I was _so_ impressed with “30 Rock” this week. I’d been feeling a little anxious to watch the show this season, especially these past few episodes. (Was it just me, or had their editing been off? It seemed really jumpy and unintuitive.)
For a while, I was afraid that the writers were running out of ideas — everything seemed so stagnant, like the show was just going through the motions. Sure, I laughed every now and then, but this season as a whole was having a hard time competing with the near-perfect first and second seasons.
However, I was excited to see that “30 Rock” was back on its game with last night’s episode. I was laughing out loud every other minute, from Tracy’s attempts at wordplay (“What is this, Horseville? Cause I’m surrounded by neigh-sayers!”), to Jack’s privileged snobbery (“Of course I don’t have friends at NASA! …bunch of _nerds_…”). My favorite parts of the show by far were the times we got to see the world through Kenneth’s eyes. I thought the idea of Kenneth’s world being inhabited by Sesame Street puppets was both hilarious and original.
Sure, the main plot with Liz and Dennis wasn’t anything to write home about. It was trivial and made no difference to the show as a whole. But the beauty of a good 30 Rock episode is that the emphasis isn’t on the plot (as it has been to a greater extent lately), but on the characters interacting with one another in hilariously unrealistic situations (faking a space launch, anyone?). And this episode delivered. Channeling Jackie Dee himself, I was so excited by this episode that I threw up.
