A new 30 Rock thread because I can't find the old one

(The actress, obvs.)

EBanks has been in like 5 movies a year since well before her 30 Rock stint, i think Avery was planned from the jump as a temporary/occasional character and the kidnapping was just a weirder, funnier way to write her out of the show for a while than a breakup.

good point.

This episode kinda sucked, but it had moments.

felt 'off' in some ways but it WAS the first episode back after the longest break in the show's history, and still some pretty big laughs. just happy to have it back after overdosing on Comedy Central reruns, really.

^^ otm, a subpar 30 Rock episode is still worth having around in these dark Community-less times

the people crossword killed me

"What is Jenna Moroney's first name?"

Oh yeah that was great.

the whole America's Kidz Got Singing thing was inspired

at the end of the episode i imagined someday a 30 Rock series finale that ends with NBC finally completely collapsing and then that exact thing happening over the following summer, would be kind of perfect

it was a series of easy gags but I think John McEnroe is being underrated

also I lost my shit at the Christmas dickey

mcenroe was very funny but the whole bit was kind of dulled by the fact that it's like the 18th time i've seen him subvert his image in a comedic way in a tv show/movie/commercial.

^^^ otm

i liked the american idol-y arrangements of "turkey in the straw" and "camptown races"

Tracey's pause after "Kwanzaa"

― encarta it (Gukbe), Thursday, January 12, 2012 8:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this made me LOL the hardest, not even sure why
thought this was pretty consistent with the last couple of seasons, ie great

i liked the american idol-y arrangements of "turkey in the straw" and "camptown races"

Public Domain week was hilarious.

^ otm

best part was at the beginning where liz is giving the "dance like nobody's watching" speech in the writer's room and they cut to lutz on the couch, lost in thought. just for a second.

a subpar 30 Rock episode is still worth having around in these dark Community-less times

I laughed at this subpar 30 Rock more often than I do with Community.

Lutz trying to take Frank's hand on the beach at the end was great as well.

mcenroe was very funny but the whole bit was kind of dulled by the fact that it's like the 18th time i've seen him subvert his image in a comedic way in a tv show/movie/commercial.

― lame adele rey (some dude), Friday, 13 January 2012 15:21 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i only ever see him do this as a recurring character on 30 rock, so i am totally down with him as the hold of Gold Case, leading figure in the arts and shouting and now this.

I really need to rewatch the series all the way through to see if the drop in quality is really as precipitous as it feels. Because it feels pretty precipitous, especially for a show I considered the best comedy on TV until not too terribly long ago. I can't quite put my finger on what the problem is. I think there's a weird Family Guy-ification going on, and whatever tenuous connection the show ever had to reality (and being a show about real-ish people with real-ish motivations) is slipping quickly away. And, worst of all, it is in large part just not that funny anymore. Watching Parks and Rec immediately afterwards does it no favors whatsoever.

I'm guessing, since no one else has posted about this episode in over an hour after it aired, that I'm probably not alone here?

addressing tracy morgan's homophobic breakdown isn't all that effective when the shit his character said on the show is so so so so much less awful than the shit he actually said. also cheap denise richards lol is zzzzzz

they dropped the ball in that an episode about this wasn't worth doing unless it was really inspired and hilarious, and it wasn't. but it's still a funny show, i'll give them a couple more episodes to get in the groove before i chicken little about the show's overall trajectory.

One troubling thing I've noticed in particular since maybe the middle of last season: they'd really gotten into the groove with Jenna, who ultimately and surprisingly became one of the funniest characters on the show...but now I'm exhausted with almost every line that comes out of her mouth.

think the show just needs to end, most shows can't keep going and going. i'd rather see all the people involved do other things, but that is not how american tv seems to work. i laughed at the kelsey grammar bits, though, and still like 30 rock more than parks and rec.

thinking parks and rec is a good show disbars you from claiming to know what is or is not funny

i have like a huge amount of tolerance for even mediocre paul rudd but parks and rec, which i watched for maybe the 3rd time tonight, is terrible

Wrong, wrong, and also wrong.

On the whole, it's hard to say, but Parks and Rec is absolutely a better and funnier show than 30 Rock. The me of 3 or 4 years ago is stunned by my saying so, but there you go.

Better at this particular point in time, I meant to say.

you didn't like the parks + rec ep tnite? how???

aziz ansari and amy poehler together are a comedy black hole. i like the sarcastic chick in the hoodie.

anyway jack making fun of cyclops should have been hilarious but no

<3 adam and lamp

Guys it's okay, you don't actually have to choose one over the other

but if you don't, how can we have nerd war?

DJP = black nerd
Deric W. Haircare = Jetblue passenger who's fallen asleep

My opinion in this nerd war is that the show has always had rough patches, even in the so-called golden era (seasons 1-2), and that it isn't so much a matter of whether or not the show has become more cartoonish in its characterization, what you're reacting to is whether you find it funny or not, full stop.

even in the so-called golden era (seasons 1-2)

the onion a/v clubbing of america

aziz ansari ... is a comedy black hole.

both parks and rec and 30 rock sucked tonight.

was EVERY jenna line a generic jenna cutback to sexual disaster situation w/ sportstars or phil spector or etc.? it seems like she used to have like 1 of those lines every 3 episodes but here they just couldnt be bothered to write her as an actual character and just decided they'd use up that-type-of-jenna-jokes that weren't good enough the first time around.

Jenna in bad light was great, I thought

also the catalog of the different types of idiots

Thought "Remember when I had to apologize to stubborn people? That took forever to sort out!" was quality.

haha yeah

I can't say was particularly impressed by either 30 rock or p&r last night, but I think it's still too early in the season to write 30 rock off.

it has yet to dip below the Pizza And Sex "even when it's bad it's still pretty good" differential

dunno dude bad pizza is horrible

that said, one bad episode isn't enough to turn me off.

i liked the manic jenna stuff in this episode

i feel like this period 30 rock is kinda like all periods of 30 rock in that once the unsatisfying nature of the actual storylines in each episode start to fade from memory lots of these episodes will get remembered as stone classics on account of all the killer non sequiturs and gags. like im still lol'n every now and again at reverend gary's pained 'i was the one who had to baptize all those nude teens' at the end of the first episode and not the fact that the kenneth storyline was p trite and badly served his 'character'