Monsters of Television

“Think slutty Grace Kelly.”

A double dose of 30 Rock would normally be cause for celebration. However, this season’s lack of consistency (or funny) has resulted in a mixed bag of humor and enjoyment. And that gets represented in these two episodes. “Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter” is the stronger of the two, with solid comedy and a nicely balanced episode without a lot of poorly developed storylines. “Khonani,” on the other hand, suffers from being repetitive and, really, untimely.

It is a problem that 30 Rock faces due to its weird production schedule (time allowed for Baldwin and Fey to make, and then promote, movies) and then weirder airing sequences. There doesn’t seem to be a throughline in the show any longer, and perhaps a course change is needed.

Obviously that course change isn’t going to come any time soon. The show wrapped production a few weeks ago, so perhaps over the break, the show can readjust its priorities. When the show worked, it managed to balance the show/executive stuff with Lemon and/or Donaghy relationship stuff. Where the show has hit a backslide is on the show/executive stuff, probably because it was too insidery for some viewers (remember when you needed to really know who Jack Welch was to watch this show?).

And each episode really personifies those struggles. “Lee Marvin vs Derek Jeter” has a solid Jack A-story about his decision between Avery and the Boston Accent that brings Julianne Moore along and his attempts to juggle them both (a la Three’s Company (though I thought Flintstones and Fred trying to be on a date with Wilma and also go bowling)). Baldwin’s such a smooth cad that he makes the struggle actually come off as mildly sympathetic (despite Liz pointing out how much it must suck to have two beautiful women wanting him) as opposed to just annoying. Liz’s YMCA singles night events, however, fail to produce much comedy, and her speech at the dodge ball game falls flat due to the lameness of the language barrier joke.

The exec/show stuff, on the other hand, was pretty poorly played across both episodes, but especially in “Khonani.” Like the lackluster Kable Town storyline that came months and months too late, the episode attempts to comment on the Tonight Show debacle by having Jack mediate a dispute between two janitors while, again, weighing his decision about Avery and Boston Accent. It’s just not that funny (calling NBC “the Biggest Loser network” is lazy and I’m pretty sure at Leno and/or Conan did the same joke already) or timely (the joke about Khonani going to Fox*cough*Foxwood Casino falls even flatter since Conan just signed with TBS).

The potential silverlining was a reading about Avery and Boston Accent as the pressing issues NBC needs to deal with. Indeed, one could see Avery as new, young shows that could really help NBC/Jack. But Boston Accent is safe and, let’s be honest, a little bit cheap. So, I guess what I’m saying is that Avery is hour-long fictional programming and Boston Accent is The Marriage Ref. Fair? Not really, but neither is making me sit through another “Liz is insecure about her place among her employees” episodes. I loved it the first time around (the Designing Women speech is epic). Not so much now.

So the choice the show faces is either figure out how to balance these ideas in grounded ways, or just continue its rather painful backslide in remaining on the schedule because it keeps winning Emmys and is produced in-house. It’s a different decision than Community‘s, because Community is still figuring itself out. 30 Rock should’ve had this down a long time ago.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• I think that Pete would be very happy to be called a bald eagle.
• What’s with the Law & Order references last night? “I saw a white judge on Law & Order last night!”
• The Bitch Hunters cut-away was funny-ish, but made funnier by Ben Silverman’s name being on the title card. Some insidery jokes still hit.
• Nice overlap with SNL and home security system jokes, guys…