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30 Rock: season 4, episode 6
"Sun Tea"
November 20, 2009 - 12:11a.m.
Hello, 30 Rockers! My name is Steve, and I’ll be covering the show tonight for The T.V. Club. I realize coming here and getting me rather than Nathan Rabin is like tuning in to Pardon The Interruption for ...
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30 Rock: season 4, episode 5
"The Problem Solvers"
November 12, 2009 - 10:11p.m.
I would like to begin this post by sharing a long, meandering, embarrassing personal story. That’s not terribly out of character; when you have as many embarrassing stories as I do you dole them out indiscriminately. Hell, I begin ...
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30 Rock: season 4, episode 4
"Audition Day"
November 5, 2009 - 10:11p.m.
One of the nice things about having written for the A.V Club for almost thirteen years is that I have the luxury of only writing about television shows I love (The Office, 30 Rock, Eastbound & Down) or am perversely ...
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30 Rock: season 4, episode 3
"Stone Mountain"
October 29, 2009 - 09:10p.m.
Hello, 30 Rock fans! Nathan Rabin is off engaging in some sort of tomfoolery, the nature of which will be revealed when we all read it in his next best-selling book. So I've stepped in to recap tonight's ...
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30 Rock: season 4, episode 2
"Into The Crevasse"
October 22, 2009 - 10:10p.m.
Some commenters razzed me last week for giving the premiere of 30 Rock a C+ and the last episode of Saturday Night Live a C. Was I suggesting that modern-day Saturday Night Live was nearly as good as 30 Rock ...
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30 Rock: season 4, episode 1
"Season 4"
October 15, 2009 - 08:10p.m.
A friend of mine was recently in a movie theater where a trailer of Where The Wild Things Are played. At the end of the trailer an older gentleman sitting behind him scoffed very loudly: “Boy, that looks like it ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 22
"Kidney Now!"
May 14, 2009 - 11:05p.m.
Tonight’s 30 Rock’s finale offered a bitches brew of questionable elements. Guest star after guest star after guest star! Catchphrase after catchphrase after catchphrase! Inside jokes up the wazoo! Father-son bonding! Spoofing a Jerry Springer Show-style trashy ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 21
"Mamma Mia"
May 7, 2009 - 10:05p.m.
Did anyone else notice that tonight’s episode featured both a variation on Flirting With Disaster’s plot—grown man goes looking for his real parents and runs into a few dead ends—and, if you factor in those obnoxious ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 20
"The Natural Order"
April 30, 2009 - 11:04p.m.
Oh man, do I love Elaine Stritch as Colleen Donaghy on 30 Rock. It takes a helluva a tough old broad to reduce a corporate titan/alpha-male like Jack Donaghy to a scared, confused little boy but every time Stritch ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 19
"The Ones"
April 23, 2009 - 10:04p.m.
30 Rock generally benefits from following The Office. Though they’re very different shows they tend to complement each other nicely. Sometimes, however, 30 Rock suffers by comparison. Alternately, sometimes The Office is the one that looks a little less ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 18
"Jackie Jormp-Jomp"
April 16, 2009 - 11:04p.m.
Tonight featured both Michael Scott and Liz Lemon in exile. When we last checked in with the gang at 30 Rock Liz had just been suspended from work for two weeks for accidental sexual harassment. I kept trying to explain ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 17
"Cutbacks"
April 9, 2009 - 09:04p.m.
Howdy, 30 Rock viewers! Whew...busy week for me. After filling in for a vacationing Claire Zulkey on American Idol, I got the call from Noel Murray, who has apparently been smote by a tornado, to stand in on 30 ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 16
"Apollo, Apollo"
March 26, 2009 - 10:03p.m.
30 Rock doesn’t necessarily have the emotional element of The Office but in tonight’s episode we delved a little deeper into the psyches of its characters as Jack Donaghy and Tracy Jordan each got to live out their ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 15
"The Bubble"
March 19, 2009 - 10:03p.m.
I’ve spent much of the past week watching 19 episodes of Andy Richter Controls The Universe for the DVD section of avclub.com. Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner was a writer/producer on the show and I singled out ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 14
"Funcooker"
March 11, 2009 - 09:03p.m.
Did you guys notice that Alec Baldwin became a producer on 30 Rock right about the time his character plunged into a red-hot relationship with Salma Hayek? Ah, the perks of working behind the scenes. Good old Liz Lemon meanwhile ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 13
"Goodbye My Friend"
March 5, 2009 - 05:03a.m.
I experienced a distinct sense of Déjà vu during tonight’s episode of 30 Rock as Liz Lemon’s plotline essentially recycled the premise of Baby Mama with a little Juno thrown in for good measure, as a crazy-eyed ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 12
"Jalisa"
February 26, 2009 - 04:02a.m.
A few orders of business to get out of the way before digging into this week’s episode:• Tonight, Nathan Rabin is out catching a small-venue hip-hop show by a semi-major artist he doesn’t really like, so I’m ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 11
"St. Valentine's Day"
February 12, 2009 - 04:02p.m.
In my last 30 Rock TV Club entry I mentioned that the show sometimes walks a fine line between exploiting hackneyed old sitcom clichés and sending them up. Accordingly, tonight’s episode dug up a hoary old trope and ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 10
"Generalissimo"
February 5, 2009 - 04:02p.m.
The Jack Donaghy character on 30 Rock was apparently originally conceived as something of a hiss-worthy villain, a sort of corporate Generalissimo in an expensive suit but Alec Baldwin helped make him more of a cracked mentor, a fundamentally good ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 9
"Retreat To Move Forward"
January 22, 2009 - 04:01p.m.
I go away for one week and the most dependable sixty minutes on television goes all haywire on me. Actually that’s not entirely fair. Tonight’s episodes of The Office and 30 Rock just seem weak because of each ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 8
"Flu Shot"
January 15, 2009 - 03:01p.m.
Nathan Rabin is off at Sundance right now, whereas I am not, so I'm filling him for him tonight on 30 Rock. Don't worry, he'll be back next week, probably with lots of swag and stories of ... -
30 Rock: season 3, episode 7
"Senor Macho Solo"
January 8, 2009 - 09:01p.m.
Peter Dinklage was sexy in Station Agent partially because he's a handsome, brooding, intense guy but also because his character was remote, distant and emotionally unavailable. There is nothing in Dinklage's screen persona that asks for approval or ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 6
"Christmas Special"
December 11, 2008 - 10:12p.m.
Tonight's Yuletide-themed episode of 30 Rockmanaged to be simultaneously naughty and nice. Like previous Christmas episodes of 30 Rock it defied sentiment until the very last minute, then finally succumbed to the sticky-sweet uplift endemic to Holiday-themed entertainment ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 5
"Reunion"
December 4, 2008 - 10:12p.m.
Nobody thinks they were popular in high school. How often have you seen some impossibly gorgeous, glamorous supermodel on television profess to be a skinny, scrawny ugly duckling until that magical moment they blossomed into a radiant creature with shiny ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 4
"Gavin Volure"
November 20, 2008 - 10:11p.m.
Reading Born Standing Up recently for Silly Little Show-Biz Book Club recently reanimated my long-dormant respect and admiration for Steve Martin, sometimes comic genius, full-time paycheck-chaser, as did his hilarious supporting performance in Baby Mama, where he played an eccentric ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 3
"The One With The Cast of Night Court"
November 13, 2008 - 10:11p.m.
In my post for 30 Rock last week I criticized the show for gushing over the cult of Oprah instead of giving her an interesting character to play. Tonight's episode was once again chockablock with star-power. In a real ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 2
"Believe In The Stars"
November 6, 2008 - 10:11p.m.
Fans of The Sarah Silverman Program and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia were bound to experience déjà vu watching tonight's Oprahtastic episode of 30 Rock. Suddenly it seems like every edgy situation comedy is doing episodes where ...
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30 Rock: season 3, episode 1
"Do-Over"
October 30, 2008 - 05:10p.m.
To borrow the parlance of Hip Hop, actor/writer/Sarah Palin impersonator Tina Fey blew the fuck up over the Summer, making an assured transition from bespectacled favorite of the smart set and everyone's geek crush to towering comic ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 15
"Cooter"
May 8, 2008 - 09:05p.m.
Let me save you the trouble: "Hey, you're not Nathan Rabin." In so many ways you are absolutely correct. Sadly, Nathan can't be here for the finale this week as he's attending the funeral of a great ... -
30 Rock: season 2, episode 14
"Sandwich Day"
May 1, 2008 - 10:05p.m.
In his review for Baby Mama, Anthony Lane argued that Tina Fey hasn't yet figured out how to use her body for optimum humor, that she isn't confident enough to go big and brassy like Bette Midler or ...
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30 Rock: season 13, episode 2
"Succession"
April 25, 2008 - 10:04a.m.
As regular readers of this feature know, I'm usually quick on the draw getting this posts up within hours of the respective shows ending. Well, yesterday was totally birthday (happy belated birthday me!) and while I don't mind ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 12
"Subway Hero"
April 17, 2008 - 09:04p.m.
When Liz's on-again, off-again boyfriend The Beeper King was busted in a Dateline "To Catch A Predator" sting last season I was both amused and disappointed. I was amused because it was a pretty sweet gag and disappointed because ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 11
"MILF Island"
April 10, 2008 - 09:04p.m.
Well, my beautiful, beautiful TV babies, it appears that the vast eternity in purgatory that was the damnable writers strike of 2008, an event that will live in infamy as a million times worse than Pearl Harbor and the Trail ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 10
Episode 210
January 10, 2008 - 08:01p.m.
Well, my TV Club babies, tonight marked the triumphant return of 30 Rock and it couldn't come a second too soon. I was fiending, yes fiending, for another fix of 30 Rock like a crackhead in rehab. It was ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 9
"Ludachristmas"
December 13, 2007 - 09:12p.m.
Well, my friends, it appears that this is finally the end. I could be wrong, and often am, but I think this is the last new 30 Rock of the season. Tonight's episode was all about family. Jack Donaghy ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 8
"Secrets And Lies"
December 6, 2007 - 10:12p.m.
It is a testament to how far 30 Rock has come in a short amount of time that people don't really associate it with Saturday Night Live anymore. Part of that has to do with quality and tone. 30 ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 7
"Cougars"
November 29, 2007 - 08:11p.m.
Oh, but it fills me with profound despair to think that 30 Rock will lapse into reruns in just two short weeks. Because tonight's episode, "Cougars," was eight different shades of awesome. Thankfully an episode called "Ludichristmas" still lies ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 6
"Somebody To Love"
November 16, 2007 - 01:11p.m.
My friend Claire Zulkey recently commented how casually satirical 30 Rock can be, not in a "Aren't we Important Artists who should be festooned with awards for our Bravery in Addressing Important Issues" Aaron Sorkin kind of way, but ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 5
"Greenzo"
November 8, 2007 - 09:11p.m.
A while back in a Newswire entry about the current writers strike, my colleague Sean O'Neal tried to preempt the inevitable "Dude, who fucking cares? Television blows monkey chunks anyway, you hipster douchetard. Why don't you go listen ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 4
"Rosemary's Baby"
October 25, 2007 - 09:10p.m.
This year's 30 Rock has so far followed a consistent pattern, with mildly disappointing episodes (key word "mildly") followed by all-time classics. This week's episode delivered an endless onslaught of eminently quotable lines and hilarious gags in service ...
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30 Rock: season 2, episode 3
"The Collection"
October 18, 2007 - 10:10p.m.
This past week, I started watching my DVDs of Arrested Development again, in part to see if 30 Rock is as indebted to it as I've claimed, both in my review of the first season DVD and on this ...
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30 Rock: season Two , episode Two
Jack Gets In The Game
October 11, 2007 - 10:10p.m.
In last week's T.V. Club blog, a reader expressed reservations about reviewing something as sprawling and relatively open-ended as a popular sitcom on an episode-by-episode basis. I share this reader's reservations. Then again, I think episode-by-episode reviews ...
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30 Rock: season Two , episode One
"Seinfeldvision"
October 4, 2007 - 08:10p.m.
It's a measure of how high 30 Rock set the bar for itself in its first season that an episode full of funny dialogue, droll gags, Jerry Seinfeld, and amusing ideas can still qualify as a disappointment. The show ...
