Saturday, October 13, 2012

The Funny Stuff: NBC Thursday Night



On Thursday, due to the VP debate, there were only two new shows on, so this will be short.

Let’s jump right in!

30 Rock 

This was not a very good episode.  There were a couple of laughs, but even watching it a second time didn’t make anything jump out me. 

Jack is still trying to tank NBC, and Liz is still trying to have a baby.   When a Tracy Jordan look-alike becomes a gaffe-filled VP candidate, Liz has to use all his crazy antics on the show, but Jack doesn’t want her to, because politics makes sketch comedy shows better.

Liz does anyway, and Jack is proven right:  TPTB decide TGS needs to be on every night, but in order to do that, everything must arranged just so.  And so, Liz gets an organizational boner, and realizes what had been missing in her sex life: organization.  She and Criss flirt in the office supply store, and then she gets ready for the show.

Jack gets a call from a lobbyist friend, and assumes he wants the VP skits killed.  Unfortunately for Jack, the sketches are making the wholly unlikeable candidate likable, and thus, Jack has a dilemma:  Stop the sketches, which hurts NBC(good!) and hurts his chosen candidate(bad!) or continue the sketches, which would do the reverse.  In the end, he lays it on Liz, who has basically the opposite reaction.

Oh, and Kenneth’s mom came into town, and since she’s the last person on earth that buys CD’s, and Jenna just put out a chart topper that got her a royalty check for $90, she immediately tries to get Kenneth’s mom to buy more things, but they have no money, so she hates them again.

Like I said, this was a really meh episode.  There was not a lot of laughs, and the stories did not really help progress the arcs at all.

We did get some funny lines, though:

Jack, asking Liz how they could write a sketch making fun of Joe Biden: “Oh, but how could you, he’s so amazing, he rides the train!”
Jenna’s dance hit: “Balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls balls”
Jack’s lobbyist friend, after Jack says something he wants: “Let’s keep saying things we want: A closer friendship with you that includes road trips.  Your turn!”
 
Up All Night

In this episode, we had two storyline with very little interconnectedness.

Reagan and Scott put together a campout for Scott’s seven year old, and Reagan is teasing Scott the whole time, and really, for his whole life.  She gets it in her head(with a little prodding from Chris) that she is the cause of her brother’s poor life choices, and decides to be 100% supportive of Scott in his campout endeavors.

Of course, this exploded in her face big time, as he messes up just about everything.   The sprinklers in the backyard go off, drenching the sleeping bags and tents, and rendering them useless.  The marshmallows, when cooked over fake logs in a gas fireplace are likely a health hazarad, and the party’s theme, Game of Thrones, goes way over most of the kids’ heads.

They have a big blowup, and Scott calls Reagan out on being such an egotistical jerk, but they make up the next morning, when Reagan fixes everything by starting a game of scream tag.

Chris and Ava, on the other side of the story, go to a Polynesian Barbeque thrown by one of Chris’s old college roommates, and boy, is the roommate a boor.  He’s into a million things, that are all the most amazing thing ever, and he talks incessantly about them all the time.  Ava, having just come out of a relationship, is looking to find a new guy, but she is way too picky.  Apparently, the kind of watch a person wears is indicative of their personality, who knew?

Anyway, Ava keeps Chris’s friend off his back at the party, and Chris tries to find Ava someone as well.  It’s too bad that no one at the party was acceptable for Ava.  She and Chris discuss it afterward, and Ava comes to realize that she is measuring up every guy she meets to Chris, so Reagan has to set her straight:  Chris has sharp, pointy toenails and nose, and he doesn’t send food back at restaurants, even if it’s terrible. 

Ava realizes that everyone has faults, even her ideal guy, so she should be more open…and to that end, she decided to go out with the boorish college friend, Jerry, much to the chagrin of Reagan and Chris.

This wasn’t a bad episode, but it reeked of filler.  I’m about 80% sure none of the event in this episode will even be references in coming episode, nor will any changes be permanent, or if they are, it’s because they weren’t an issue in the first place.

That being said, there was one funny line:

Ava, to a suitor when asked if she likes wine: “Like it? Not as much as I adore it!”

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