Dumbing Down
Big fan of 30 Rock (minor spoilage alert here) and thoroughly enjoyed last night's episode about Tracy Jordan creating financial havoc (Larry King just doesn't care any more) and Liz Lemon's foray into the nastier parts of Queens ( I think thats what they said- Queens Guy?) to retrieve her cell phone.
My one quibble was the need they felt to explain what I thought was a pretty funny bit. Liz is trying to entice Kenneth to come with her into a bad neighborhood with a made-up story about a recording of her dead grandmother's German lullaby on the missing cell phone. When Kenneth asks her to sing it, she mutters a few bits in German which sounded vaguely familiar. Took me a few seconds to realize it was the early MTV "nuclear war can give you such a headache" classic, Nena's "99 Luftballons". This was a nice joke and I laughed heartily and the scene moved on.
Then a couple scenes later, they came back to the bit and proceeded to explain the reference in detail which sort of took away from it for me. (Although kudos to Kenneth's line about "...that song by the anti-balloon activists"). I know 30 Rock is in trouble because while it appeals to core group of critics, it hasn't attracted a big enough audience (LA GUY- is that true?) so they can't count on little insider jokes to save the day but the explanation took away from it. Obviously, I don't know the 1st thing about writing for TV but if they felt the need to let everyone in on it, there were other ways it could been handled more deftly.
posted by New England Guy @ 5:30 AM
2 Comments:
I thought it was one of the better episodes, and they managed to make Larry King funny. I also like how they tied the plots together (not that they need to be Seinfeldian every week).
Here's what I don't get. For the past couple weeks, NBC will have a new show from one of the Thursday sitcoms and the rest are repeats. Why can't they get it together? (I'm not including Kath & Kim, which is keeping up the Thursday tradition of a worthless show in the hammock slot.)
30 Rock's ratings are not great, but I don't think it's in any trouble. For one thing, NBC prime time is weak all over, and Thursday, even if it finishes in third or fourth place among the networks, is a relative bright spot. 30 Rock itself keeps winning Emmys, which makes it a prestige item. And the demographics of these shows, particular with the 18-34 crowd, are good.
As to 99 Luftballons, I agree they went to the well once too often. But at least they have the excuse (beyond the need to explain the joke fully to the great unwashed) that it was a plot point, not just a callback.
I was going to mention that they were using it for plot purposes but got distracted. On the other hand, I'm not sure it was that crucial and 30 Rock's plots are not really the key to its appeal.
Fantasizing myself as a writer for a bit, I think they could have found another way to get Kenneth to figure out the dodge and then maybe later they could have had a small bit of Nena (I loved that girl back in the day) on her video during the Tracy and Larry TV bits and perhaps some knowing facial expressions from Liz and Kenneth- but then again there's a reason I'm not a writer (beyond the bad typing skills)
Post a Comment
<< Home