The third-season premiere of NBC’s “30 Rock” Thursday night reminded us why it won Outstanding Comedy at this year’s Emmys with its offbeat humor and strong acting by stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin.
Recently “Must See TV” Thursday night has turned into “Maybe watch something else” Thursday night with the awful addition of “Kath & Kim” and the decreased funniness of “My Name is Earl” and “The Office.” Luckily, “30 Rock” came back just in time to give us some much needed laughs.
Thursday’s show began with Liz Lemon’s (Tina Fey) boss, Jack (Alec Baldwin) returning to GE to work his way back up to the top at GE after Devin Banks (guest star Will Arnett) took over. Devin’s making a mess out of the place – even selling the “E” in GE to Samsung who’s now known as “Samesung.”
Jack happily starts out in the mailroom but not to worry because he’s already promoted to director of mail services the next day.
Meanwhile, Bev (“Will & Grace’s” Megan Mullally), an adoption agency official follows Liz around at work to see if she’s fit to adopt a child. Chaos ensues with her outrageous employees botching the interviews, the fake greenroom-turned nursery’s furniture needed to be returned by 5, and a set falling apart to subsequent cussing right after Liz tells Bev it’s a great place for a child to hang out.
“30 Rock’s” only main flaw is trying to take on too many storylines and then quickly wrapping them up to make a tidy ending to its 30 minute show, such as giving Liz a second chance to impress Bev after she gets knocked out by Frank’s nunchucks and then forgets she had already spent the whole day surveying Liz. Yet, the show keeps its reality by not giving Liz a happy ending because Bev still rejects her. Not so lucky for Liz, but lucky for the show because it keeps it from becoming too corny.
The best part of the show is Liz and Jack’s comfortable, easy-going chemistry in scenes such as when they quickly lapse into a pretend corny soap opera scene to fool Devin’s soap opera obsessed wife, Cathy, into thinking they’re lovers.
Yet, maybe could-be couple Liz and Jack just couldn’t force themselves to kiss at the end of the scene. But whether they ever become real lovers or not, we still love “30 Rock.”
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