Tonight's 30 Rock ("Idiots Are People Three!") was an appropriate continuation of last week's. Tracey still endures public scrutiny due to his homophobic comments, Jack still disapproves of Liz's new boyfriend and Kelsey Grammar helps Kenneth and Jenna hide Pete. A lot of guest stars are involved, some with purpose, some without. Jack is debonair, Liz is conflicted and Tracey is an idiot. So tonight by all accounts was a perfectly normal episode.
I wish 30 Rock would just cool it with the guest stars. At this point, they just seem so superfluous, an attempt to make up a plot line or make whatever plot line exists more interesting. While Kelsey Grammar was fun to watch the completely irreverence of him being there is distracting. At the end of the day, nothing was beneficial about his appearance. The same goes for Denise Richards and even James Marsden. I will say that Denise Richards was wonderfully self referential and I liked some of what they did with her, I'm confused as to why she even needed to be there in the first place. What's wrong with the rest of the cast? If they wanted an idiot alliance, couldn't they just have used Jenna?
James Marsden playing Liz's boyfriend is a whole other direction that I worry is too typical for the show. They're really trying to communicate to the fans that his role as Criss is different because even though he's a bit lame, he makes Liz Lemon happy. So too were the roles of all her other boyfriends with the exception of Carol (Matt Damon) and Floyd (Jason Sudekis). The whole impetus that Liz Lemon's love life is important to how she functions is almost contradictory to the fact that women are supposed to admire her quirkiness and general success. Do we really need to see Liz with a man? For that matter, and because we relate Liz to real life Tina Fey, if Liz were to actually settle down, would that really dissuade our interest in her journey? The real life Tina Fey is in a happy marriage with two daughters and we still find her inspiring, funny and strong. Would it be that hard to let Liz in on some of that without having her stoop to dating a presumably short lived character?
I know it sounds like I'm really taking a sh*t on 30 Rock but I'm not. It's always been funny, filled with great one liners and a pretty solid continuing character arc. My annoyances are just increased when I don't see any possibility of change- I want desperately for them to get rid of their big name guest stars and just stick to their stellar regular cast and move in some different directions without the crutch of a ratings sweep.
SumOlogy: It was good, but not good enough for 30 Rock
Grade:6/10
Extra quotes:
"They're moving on to a news story about teenagers huffing other teenagers." -Jack
"Because of you there may be an Entourage movie." -Liz
"I got to get back into character, hit me in the face." -Kelsey
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