Television Rules The Nation: 30 Rock, etc

November 20, 2009

This is where I talk about one of my favorite things, television.

Some critics are saying that 30 Rock has lost it’s touch this season. Those critics are crazzzy. If anything, I think that it just took a little longer this year for the show to hit it’s stride. You may remember last season was a bit doubtful (read: too cameo-heavy) till 5 or 6 episodes in and then it never let up. Furthermore, with last night’s episode “Sun Tea”, I think everone can agree that 30 Rock is back on the very top of it’s game.

The A plot of the episode was Liz Lemon’s attempt to steal an apartment from a gay hipster cop that wears political t-shirts that say “this is what a feminist looks like” and is totally ruining her imaginary life with Astronaut Mike Dexter. She gets ideas from Jenna (be a drama queen), Tracy (have an angry black boyfriend), and finally, Frank (the “sun tea” method). In the B story, Tracy and Jack are both getting vesactamies, Jack because of Geiss family drama (how amazing is it that Kathy Geiss’ lawyer is Teddy Ruxpin?) and Tracy because The Cosby Show lied to him. Both Dr. Spaceman and Tracy Jr. are in this subplot which automatically amazing and the Cosby show hallucination scene was just brilliant. There’s also Kenneth with some green week something or other that provided one really funny meta-joke about the NBC green peacock and a fairly lame Al Gore cameo. So all in all an awesome episode.

A sampling of my favorite quotes:

“Drama is like gay man Gatorade, it replenishes their electrolytes.”

“Are they actually going to do something this week or are they just going to put that stupid green peacock in the corner?”

“The Bill Cosby show lied to me” “I don’t think there’s a box for that on the form. How about ‘Cheers lied to me’?”

“My apartment smells like Burger King all day and Cinnabon all night.”

“You look like a turtle who lost his shell.”

“Our topical opener is Omarosa borrowing Bjork’s swan dress.”

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As for the other shows on the NBC Thursday lineup, Community continues to be consistently hilarious (the American Tail: Fievel Goes West parody from last night was fantastic); Parks and Recreation continues to be this year’s most improved show (Aziz is getting some serious competetion from Ron frickin’ Swanson lately for funniest character), and The Office, well, at least Andy and Creed are still bring the laughs pretty consistentally. Can’t say I’m a fan of the direction that show is taking lately.

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This video is the Top 100 Quotes from The Wire. It’s a very well-done, nicely-edited montage, and a must watch for Wire fans. My only complaint would be that it focuses a bit too much on major characters. It definitely needs more S2 Greeks (how can you not even include “and, of course, I’m not even Greek”?!), S4 corner boys, and S5 newsies. On the other hand, pretty much everything Omar, Bunk, and Snoop said could be printed and framed.

(via @azizansari)

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Finally, LOST: The Final Season will premiere on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Dude, that’s 73 days. I’m already stocking up on Dharma box wine and Apollo Bars.

Posted by Taylor in Television, Video