By Curt Schleier
At this point, who knows if the writer’s strike will end in time to salvage remnants of the 2007-08 television season? But in a worst case scenario, if what you’ve already seen is what you get, 30 ROCK went out with a bang.
To start, Jack Donaghy (Alex Baldwin) and his senator girlfriend CC (Edie Falco), look like the real deal. He’s in the midst of negotiating a billion dollar contract to buy the largest German cable network, but his mind is really on his girlfriend.
They both agree that if their relationship is going to work, they have to compromise, to meet each other halfway. Halfway in this case is Hadassin, PA; more accurately in a betting parlor in the mining town of Hadassin that is exactly equidistance from New York City and the nation’s capital. But what to do with the Germans while the lovers are in the shower at a Red Roof motel? Jack leaves Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) in charge. This turns out to be not the best move, since Liz’s mind, too, is on other things. Jack’s advice on her finances was to buy real estate. She’s put a bid on a co-op but the meeting with the building’s board was a disaster.
Lemon doesn’t make things better by calling the telephone number the board gave her every five minutes – or three gulps of wine, which ever comes first – to complain about the board’s inaction.
Meanwhile Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) bought show staffers a cappuccino machine that he places of Kenneth’s (Jack McBrayer) desk. He then tempts Kenneth to try the coffee. At first Kenneth refuses, because he never has hot drinks; that’s the devil’s temperature. But he soon is seduced…and addicted.
Meanwhile, Liz who spent one semester in Germany makes a slight slip when she speaks to the German cable company’s reps. Anyone with only one semester in Frankfurt might say verkaufen when they mean kaufen. And what the heck is the difference between sell a network and buy one, anyway, among friends?
Jack takes it well; in fact, he blames himself. “I lied to you,” he tells Lemon; you can’t have it all. Both love and success in the office “require everything of you.”
Jack chooses CC, but she doesn’t show up when he goes to Hadassin to meet her. She’s also realized you can’t have it all. And she’s upset that during her dalliance she missed a key vote to legalize recreational whale torture. Yes, she knows they have so much in common: “drive, ambition, our belief that sex is a competition.”
It’s sad. But there’s more grief to come. Jack, dressed in his farmer overalls, is going back to Atlanta. “I let my momma down.” He promised he’d never change, but since he started imbibing hot drinks, “I went to a PG-13 movie. I bought sunglasses. I tried a Jewish donut.”
So he’s going back home. What! No more Kenneth the page. At least it gives the cast a chance to break into song. Gladys Knight was scheduled to be a guest on TGS starring Tracy Jordan, so what could be more natural for everyone to break out in Midnight Train to Georgia.
But wait. There’s hope yet. Could that be Kenneth at the door? Yup. It turns out it’s an 11:45 train to Georgia, and he missed it when he showed up at midnight. What difference does it make anyway? Gladys Knight shows up just in time and tells everyone to shut and go to sleep.
All ten episodes from this season are on-line at NBC com. Let’s face it. With the writers’ strike decimating television, what else have you got to do? You’ll thank me.