Episode 15 - The Bubble
25 March 2012
Synopsis: Liz discovers that Drew lives in a bubble because he is so good looking. He gets great treatment wherever he goes and doesn’t realise that he is bad at everything including being a doctor who doesn’t know the Heimlich manoeuvre. Jack has to renegotiate Tracy’s contract but when he points out that Tracy doesn’t need to work, he quits. But Jack realises that Tracy’s weakness is Kenneth (and all that he does for him) and lures him back to work at TGS. Jenna agrees to cut her hair for charity but it is really for publicity.
The Good: Liz’ story finally presents her as the heroin of the show. It’s one of the rare occasions when she stands up for what she believes in and is not proven wrong. She speaks for the audience for once, pointing out what’s wrong about Drew’s way of life and taking the moral high ground.
Tracy is in his own bubble and it’s a logical development to learn how dependent on Kenneth he has become. This story leads to several nice moments (see Comic Highlight). Jack comes out as the smartest of them all once more as he successfully manipulates Tracy and educated Liz on the perils of living in the bubble. Tracy Jr clearly takes after his mother as he shouts Jack down in his entertaining rant. The mind boggles at what dirty expression Jack and Tracy’s BFF bracelets represent. The Bill Cosby and Billy D Williams impressions are suitably good and suitably silly to be fun. We get a nice reminder of how clever Dot Com is and how much that annoys Jack (212). And even Kenneth imagining that Pete is what Judas looks like somehow feels oddly appropriate for Kenneth’s suggestible mind.
Jenna manages to squeeze one good joke out of her story. “As you probably know, if you read page six, of my publicist’s emails…”
The Bad: But Jenna’s story is as utterly predictable as they all are. She is unbelievably selfish and gets humiliated and exposed for it. Yawn. Tracy and Kenneth flapping about in their equally silly worlds threatened to become annoying too.
But it is Liz and Drew’s story which is the real problem. The story of good looking people getting preferential treatment is a good one. Partly because it is very true in real life. But this story takes it to lengths which are no longer remotely plausible. Drew can not play tennis, he can barely hit the ball, yet thinks he is good enough to coach it. He can barely steer his motorbike but believes he can ride it well. He doesn’t know the meaning of ironic and he is a doctor who doesn’t know the Heimlich manoeuvre. Do I really need to explain this?
If you have ever watched a tennis match or seen someone riding a motorbike or seen a real sketch artist at work then you would know that what you were doing wasn’t correct. People just aren’t that un-selfaware. As for a paid doctor not knowing the Heimlich manoeuvre? That’s not even bad comedy anymore, that’s just stupid. When jokes slap you in the face with how unreal they are they don’t make you laugh, they take you out of what you are watching and remind you that it’s a television show. And not a good one.
Comic Highlight: Misunderstandings can be funny, especially when you can easily believe they could happen.
J: “That’s it Kenneth, don’t you see? You’re our ace in the hole!”
K: “How dare you!”
The Bottom Line: Take a story that makes sense and then have a waitress threaten to slap her customer. It’s not comedy. Or at least it’s not television comedy. It may be sketch comedy but in a show with characters that you need to believe in it just grates horribly. It’s 30 Rock in a nutshell. The rest was ok.
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