Tonight was the big live episode of 30 Rock, and after watching it, I have one thing to say: why?
The whole episode came off as one big gimmick, which it was. I’ll be curious to see if the blatant stunt raised the ratings. The end result was a bizarre episode that was some sort of mutant combination of 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live. I’ve never been a huge fan of change, and this episode was no exception. I’m just glad this fun little experiment was only for a week.
The content of the episode itself played out more or less like any other episode of 30 Rock. Craziness behind the scenes at TGS caused Liz to freak out and enter problem solving mode while opining that no one was remembering her 40th birthday. Remaining incredibly meta, Tracy became determined to “break” during the live TGS episode, but the whole story line fell flat for me. The writers did stay true to the 30 Rock way, though. Heck, they even kept up their habit of bizarre flashbacks, employing guest actors to portray the characters (including Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Liz Lemon). It was a fun touch.
There were cameos all over the place in the episode, including returns for Jon Hamm (in a fake commercial), Cheyenne Jackson, Rachel Dratch, and Matt Damon. The fake commercials were odd, and really made the whole episode seem like a Saturday Night Live cast off, though the episode as a whole was a heck of a lot funnier than Saturday Night Live has been in a while. Compared with the average 30 Rock episode, though, I thought it was a subpar outing.
There was just a whole lot going on, and not enough attention paid to any of it. Mostly, the live bits were just a distraction, including the awkward camera work. Of course, maybe I’m alone in my distaste for the gimmick. Did you love it?
As always, there were some killer quotes:
“It was pretty scary. I mean, Well, not like the stuff I saw while in the Air Force, of course. Like this one time a bunch of us pilots got together, we went to a haunted house in Germany. That was messed up!” – Carol
“Erectile Dysfunction: it’s not just a dog problem anymore.” – Dr. Spaceman
“It was the best of both worlds. I got to feel martyred and indignant all day and then I still got to eat cake off the floor.” – Liz, on everyone forgetting her birthday
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Oct 14, 2010 @ 21:21 EST5EDT
Not that I think ’30 Rock’ is bad at all, but I haven’t watched it in quite a while. I tuned in tonight to check out the live episode, and though it may not have had the same “this is 30 Rock” feel, I really liked the SNL-skit feel. Now if only SNL was this good every Saturday night — imagine that?!
Really, I’d like to see a network pull off a weekly live show like this. Yeah, it was odd, because nobody does this anymore! I liked it.
It didn’t have the 30 Rock feel at all to me. It was like a bizarre 30 minute SNL skit with a LOT of cameos. While I liked it better than a mediocre SNL episode, it just didn’t feel right to me. Like the whole thing was shot on the set of a Spanish soap opera.
I thought it was hilarious. Loved Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as Liz in the flashbacks and the other cameos too. It was nice to see Rachel Dratch back! I loved the first season when she would be a different character every week to make up for her being canned from the role Jane Krakowski took over. I just thought it was terrific and I am interested in seeing the west coast feed now!
I agree with Keith. I like SNL a lot and because of the SNL-feel I like this episode. It’s this “we’re all pulling together to get this thing done” feeling, as if you were part of the cast of a play and you’re just happy to see these guys succeed. I love Jon Hamm’s commercial and everything Julia Louis-Dreyfuss did was awesome. It was especially awesome because Tina Fey usually now appears as you-know-who on SNL (no not Voldemort) and seeing someone else play her was extra fun. AND I wasn’t annoyed at all they had “oh so many” guest stars on the show. Like Chuck said, it was hilarious.
When you say this was better than the regular SNL episode you are right Bob but then again there now and then are SNL episodes that are way better than this one here where I am rolling on the floor laughing.
I guess if you are a fan of both shows like me, you loved it. If not – well then not so much. I get that :-)