Episode 10 - Black Light Attack!
21 January 2010
Review
Synopsis: Tracy invites Sue the writer into the entourage and becomes protective of her. Jenna has to try ageing gracefully when offered the part of a mother on Gossip Girl. Jack is happy to finally have a man’s man in Danny to hang out with but is disgusted to learn that he is hooking up with Liz.
The Good: All three stories had a pleasant tone to them for a change. Tracy was overprotective as his long running search for a daughter continues. For the second week in a row Jenna took a positive step, this time accepting that she is actually over forty in public.
Finally Liz hooks up with Danny, which helped flesh out his nice guy character. Jack’s desire to hang onto his new man friend was one of those rare plots which fit the 30 Rock universe perfectly. The montage of Jack being annoyed by his TGS employees at sports games felt very plausible, particularly Toopher discussing Quidditch.
The Bad: But the humour was thin on the ground and none of the plots went anywhere particularly interesting. I get tired of the “Liz is a freak” jokes because she is meant to be the sympathetic central character. And because none of her supposed physical imperfections are ever visible making them sound hollow. It’s also difficult to see her as some middle aged frump when she was with James Franco last week and Danny here.
Otherwise the humour leant on exaggeration too much, like the tone which only people over forty could hear (just scientifically impossible so why write it?). Or Tracy saying a “billion doll hairs” instead of dollars. This season has seen Tracy’s misunderstandings go from vaguely plausible to just terrible pun territory.
Comic Highlight: The opening scene with drunk Jack was actually pretty funny. A lesson in underplaying humour rather than exaggerating everything. Jack describes in detail how he used to sleep with female co-workers and gets a little too into it, prompting Liz to ask how drunk he is. Then when she points out that Danny’s robot paint is showing up under the dance floor black light, Jack comments: “Is it the body paint? Or is Danny just glowing like a beacon of manly camaraderie. Oh God. I’m extremely drunk.”
The Bottom Line: Enjoyable enough stories without much humour.
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