30 Rock [4x13] Anna Howard Shaw Day
Tonight’s NBC comedies were so good, I thought I’d write about them. I love all these shows so much, and yet that rarely gets an outlet here. Let’s change that.
30 Rock was the weakest half-hour of NBC’s two hour comedy block. That’s less a knock on 30 Rock than it is praising the other shows. In fact, this was also one of the best episodes of 30 Rock this year, which also means it’s one of the best of the last two years.
The addition of Elizabeth Banks went over much better than the addition of Julianne Moore. The fact that she didn’t have to do a bad Boston accent helped with that, but Banks seems a better fit to the show, with a stronger history in comedy. I hope she’s back for a few more episodes before the inevitably send her packing.
Jenna’s subplot is slightly more entertaining than usual, but only slightly. It’s surprisingly hard to lampoon an absurd celebrity self-centered actor without it getting dull and repetitive fairly quickly.
Liz’s search for someone to pick her up from oral surgery was a fun way of exploring Valentine’s Day, though they went a little too on the nose with the multiple explicit comparisons to the search for a Valentine’s Day date.
But I’m willing to ignore any and all issues I have with that particular plot because of the closing scene with all of Liz’s ex-boyfriends as Jamaican nurses. I think I could watch that forever.
Good cap to the night, and a sign that maybe the writer’s have found their groove again.
Some nice things in this episode:
- Despite their overuse of the card, Liz’s complete obliviousness to existence of front clasp bras was pretty great.
- ‘My stepson is my cyber-husband’
- What was up with that weird pause over the Julia Roberts line? Was that a jab at side-swipe comedy?
- http://jdlutz.com/karen/proof/
- ‘Prime Minister Wen wants a weak Yuan, do we?’
- ‘We’ll be right back after this ad aimed at the elderly.’
- ‘It’s one of those kids from Glee isn’t it?!’
- ‘One time, I ran over an old lady in Arizona and just kept driving!’
- ‘She was on Maxim’s ‘I’d Rape That’ 100′
- ‘Otherwise known as Jane Sadwoman.’
- ‘Don Cheadle on a bed of rice!’
