Okay, so that wasn't the greatest episode of 30 Rock either. But if forced to choose between a pair of well-worn sitcom cliches -- the Liz-suspects-her-neighbor-is-a-terrorist plot or the Liz-dates-a-younger-guy plot -- I'll take the latter, because it's by far the better showcase for Tina Fey. Unconvincing as an idiot in the former episode, Fey this time addressed one of the show's central premises in Liz's low self-esteem, in how we see her is completely antithetical to how she sees herself. The twentysomething coffee guy's name already escapes me, but it doesn't matter, since he's a really a stand-in for us. His attraction to her was treated as perfectly natural (however Oedipal), and his calling her a "sexy librarian" couldn't have been a more perfect validation.
Of the two subplots, the little league team/Iraq War metaphor, while obvious, was funnier--though it was rather weird seeing baseball in late November. (On second thought, Bud Selig's still in charge, so never mind.) And I'm not sure what they were trying with Judah Freilander's character, other than a desperate stab at giving him something to do. But this was a Liz Lemon episode all the way, and for a few joyous minutes she almost tasted happiness. The poor girl needs all the help she can get.
2 comments:
Craig,
You're right, the twentysomething coffee guy's name wasn't memorable (at least not the way a name like Liz Lemon is), but the writers chose it carefully, I think: Jamie is a cute, gender-neutral, and fun-sounding name. And it's a name with a little more spunk than Floyd the Flower Guy.
Oh, I didn't mean it was a bad name; I was just too lazy to remember it. Not a memorable episode all around, I thought, but sweet and funny.
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