Customer Reviews

Season Four [HD]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll have to disagree with the previous reviewer. I thought this was pretty good season opener. Maybe not the best ever, but it certainly wasn't bad or lame.

This episode had some really funny moments and one liners, including:
* Tracy's attempt to reconnect to his roots.
* Josh getting mad and quitting the show.
* Country Jenna.
* Len as a Page
* Liz and Pete admitting why they were sneaking around together.
* The show close with Donaghy and Lemon (Jay Leno).

Overall, I thought this episode was really solid, and deserves better than a 2 star rating.

30 Rock has been one of my favorite shows on television since I first saw a few preview episodes of Season 1 on United flights. The show deftly mixes erudite references with absurdest humor using some of the sharpest writing on TV today.

But not in this episode.

Like many sitcoms, 30 Rock tends to have three or four different plot threads in any given episode, and in the past two or three have been hilarious with one or two falling flat. The problem with Season Four, the all two cleverly named premiere for Season Four, is that none of the threads hit. Kenneth's radical turn as a rabble-rousing union leader seemed to be the most unlikely of the three. The writers mean for us to believe that a guy who is awed by the magic of television (after he's seen the way sausage is made) and who relished the job of rubbing Tracy's snake until it pooped suddenly finds his inner-Bill Kunstler because Jack gets paid so much? I'm not buying it. Tracy's attempt to meet real people begins with a few good gags, but then it falls flat when the writers seem to run out of ideas.

The worst of all the plot threads is the incredibly lazy and hackneyed idea of Pete and Liz miserably failing in their attempt to keep the fact that they're looking for another actor a secret from the staff. 30 Rock works best when they take sitcom cliches, rip them down to their foundations and build something brilliantly fresh from the parts (Funcooker, anyone?).

In this episode it seems they don't even try. What would have been an opportunity for wry humor in the past end up being lame throw away lines like, "I'll give you a New York minute, which is seven seconds." Even Steve Buchemi's recurring cameo as the PI Len is wasted with threadbare exchanges that are hampered with too many non-sequiters.

Here's hoping this week's episode is better.