30 Rock: The Complete Third Season

Review By: Tom Herrmann
TomHerrmann@TheCinemaSource.com

Season Grade: A
DVD Features Grade: A-
Overall Grade: A

It feels like forever since the last light-hearted sitcom that doesn’t constantly find itself deeply saturated in completely obscured or overdramatic scenarios. Shows like Scrubs found itself going completely insane, while shows like Family Guy and South Park have found themselves prying too harshly on contemporary topics. Even though 30 Rock is in its equivalent of adolescents for a TV show, only having run three season, it doesn’t show any signs of losing sight of its main objects - to be simply hilarious.

The idea of 30 Rock is incredibly simple: Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is the head writer of the show fictional TGS on NBC. Lemon has to deal with the cast of the show, as well as the crew, and Network Executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). The combination of Lemon’s awkward nature, TGS stars Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski)’s stupidity and arrogance, and Donaghy’s deceptiveness; the show has the perfect formula for uncomfortably hysterical situations.

Since she has left SNL everything Tina Fey touches (with the exception of Baby Mama) seems to turn into comedic gold. Not to say that her SNL wasn’t without its moments, but it was a low period for the show as a whole (Jimmy Fallen in prominent roles is never helpful). As much as it hurts my masculinity to say, Mean Girls is actually a genius movie and extremely well written on Fey’s part. Being that the newest addition to her résumé is a show that in 2009 won five Emmy awards, including Best Comedy Series, it is safe to say that Fey knows a thing or two about comedy.

It is actually hard to pick out specific moments in the season to talk about, but only because there is not a sub-par episode to be found. One that seems to stand out above all of the rest sadly doesn’t feature most of the cast. The episode is simply titled “Reunion” and it is about Lemon’s return to her home town to attend her high school reunion. She has the image of herself showing up at the reunion and feeling like she has overcome her nerdy label and become a success, what she doesn’t know is that she was actually seen as a bully. Even worse, Donaghy accompanies Lemon and poses as student who no one has seen in years. It turns out that Donaghy is quickly accepted into the group and finds all new old friends as Lemon feels as neglected as she did in high school.

The deleted scenes even managed to be minimal and humorous, just like the rest of the show. They were all extremely short and didn’t add much, but had a nice little kick that would have been nice to see in context. The only real problem was that there was no play all features so you have to sit there and hit down, ...