30 Rock: B-Minus.
Really?
30 Rock might be the smartest and funniest comedy currently on television. It’s certainly in the top three. That being said, can we really heap upon it praise after praise when it consistently delivers the most uninspired B-stories this side of Full House. For as sharp as this show’s writing can be, I simply don’t understand why every episode tends to have a secondary arc (usually involving Pete) rife with cliché. I mean, really? Pete get’s his hand stuck in a vending machine?
This has made me realize that 30 Rock is perhaps too tight for its own good. Take away these completely idiotic and disjointed B-stories and do you know what you’re left with? A fifteen minute show. They might as well cut it down and just put it on after Aqua Teen on Adult Swim (making it without a doubt the most expensive 15 minutes on television).
Though perhaps the lameness of these stories is the joke. Maybe they’re a parody of the type of sitcom fare that usually gets an audience to respond. That has to be the case, right? A show this funny wouldn’t produce material so tepid otherwise, right?
