TV-Reviewed

It turns out when one brings in four guest stars, all of whom haven’t been on TV regularly in years, it creates a vortex of stale around the original TV components of a show. In Episode 303, it feels like there is equals parts meta-sadness for its guest stars and exhaustion from last week’s stellar installment.

In “The One With The Cast of ‘Night Court’,” Kenneth’s despair over new NBC page uniforms leads Tracy to fulfill the lifelong wish of seeing the originally intended series finale of Night Court. Liz and Jenna are skeptical of the return of an old college pal who is both a bit too crazy and a bit too high maintenance for them (guest star Jennifer Aniston). Jack is drawn to her and they begin a torrid and unhealthy fling, despite Liz’s constant warnings. Jenna throws herself in again later as the apparent “shark” that killed Night Court – a werewolf attorney, who demands her own appearance for the new series finale.

Tina Fey as Liz Lemon, Jennifer Aniston as Claire Harper, Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy

Most of this set up, if it doesn’t sound like it, felt awfully forced. While Tracy calls attention and laughs to the premise, in no reality does a page upset about his jacket turning from navy to grey lead to an illegal reunion of the Night Court cast. Jennifer Aniston’s character is never given a real reason for being in town; she just appears from the elevator one wacky morning and leaves when her relationship with Jack goes too far.

30 Rock is the rare show that both flirts with the absurd characteristics of a “bad sitcom” while also planting jokes to show their awareness of such and elevate them above and beyond the weaknesses. At different points Tracy mocked the nonsensical progression of the Night Court story, the NC guest stars all mocked their willingness to show up on the set and Jenna’s plot twist referenced the infamous ability of a series to jump the shark.

As per usual, there are plenty of laughs in a multi-layered episode of 30 Rock, but a general sense of misplacement came about. As a Jennifer Aniston supporter, I was kinda bummed to see her show up and use her beauty and decent sense of comedic abilities to just help promote her own image and personality. Seeing Night Court play with their own series’ conclusion is a story I wish a better series could show up to do – Arrested Development, Buffy, so many cult classics with more going on for it. But, they got Night Court – and actors that I don’t think I’ve seen since the series went off the air, and was frankly okay with that.

Tina, you are my heroine. But with guest stars like Steve Martin, Salma Hayek, Jon Hamm and more to come, I hope the stories come first and the guest stars continue to shine in the way that Oprah and previous ones have.

Rating: 7