30 Rock – Season 2, Episode 1 – “Seinfeld Vision”

My poor, poor 30 Rock. On the brink of cancellation, 30 Rock turned in one of the most desperate episodes of television I’ve ever seen. The entire episode reeked of the desperate clinging for hope of extended life. While I appreciate the self-reflexivity of the episode (we’ll get into that in a bit), it wasn’t funny enough to overcome it’s desperation. It was just sad. Let’s take a closer look:

1. Self-Reflexivity– when an episode comments on the show’s real issues within the fictional narrative of the show, this is self-reflexivity. No one has done this better, for my money, than the god of all comedies, Arrested Development. When AD, after winning the Emmy for Best Comedy, was still facing cancellation, there were often comments about how they couldn’t get viewers, through the guise of their housing development company. In the episode “S.O.B.’s” the Bluth Company’s housing order gets cut to 13 houses (like the show’s season being cut to 13 episodes) and only HBO, another housing developer, might be able to save them. “Well,” says George Sr., “it’s Showtime!” Funny, self-reflexive, but not the sole focus of the episode.

With this week’s 30 Rock EVERYTHING was about being desperately pathetic. “It’s going to be our year!” was Jack and Liz’s mantra, and while that alone would’ve been clever and self-reflexive enough for me, it certainly didn’t end there. Liz is in a pathetic state since breaking up with Floyd, which finds her sitting alone on a soundstage in a wedding dress eating ham (her “4000 dollar ham napkin”), which also would’ve been very funny by itself. But we also have Jack desperate to woo guest star Jerry Seinfeld (another desperate move– stunt casting is either for sweeps or to attract more viewers) to sign off on “Seinfeld Vision,” which at one point has Alec Baldwin in tears, pleading with Seinfeld.

And if that weren’t enough, the post-episode promos for the rest of the season were ALL stunt casting (Steve Buscemi, David Schwimmer, some others) and the voice-over was absolutely pathetic (“You know this face! And remember this guy?!”). Eeeeeeeeasy, NBC. You’re laying it on so thick! And if this week’s episode was any indication, the guest stars won’t really add much to the episode– Seinfeld wasn’t given anything funny to do or so, and his whole appearance felt like an NBC/Bee Movie promo.

So much pathetic crap jammed into one episode! I couldn’t take it! I know you’re being canceled, but I’m supposed to be laughing, not feeling sorry for you, 30 Rock.

2. In addition to the pathetic cry for help from 30 Rock, it seemed like the show had been chosen to secretly be a giant NBC commercial. We had full-on clips from Heroes, Deal or No Deal, and Law & Order: SVU, plus E.R. & Medium name drops and about 10 mentions of NBC this, NBC that. Give me a break here, guys. We’ve already got Mr. NBC, Jerry Seinfeld, on the episode, plus everyone in the show works at NBC, plus this program is on NBC. Isn’t that enough NBC? You really had the gall to show THREE clips of other NBC programs during this one? I feel used and abused, like I was duped into buying a time share when I all I wanted was the free weekend in Aspen.

3. The one highlight of the episode for me was the Ken/Tracy office wife story line. This is vintage 30 Rock here, absurd to the core. I laughed out loud well into the next scene when Tracy “proposed” to Ken, and he replied, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!” I’m usually not a huge Ken fan, but he was terrific, and Tracey Morgan is always my favorite character and he did not disappoint here.

Basically, a pretty sad start to the season. Not bad, since the episode was pretty darn funny at times, but sad. I truly hope this is going to be 30 Rock’s year, but as much as they need to cater to new audiences, they can’t be ignoring the true blue fans who’ve been with them from the beginning. Let’s hope these stunt casting episodes are funny on their own and use the guest appearances to support the narrative and not to detract from it.

Grade: B