TVSquad

(S02E03) "I could never pay an English-speaking woman that little - they'd starve!" - Jack, about his household staff

This year many of us here at TV Squad have been featuring our favorite quotes at the start of each review. Most of the time it's pretty easy to pick out the best line (on a show like Bionic Woman they stand out), but it's not the easiest thing to do on a comedy like 30 Rock. There's always at least six laugh out loud lines and about 5 lines that aren't hysterical but are bizarrely clever. That was true of tonight's episode too, and I hope you agree the above comment was one of the better ones.

The theme of tonight's episode is people watching other people. Jack hires a private eye to check into his life so he'll know what to look out for when GE investigates him for the new head gig (the PI finds out about Jack's cookie jar collection). Angie hires Liz to watch Tracy to make sure he doesn't go to strip bars or drink a lot. And Jack tells Kenneth to make sure that Jenna stays fat. Yup, that's right, he wants her fat now, since fans seem to like her that way (but she's losing weight, so I bet she won't be chubby beyond the next two episodes). She's even doing perfume commercials: "EnOrme: Make Him Chase The Chunk."

I've noticed that the writing staff wasn't in this at all, and they haven't really been featured this season so far, and that's disappointing. They're always good for some good laughs. Pete has a couple of walk on lines in this episode, but if you blink you'll miss him. Speaking of walking, there's a funny bit where Liz wants to talk to Kenneth for a moment and asks him, "Can you walk and talk?" and Kenneth gets that Kenneth look on his face and says "Usually, but now you've got me thinking about it." (Hmmm...walk and talk, maybe a sly reference to Studio 60 - DVD review coming tomorrow!)

As I've said before, I love how this show is about NBC and really set at NBC. At the end, Jack gets rid of his cookie jar collection (you can probably guess who took it) and says to the giant GE logo on the HDTV: "Are you happy now, you son of a bitch?"

This son of a bitch is happy with this show. Though I have to admit the guest stars this season are beginning to worry me. Jerry Seinfeld in the opener seemed natural because he had a hit show on the network for years (side note: I would rather have seen "SeinfeldVision" on NBC than those damn Bee Movie commercials), but this week we get Steve Buscemi and later weeks we'll see David Schwimmer, Carrie Fisher, and Edie Falco. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that this show does guest spots right, unlike Will & Grace, the later seasons. Let's hope that stays true.