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30 Rock - Season 3 - Page 8

post #351 of 826
2/6/09 at 11:51pm
Guess I'm way in the minority, but that was the worst episode 30 Rock has ever done, hands down. I laughed maybe twice.

This entire season so far has felt like The Simpsons circa season nine or ten, or whenever the slow slide began. Like it's being written by people who are huge fans of the show but don't really understand what made it great. It's cartoonish and self-congratulatory and noisy.

But whatever. Glad everyone else dug it. I just miss my favorite show.
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post #352 of 826
2/6/09 at 11:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slater View Post
It's cartoonish and self-congratulatory and noisy.
I don't disagree with this. But I laughed heartily nonetheless.
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post #353 of 826
2/7/09 at 2:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graynadian View Post

"Ahora con más semen del toro!"
I was petrified with this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Anthony View Post
I call dibs on the child with the dynamite strapped to his head.
The smile from Jack is astonishing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mcnooj82 View Post
And even faced with the funniest of material, I only laugh in my head. It was that funny.
Seconded. After seeing Tracy hands up on the floor I assumed this will be that good.

Attachment 1776
LL
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post #354 of 826
2/7/09 at 4:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slater View Post
Guess I'm way in the minority, but that was the worst episode 30 Rock has ever done, hands down.
Harsh. That episode last season with Liz thinking her neighbor was a terrorist was a lot worse. My only beef is that John Hamm's character is just a more famous guest-star playing Floyd.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Slater View Post
This entire season so far has felt like The Simpsons circa season nine or ten, or whenever the slow slide began. Like it's being written by people who are huge fans of the show but don't really understand what made it great. It's cartoonish and self-congratulatory and noisy.
I'll give you cartoonish, but that's part of what I like about the show. It can experiment with different types of comedy, go off in some strange directions (last year's musical number), but there's just enough reality there to keep it grounded. I disagree with noisy: they've really hit their stride in terms of keeping the story flowing. I never have trouble figuring out what's going on and I never feel like the jokes are overly-calculated (something Scrubs became a victim of.)
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post #355 of 826
2/7/09 at 3:59pm
Slater, you have already established that you disagree with most of us here on this episode, but the cartoonish quality of the episode you describe, in my opinion, has been there since day one. That is one of the things I love about the show how it exists in this gray area between reality and a live action cartoon.
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post #356 of 826
2/8/09 at 12:58am
It's definitely swung heavily in that direction in the past two seasons. I wish they would get more of the cast involved, but I can't say that I don't prefer the Season 2/3 30 Rock to the first season.
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post #357 of 826
2/8/09 at 3:54am
Didn't like the Liz story line at all. But the rest was solid gold. Loved Kenneth's reaction to Tracy potentially playing Arthur Ashe.
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post #358 of 826
2/8/09 at 4:05am
They relied way too heavily on the mere concept of Alec Baldwin in a Spanish Soap Opera to make this episode work. And for some, like Schwartz, that was in and of itself funny enough to justify it's existence. To me, it felt like it was only halfway there, missing that killer punchline to seal the deal.

Still, I think the Six Sigma episode was one of the very funniest, so to compare it to the Simpson's decline seems a bit premature. The show's still knocking them out of the park.
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post #359 of 826
2/8/09 at 12:16pm
Yeah, to be clear, I thought this was the weakest this season, but I still rather enjoyed it. And Liz's storyline worked for me if only for Hamm's "I don't know what that means!" reaction shot, which was epic.
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post #360 of 826
2/8/09 at 2:13pm
I agree with Slater. It was lazy.
30 Rock now only does 2 things.
1) Liz meets the cameo of the week and makes an ass out of herself
2) Alec Baldwin is thrown in more and more ridiculous situations.

That's all. I miss the entire cast. When they all had something to add it was way funnier. And this was maybe the third episode in a row without even the sight of Pete.
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post #361 of 826
2/8/09 at 4:34pm
If Baldwin cackling while taping dynamite to a child's head isn't enough to make some of you laugh, then I don't what.
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post #362 of 826
2/8/09 at 4:57pm
Leo made an appearance the other day, like the old school 30'. I didn't like the Lemon plot at all and Hamm seemed like he wasn't acting at all.
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post #363 of 826
2/8/09 at 5:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schwartz View Post
If Baldwin cackling while taping dynamite to a child's head isn't enough to make some of you laugh, then I don't what.
It was hilarious, but it also failed to evolve from there. The scene with the two Baldwins didn't really work so well either.
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post #364 of 826
2/8/09 at 5:08pm
I agree, Baldwin didn't play particularly well off of himself. I assume that's tricky to do, especially on a TV schedule, but still.

Tracy's B story about the interns was more entertaining than the front-line stuff.
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post #365 of 826
2/8/09 at 5:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schwartz View Post
If Baldwin cackling while taping dynamite to a child's head isn't enough to make some of you laugh, then I don't what.
To clarify: I was trying to reply to Tati.
I already posted a pic from that hilarious moment.
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post #366 of 826
2/8/09 at 5:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
I miss the entire cast. When they all had something to add it was way funnier. And this was maybe the third episode in a row without even the sight of Pete.
I agree completely. While it's always funny and better than most of the other shit on TV, I (and I'm sure I'm alone on this) don't think the last season and a half has been nearly as good as the first one. The Season 1 episode when Pete is tempted to cheat on his wife with all of the hoes Tracy brings around is one of my favorites.
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post #367 of 826
2/8/09 at 5:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
It was hilarious, but it also failed to evolve from there. The scene with the two Baldwins didn't really work so well either.
The fault perhaps is that they throw this joke and "mas semen de toro" earlier on the episode, and that was hard to top. I would be fun to know more of the Generalismo's family...there's plenty of unemployed Baldwins out there.
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post #368 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:07pm
If the show's going to be called out for cartoonishness, I think it should be for its endless supply of Kenneth's Appalachian upbringing jokes. Those always fall flat for me.

They're not rooted in character but just how impossibly backwards Appalachia is. Like the telenovela scenes, they don't get much more complicated, they always stay the same. Liz Lemon always gets great one-liners referring to her being, as put in The Office thread, "trapped in her loneliness by her crippling self-hatred." They always love having Jack eloquently justify Republican talking points. And Tracy is both utterly insane and completely empowered by wealth and fame. But McBrayer always gets references to moonshine and his large extended family (although his character also has a fundamental code of ethics and all that. And like Baldwin, he can make cheap jokes good.)
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post #369 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:27pm
"Not enough Pete"? Good grief, there really is no pleasing audiences. I like the guy, but it's not like he's some secret weapon in the show's arsenal.
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post #370 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:30pm
I think it's just code for saying that we miss the rest of the ensemble.
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post #371 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:35pm
Yeah, even Jenna's been getting sidelined lately for the Liz & Jack show.
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post #372 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:39pm
Actually, I don't mind that so much as Jenna kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies. Especially when she sings.
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post #373 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:45pm
The Tracy story got cartoonish at the end - how does he reopen Lehman Bros? - but I think that the problem was simply they had no punchline for that story. Spanish Jack was AMAZING, though - the scratch off tickets and going to McDonald's and only ordering coffee are legendary jokes - and the Liz story was fine as well. Jon Hamm as a cartoon pilot is so perfect.
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post #374 of 826
2/8/09 at 6:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
Yeah, even Jenna's been getting sidelined lately for the Liz & Jack show.
I'd rather that than have more time devoted to her Janis Joplin minstrel show.

Whoever posted that the show doesn't have one singular tone, and that's its strength, was bang-on.
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post #375 of 826
2/8/09 at 7:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by devincf View Post
how does he reopen Lehman Bros?
He's got more money than he can ever spend thanks to the porn videogame. He could buy a patent on the dog if he wanted to.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
"Not enough Pete"? Good grief, there really is no pleasing audiences. I like the guy, but it's not like he's some secret weapon in the show's arsenal.
Exactly. He's been established as a family man, and do we really want to meet them? I've said it before, but trying to give everyone something to do is a bad idea. That's how you wind up with Maebe working at a movie studio.

You guys aren't seeing the business side here. This show isn't a SEINFELD-like hit and can't afford to just hire as many actors as they want on a whim. Guest stars can help boost ratings in ways that Scott Adsit can't.
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post #376 of 826
2/8/09 at 9:09pm
Tracey was quite mellow in this episode.
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post #377 of 826
2/8/09 at 9:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Dragon View Post
Tracey was quite mellow in this episode.
I loved that. He is tonally different in just about every episode of the show they shoot, providing different line readings than you'd ever expect.
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post #378 of 826
2/13/09 at 12:29am
"I once claimed I was God. In a deposition!"

Beautiful.
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post #379 of 826
2/13/09 at 12:38am
If I had those knockers, I would be thanking God as well.

That's the patron saint of judgmental statues.

Is there something in the contract that says everyone must comment at least once on how beautiful Selma Hayak is? And normally I'd be kind of ticked that you can almost smell the fries of the McDonald's lawyer standing behind the camera, but my GF and I have had some good moments sharing a McFlurry before, so I'll let it slide.
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post #380 of 826
2/13/09 at 5:18am
This was one of my favorite episodes so far. The prayer/reservation was gold and Jenna singing like a man cracked me up.
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post #381 of 826
2/13/09 at 10:42am
I don't know, I thought this ep was a little light on the laughs, though I did get a kick out of Hamm's daughter telling Liz what each color bracelet represented.
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post #382 of 826
2/13/09 at 11:19am
Yeah, I was disappointed in last night's episode. I did dig the patron saint of judgmental statues and Jack's prayer, however.
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post #383 of 826
2/13/09 at 11:25am
Loved this episode. Giving Jon Hamm's character a Jack Nicholson-style family lineage nearly knocked me out of my chair.
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post #384 of 826
2/13/09 at 11:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt M View Post
"I once claimed I was God. In a deposition!"

Beautiful.
Holy crap! That's awesome.
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post #385 of 826
2/13/09 at 12:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt M View Post
"I once claimed I was God. In a deposition!"

Beautiful.
That was a great shout out. I'm now waiting for Donaghy to confess to breaking a Hari Krishna's finger.
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post #386 of 826
2/13/09 at 1:02pm
Kept waiting for the McDonalds product placement punchline, but I suppose that was just plain product placement.

Didn't buy the priest getting freaked out by Jack's sins or description of sex. I think it'd be funnier to see a priest and Jack going at it than do the "I need back-up!" route.

It's always nice to see Tracy going out of his way to help Kenneth, and I thought this subplot was particularly funny.

"And it's not even the good one." Gold.

I really haven't found the relationship between Jack and Selma that interesting at all, but this was one of the better ones.

I loved the "skipping ahead" aspect of the date, and I wish they kept going that route instead of a sudden turn into the "crazy family" territory, but it was all good.

Very good episode, but I wish they could find ways to still make it about TGS. When it's the Jack and Liz show, it's too easy to fly off the rails. Sometimes it works, like this episode, but sometimes it doesn't, like last episode, and I always enjoyed the ensemble aspect.

Maybe next season?
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post #387 of 826
2/13/09 at 1:09pm
But meeting the "crazy family" IS skipping ahead. Once he said "...that's because you keep setting things on fire", I knew we were in absurd waters and went with it.
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post #388 of 826
2/13/09 at 1:13pm
That's true. It's not like it came out of nowhere.
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post #389 of 826
2/13/09 at 3:10pm
"Don't tell me you're one of those convenient Catholics that only goes to church every Sunday."

Killed me.

Very good episode.
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post #390 of 826
2/13/09 at 5:13pm
I agree, it was a great episode.

Specially Kenneth and Tracy. My favorite website "stopshowingoff.com" had me in tears.

So did Jack praying to his phone and all the latin pregnant Alvarez women.

Btw, for those counting, fourth episode without Pete (And no, he's no secret weapon or anything similar, it just bugs me to eternity that the character was completely forgotten.)
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post #391 of 826
2/13/09 at 5:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
Btw, for those counting, fourth episode without Pete (And no, he's no secret weapon or anything similar, it just bugs me to eternity that the character was completely forgotten.)
I love the guy, but Adsit is an unattractive performer and his character is a cipher. What are you missing about him?
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post #392 of 826
2/13/09 at 6:45pm
This episode was all about the Kenneth subplot for me.

"Yes indeedy corncobs!"
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post #393 of 826
2/13/09 at 7:08pm
-You are not so attractive yourself.
-No, I'm pretty sure I'm hot.
-Yes you are.

Solid episode. Alec and Salma were very good.
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post #394 of 826
2/13/09 at 7:10pm
Does the fact that Adsit is part of some animated show on Cartoon Network (or Comedy Central) partially explain his absence on 30 Rock?
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post #395 of 826
2/13/09 at 8:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil View Post
I love the guy, but Adsit is an unattractive performer and his character is a cipher. What are you missing about him?
It's not him specifically. I miss the entire cast interacting. Those are the best episodes.

The first time 30 Rock became 30 Rock for me was in season one, the episode that Pete got a hair piece. That episode started the hilarity and elevated the show in the ridiculous factor. And it kept the momentum going from there.

If you take that episode, the best of season 2 (for me it's when Devon is getting named CEO and Geis falls into a diabetic coma, with spaceman running through the stage with a cape and the episodes with Dennis) and the best of season 3 (i think the adoption interview episode is amazing) they all have something in common, the entire cast participates in small amounts. It's not just the Jack and Lemon show.
And don't get me wrong, i love Jack and Lemon to eternity, i just really love the entire ensemble.
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post #396 of 826
2/13/09 at 8:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
It's not him specifically. I miss the entire cast interacting.
They found out Salma had more hidden goodies and she is a good match for Jack. Hamm's character is promising. They are handling Tracy very well and to some extent Jenna too.
I bet Devon returns soon to stir up the status quo. I adore Spaceman appereances as you (vos). I hope he will come back soon.
IMO, Jack, with such a strong personality, shines even more when he is around a new environment.
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post #397 of 826
2/13/09 at 8:31pm
I could look at Tina Fey on the toilet all day.

Hmm, somehow that looks even worse in print than it sounds in my head.

Anyway, are we still talking about Pete? What did he do that I missed that made such an impression on everyone?
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post #398 of 826
2/13/09 at 8:36pm
Man, I know it ain't sophisticated or anything but toilet gags always deliver.

I also love the priest's response when Jack asked him if he'd ever made love to a woman. "C'mon, man!"
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post #399 of 826
2/13/09 at 8:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tati View Post
The first time 30 Rock became 30 Rock for me was in season one, the episode that Pete got a hair piece. That episode started the hilarity and elevated the show in the ridiculous factor. And it kept the momentum going from there.
"Past Pete is here to kill Future Pete!"

Yeah, that episode killed. First appearance of Dr. Spaceman, too.
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post #400 of 826
2/13/09 at 9:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schwartz View Post
Anyway, are we still talking about Pete? What did he do that I missed that made such an impression on everyone?
Seconded. Again, there's nothing about his character to build a storyline around. In the first season, he was used as someone for Liz to talk to about her problems and to seek advice from. Now that Liz and Jack are friends, she goes to him with her problems, and he's able to fill both the boss roll and the advice roll. Having Liz talk to Pete would just be redundant, and given how heavy the McDonald's product placement is, I'm guessing they can't afford to be redundant.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Ripoll View Post
Very good episode, but I wish they could find ways to still make it about TGS. When it's the Jack and Liz show, it's too easy to fly off the rails. Sometimes it works, like this episode, but sometimes it doesn't, like last episode, and I always enjoyed the ensemble aspect.

Maybe next season?
The corporate aspect of the show is much more interesting to me (Six Sigma, Don Geiss/ Devin, etc.) Focusing on TGS might be fun once in awhile, but what's there to do that hasn't already been done? Fledgling ratings? Bad guest hosts? The "Tracy Does Conan" episode was about as madcap as they could get.
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