JACK: "Lemon, there is a word, a once-special word that's been tragically co-opted by the Romance-Industrial Complex, and I would hate to use it here and have you think that I'm suggesting any kind of romantic sentiment, let alone an invitation to scale 'Bone Mountain.' It's a word that comes to us by way of the Old High German luba, from the Latin lubere, meaning 'to be pleasing.' So I'm going to use this word to describe how I feel about you in the way that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers would have used it in reference to, say, a hot bowl of bear meat, or your enemy's skull, split—"
LIZ: "I love you, too, Jack."
You were either a fan of 30 Rock or you have no idea what I'm talking about, but here's hoping each of you find that hot bowl of bear meat that makes you happy.
Friday, February 1, 2013
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NO, I DIDN'T TEAR UP, THAT'S A RIDICULOUS THING TO SUGGEST.
Seriously, that was perhaps the most perfect series finale I have ever seen. When is Grizz and Hers airing?
Dang. So here's ANOTHER show i need to figure out a way to catch up on? Last fall Ms. Who & I finished up Lost & I don't regret it, all hail the script writers. Now we're devouring 10 years or more after the fact: Firefly. Should our next thing be 30 Rock? Or Tombstone? Or The Wire? or ... i can't get my mind around the fact that suddenly (to me) so much of the best writing is going into TV ... what's up with that?
So here's ANOTHER show i need to figure out a way to catch up on?
30 Rock was a rare show we watched pretty much in real time. That, and The Big Bang Theory, and to a less obsessive way, NCIS.
And I, of course, am an Archer man, which is too hilariously vulgar even for Katie-Bar-The-Door.
Mostly we discover shows in reruns and then catch up via DVD or streaming. We did all of Battlestar Galactica (the remake), Justified and now Castle that way (as a Firefly man, you might like Nathan Fillon in the latter). We also did the first season of Mad Men that way -- it has since been on the must-see TV list.
As with many shows, if you decide to try 30 Rock, it took it most of the first season to really find its legs, but once it did, it really took off for us. It was the platonic relationship between Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy that made the show.
That and its never-ceasing stream of cultural references and nonsense, such as the idea of "J. Fred Muggs on a Businessman's Trip" -- J. Fred Muggs being the name of the chimp who appeared on the Today show many decades ago, a "Businessman's Trip" being a hallucinogenic drug, and the whole thing together being a reference to the Stoned Ape Theory of human evolution. All of which was tossed off so fast and off-hand you missed it while the next joke was being served up.
But mostly, it was the relationships.
NO, I DIDN'T TEAR UP, THAT'S A RIDICULOUS THING TO SUGGEST.
You know what else moved me -- the brutally honest goodbye between Liz and Tracy in the strip club -- Tracy's confession that nobody ever said goodbye to him, they just left, and Liz telling him, "Working with you was hard, Tracy, you frustrated me and you wore me out, but because the human heart is not properly connected to the human brain, I love you and I'm going to miss you. But tonight might be it."
Not sure I've seen a show that so readily captured chatter.
Lutz intentionally dive-bombing the meal was so . . . me.
Who -- dive in.
Blimpies!
The Liz/Tracy scene was the real kicker. That was the first time we see Tracy really, genuinely open up. I wasn't sure if that was Tracy Jordan or Tracy Morgan, but it felt more than a performance. Same goes for Liz.
"As with many shows, if you decide to try 30 Rock, it took it most of the first season to really find its legs, but once it did, it really took off for us. "
I re-watched "Tracy Does Conan" last night, and I think it was that episode where things really started gelling and I knew that 30 Rock was going to be something special. "What's on my mind grapes?"
I re-watched "Tracy Does Conan" last night, and I think it was that episode where things really started gelling and I knew that 30 Rock was going to be something special. "What's on my mind grapes?"
I went back and looked -- that was the seventh episode of the series. I went all in five episodes later with "Black Tie," where Isabella Rossellini plays Jack's ex-wife and he gets Liz to pretend to be his date, and Paul Reubens plays Gerhardt, the tragically inbred royal who falls for Jenna.
"The Habsburg line has ended. You can pick up your gift bags at the coat check."
Who --
Here's a link to some of the more amusing 30 Rock moments:
http://www.eonline.com/news/383321/the-end-of-30-rock-10-must-see-episodes
By the way, add Bunheads to the list of shows we've watched in one fell swoop -- in this case, as Amazon Prime members, we can stream it for free.
Great show, it turns out. Based on its description alone, I would never have watched it, but Katie-Bar-The-Door and I both highly recommend it.
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