Well, this morning’s FedEx delivery brought the screener for the 2nd season premiere of “30 Rock,” and the good news is…it’s still funny! Hooray!
Actually, that’s particularly good news, given that the series just won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series…not that an Emmy Award has ever been anything approaching an indicator of what the public likes. After all, the two highest rated episodes of “30 Rock” during its first season were its pilot and the episode where Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan) goes on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” Okay, so, basically, people were curious enough to tune in the first week, but then the only other thing that caught their fancy was the idea of seeing Conan O’Brien in prime time…and we attribute that to the fact that most prime-time viewers have never stayed up until 12:30 and finally wanted a chance to see what all the fuss was about with this lanky, red-headed young upstart. And given that these episodes rated #58 and #57 in their respective weeks means that even when people were curious, they weren’t that curious.
Clearly, however, someone at NBC saw this trend and said, “Hmmm…well, if they’re mildly curious about seeing Conan O’Brien in prime time, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that they’ll be super crazy curious about seeing Jerry Seinfeld return to an NBC sitcom for the first time since ‘Seinfeld’ ended!”
My God. It’s crazy…but it just might work!
Actually, the way they work Seinfeld into the show is one of those concepts that you can almost imagine a panicked television network executive…like, say, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin)…coming up with: they take all the unused footage of Seinfeld that they have lying around, then use it to digitally insert him into every single show on the network. (Yes, they do show examples; no, I’m not going to tell you which shows you’ll get to see him in.) Unfortunately, the problem is that Jack has decided that it’ll be much easier to move forward with the idea if they just, uh, don’t tell Jerry ’til after it’s already on the air. Seems easy enough, since the Seinfeld family is supposedly out of the country on vacation…except that – cue the dramatic music – they’re actually not!
My only complaint about the season premiere is that things mostly start out focusing on the same main triad of characters: Jack, Liz (Tina Fey), and Tracy. Not that they’re not funny, but it’s like I said in my review of the Season 1 DVD set: it’s the episodes that explore the intricacies of the ensemble that prove the most memorable. Yes, it stands to reason that we’d want to know what Liz did during the summer hiatus – even if no-one on her staff does – but the goings-on of the lesser members of the cast are barely touched on…well, except for Jenna. that is. But the fact that the explanation about what’s kept her occupied for the last few months (and the effect it’s had on her) is one of the funniest parts of the episode really only goes to prove my point. C’mon, let’s spread the wealth a little more for the rest of the cast, shall we?
Well, let’s blame that on the fact that everyone’s storylines probably got shrunk as a result of trying to be sure Mr. Seinfeld scored enough face time in the episode and just hope for the best, shall we? In the meantime, have a look at a wrap-up of Liz Lemon’s worst dating experiences from Season 1…
