Don Geiss has woken up from his diabetic coma and has decided to remain as head of GE for as long as possible, leaving Jack to mourn his promotion and the thousands of business cards that he had secretly printed up in anticipation. Liz meanwhile has returned home for her school reunion, only to find out that her classmates disliked her because she was often nasty and rude as a means of defending herself from possible attacks. And Jenna and Tracy find their star diminishing within the halls of 30 Rock as Kenneth the Page has become the beloved jokester of the elevators.

30 Rock as of late has made a practice of telling stories that truly highlight the essence of its main characters, which in turn makes every episode feel like such an accomplishment of hilarity. Liz is the neurotic single working gal, Jack is a crazy conservative suit, Tracy and Jenna are performers who thrive on attention – and thus go insane without it. And yet, the show continues to snub the majority of its supporting players, instead focusing on the stars A and B stories outside of the office.

Tina Fey as Liz Lemon

With the guest stars having been toned down, this time choosing hardly recognizable Law & Order and The West Wing alum as fellow school alumni, the majority of this episode focuses on Liz trying to make amends with those of her past. The jokes that follow are somewhat typical – the overly flamboyant “straight” man, the tough girl with the bad hair, a melodramatic encounter between Jack, crashing the reunion, and a woman who speaks in mysterious allusions to a story we aren’t privy to.

At this point, even though it’s the best sitcom on network TV, the attempts to keep this series alive are beginning to feel like detriments to those who have been with the show from the beginning. With guests galore and such introductory storylines that focus on the recognizable and award winning stars, every episode is essentially following a new formulaic structure.

Ultimately, the greatest moment comes from Liz’s plane declarations – what is it with this woman and planes – such as urinating in the shower out of laziness and laughing at a blind man’s eating practices. She is a new kind of crazy that I want to know.

Rating: 8

The episode opens with a bizarre dinner party, a Twin Peaks worthy interpretation of a think tank: Jack (business), Liz (creative), John McEnroe and several other unique personalities. Gavin appears and claims that he is so rich and crazy he refuses to leave a massive estate. Gavin takes an immediate liking to the neurotic Liz and a doomed courtship begins. Elsewhere Tracy has ordered life-like sex dolls of himself which becomes convenient when he becomes convinced his children are out to kill him like a repeat of the Menendez Brothers case. Kenneth also has some joke about Confederate Hillbilly money.

Steve Martin as Gavin Volure, Tina Fey as Liz Lemon

It is quickly revealed that Gavin is not in fact an eccentric shut in, but on house arrest with several other white collar criminals; Gavin for fraud – he created and marketed a business that never had a real function, goal or purpose other than to dupe investors. This comes after he lures the adorable Liz Lemon in by revealing his quirks limit him from sexual encounters and that he cannot offer her anything other than TV watching, snacking on foods and other asexual hermit traits we have come to know and love about Lemon herself.

Technically this episode is one that worked to all of its strong points, except for the criminal lack of Jane Krakowski, yet again. Tracy’s unbalanced mind warps his kids concerns that he is too rich to love and care for them is turned into him running in fear at the sight of them and setting traps to catch them trying to kill him. Liz plays adorable nerdlinger and Jack deals with white-collar business politics. If only the stunt casting would stop and the focus could return to the other talented actors in the cast, and possibly even be about the actual goings on of the series.

Seriously, at this point its been so long since The Girlie Show was an actual relevant element of the plot that I wonder how the series, if it were real, could have possibly been crafted and maintained enough to remain on the air. It seems the series is more concerned with Liz’s downtime (not that I’d ever refuse a single frame of what they offered me) than the supposed 80 hours she puts in a week on TGS. If the work that prevented her from having a baby just weeks ago is around, shouldn’t she not be jetting off to Chicago, to Steve Martin, to upcoming High School Reunion????

Rating: 7

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

This episode does just that. The primary story follows Liz Lemon to Chicago where she is attempting to get out of jury duty, by pretending to be crazy of course. On her return flight, whilst under the influence of heavy medication, Liz Lemon meets Oprah who she cannot help but open up to. Back in New York City, Tracy and Jenna have become enemies due to a financial disagreement and decide to go Freaky Friday on one another. Jack, as acting head of GE once more, must regain Kenneth’s respect after it is revealed that Jack rigged the Summer Olympics to help boost American morale.

I’m sitting next to Oprah. How cool am I?

Oprah’s appearance originally had me skeptical, believing that 30 Rock was about to go the way of Will & Grace in a quest for show saving ratings. I eat my words as I realize that Tina and her writing staff are so cleverly aware of the nature of the business and of mass criticism, that they ensure guest stars are serving the story and not just hamming it up to the camera for their own career’s sake. For once, Liz Lemon plays insane to Oprah’s perfectly timed straight woman with such one liners as her perplexed “One time I kissed a girl at summer camp as a dare, but then she drown.” Liz/Tina and Oprah/Oprah cannot help but play to Liz’s own nerdlinger tendencies while also poking fun at the concept of Oprah as an all knowing support system for any woman in need.

30 Rock still has a few kinks in its system to work out. Kenneth continues to be overplayed while the truth is he is best used as the occasional one liner, offering conservative criticisms of the liberal and corrupt lives of The Girlie Show’s actors and writing staff. Meanwhile, Jane Krakowski and the fictional show’s writing staff continues to be under utilized. With a group of very talented comedic actors sitting around, many of them are lucky to score more than two lines per episode.

Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan are undoubtedly the shining stars. Jokes involving black face, white face, raptor claws, M. Night Shymalan, Urban Latinas socio-economic positions and President Bush all are knocked out of the park by the trio. The show astoundingly nails its earnest attempts at compelling story as well as meta satire and per episode, it only seems to bite harder with repeat viewings. I have watched this episode three times already and I cannot wait to go back to my DVR to see Liz Lemon’s confessional scene to Oprah one more time.

“Immah call ya back. I’m snitting next to BorPoh.”

Rating: 10

Tina Fey as Liz Lemon, Megan Mullally as Bev

More importantly, for a show whose ratings remain underwhelming, the show hits the ground running for a new season and hopefully not it’s last. Alec Baldwin is allowed to shine as he struggles to regain his former seat in NBC from his recurring arch-nemesis Devin (Will Arnett). All of the writing staff has at least two moments to shine, and Tracy Morgan is back with more great insanity.

Towards the end of last season, I became very wary of some of the developing plotlines, Liz’s baby cravings being the biggest concern. Almost as if addressing the audience, the great final scene explicitly notes that if she ever gets a baby, it’s going to be a long ways from now. And more importantly, the final moment was something for a fan to savor. Tina takes an earnest moment to tell Jack, now back in his office, that it makes her happy to see him there. The heart of the show, right there.

30 Rock works, and is personally beloved, because it is the reigning Mary Tyler Moore Show. Liz Lemon is the struggling single woman in a crazy environment. She is the embodiment of many dreams. She has the more multi-layered Lou Grant to bounce off of in Alec Baldwin’s Jack as well as the ensemble team that can come in and knock it out of the park. The Arrested Development attitude towards storytelling and the one camera format, as well as the personal experience to back a story, are all among its strongest suits. But why I tune in is to spend 30 minutes with Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan. They are people I would look up to professionally and people I would want to know and be around.

This episode makes good on delivering all of these aspects, and chock full of laughter. It is the best I could have hoped for coming from a less than stellar cliffhanger, and I hope that with the A list guest stars to come that 30 Rock can maintain this course and hopefully continue to earn itself a place on TV. It deserves it and then some.

Rating: 9