realizes his humanitarian aid consisted of ordering takeout and watching vintage pornography in a warehouse in Queens, where he had been hiding from the public out of fear that he had garnered too much respect to be funny anymore after his film Hard to Watch won an Oscar.
Jordan promises Lemon that he’ll come back to TGS only if he can successfully re-ruin his reputation. During the scramble to lower the world’s standards — Jordan interviews with Matt Lauer, Regis and Kelly and tells Rachel Ray to “back that ass up and make me a sandwich” — a pipe bursts and leaks gas into the NBC building, leaving everyone with a conveniently induced high.
The janitor, played by Michael Keaton, preps the show for a stumble down memory lane by warning of possible side effects including “hallucinations, revelation of secrets, telling the truth, flashbacks, headaches [and] nostalgia.”
At the very start of the episode, Lemon quips to Hank Hooper (who gets better every time, transforming from a homebody into a sugar-coated wolf), “Why would you cancel
the only show on your network starring a 42-year-old woman? Ranked number one among men 18 to 49 — months left in prison?”
Lemon is talking about 30 Rock, of course, whose ratings keep dropping despite shelving several Emmys over the seasons. “100” entertained several subplots, including Jenna Maroney’s musings over pregnancy, Jack Donaghy’s regret over staying with Kabletown (K for kindness) and the return of Lemon’s ex, but the main mission was getting Jordan back on the show.
Jordan, like the writers, believes that he can’t be funny anymore now that he’s a Hollywood darling with an Oscar under his belt.
He goes through a mini-crisis in his limo, asking Lemon on the phone as he holds back tears, “What is FarmAid? Is it a drink? Is it a drug? Is it a bandage you put on a barn? See! That’s the kind of lazy stand-up I’ll never do again.”
In celebration of their 100th episode, 30 Rock put on their most self-referential show this season.
While always playfully meta, the show embraced the idea of not just being a show about a show, but a possibly cancelled show about a possibly cancelled show.
It was a smart move on their part considering the uncertain future of 30 Rock.
Over the last few weeks the show has fielded rumors about Baldwin leaving the show and possible cancellation after the end of the 6th season when most of the actors’ contracts will expire.
Cancellation on the horizon or not, 30 Rock put together a solid, although unnecessarily long, episode — “Let’s not be the worst thing on television tonight,” Lemon declares at the beginning to enthusiastic cheers.
Everyone gets roasted in “100,” from Tom Hanks — who runs the Hollywood A-list with Clooney and webmaster Pitt — to Brooklyn hipsters, who thwart an iconic Jordan attempt to debase himself as he brandishes a toy light saber while yelling “I am a Jedi” in his tighty-whities.
“Hey look!” a man sporting obligatory half-rimmed glasses and an unkempt beard points and says, “Tracy Jordan is ironically re-appropriating his bad past behavior as a commentary on the Fitzgerald dictum that there are no second acts in American life. I’m going to take a picture of him with my old-fashioned camera!”
There were also nods to Michael McDonald, Nate Berkus and Sarah Palin, and a cameo of Bono riding in the limo with Jordan. 30 Rock stayed true to flirting with political incorrectness, with Jordan asking why he can pull a Don Imus and Maroney’s attempts to trick Kenneth into impregnating her, warning him that if he refuses she’ll find him in his sleep because “It’s not rape if neither party really wants it.”
Dennis, Lemon’s ex from earlier seasons, returns sans beeper but sporting a new array of ‘90s tech and lines like “My motorcycle got impounded for being parked too awesome” and “You lose weight or something? Your neck, it looks looser.”
He tries to woo Lemon, who called him in a moment of weakness (high on gas), and expresses words of love intertwined with stupidity that are a refreshing change from Lemon’s last boyfriend, Carol, played by Matt Damon.
“I’m still smart enough to know,” Dennis announces when Liz rejects him again, “That I’ll never do better than you, Liz Lemon, because you’re a cook in the bedroom and a whore in the kitchen.”
Donaghy, as usual, was the highlight of the episode with his deadpan brilliance.
Although the appearance of past Jack, sideways Jack and future Jack were predictable, his tux-wearing alter-egos provided great set-ups for lines like “It’s called power clashing” and “I’m a shark, look at my claws.”
He took a stab at himself, advising Jordan that the best way to lose respect is to return to the show.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve worked with Meryl Streep or Anthony Hopkins,” Donaghy as Baldwin as Donaghy says, referencing his star-studded résumé which includes films like It’s Complicated, co-starring Streep, and The Edge, alongside Hopkins. “You want . . . to hit rock bottom again? Go on network television.”
30 Rock does best when it riffs on itself, making for an endearing cast that you know just the right amount of too-much about.
Like Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock has a chance to get better before it gets worse, and will always be able to pull out some great episodes.
The rehashed plotlines are constantly criticized, but other television shows have survived on worse.
30 Rock’s biggest fault is peaking so high so soon, giving it nowhere to go but down now. Add to this the fact that it’s self-aware and the slightest misstep becomes a dealbreaker, knocking the show off its parody pedestal and leaving it a bumbling mess. The writers have talent but no room to falter when expectations abound.
Although the show’s future is rocky at best, its impending cancellation may be for the better — fans never want to see a good show drag on (history has shown that viewers aren’t interested in old J.D. and Turk high-fiving new people) and its popularity has already helped propel the stars into fame, giving Baldwin a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Fey a platform to launch her new book, Bossypants.
The show’s already been renewed for at least one more season, so all there is to do is keep watching before it ends up on the shelf next to your Arrested Development season DVDs.
