Interrogation Bear: The Germans Head to "30 Rock," But Writers Nowhere to Be Found

For anyone looking to see just what television would look like, minus the writers, one need only take a peek at last night's episode of 30 Rock (the woefully untitled "Episode 210"), which proved that there's a reason why comedy scripts go through multiple revisions and polishing, as well as on-set rewriting.

For a series that zings with enough pop culture references, tongue-in-cheek throwaway lines, and rewind-that moments to fill a week's worth of network programming, last night's 30 Rock was leaden, dull, and--most criminally--just unfunny.

It's sad too because the script had the bare bones of three enticing plots--Jack tries to make a deal with the Germans to buy a television network but blows it by spending time with his Democratic Congresswoman lover; Liz, acting on Jack's advice, tries to buy real estate; and Kenneth becomes addicted to caffeine, throwing the carefully ordered world of TGS into chaos--which, if polished, could have been hysterical. Instead, the three storylines compete for on-air time with all of the wit and humor of a typical episode of According to Jim.

All this and a weird, space-filler musical number that just kept on going out of nowhere--a plot it seemed to stretch the script to runtime length--that culminated in a random cameo by a dazed-looking Gladys Knight. This isn't the 30 Rock I've come to know and love. Where were the double entendres, the inside jokes, the deft political commentary that have been hallmarks of this brilliant, bold comedy?

The answer: they're still locked inside the writers' heads.

To date, there hasn't been a more clear depiction of what the loss of the writers means to a comedy like 30 Rock, which--like my beloved Arrested Development before it--must do much re-writing on the set, while filming, as the comedically gifted actors riff off of one another and writers tweak individual pieces of dialogue. (For a fictional version of this situation, see the post below.)

Let me be clear: this is a series that has me laughing from start to finish. I think I may have laughed, oh, maybe twice in last night's episode, possibly in reference to the flashback of nerdy Liz "partying" it up in Frankfurt, the other over Kenneth's admission that he had a "Jewish doughnut" and has been "sodomized" by New York City. In a 20-something-minute episode, that means there's a lot of empty space there. (The Liz storyline, in which she drunkenly harasses an NYC co-op board should have been funny but ended up painfully stereotypical and just odd.)

30 Rock has always prided itself on not falling into sitcomy stereotypes and inverting those typical tropes that have defined network comedy television, but last night's episode felt extremely sitcomy, from the group performance of "Midnight Train to Georgia," to the unfunny Tracy "flashback," to the random appearance of Gladys Knight at the episode's end.

In the end, 30 Rock is only as strong as the cohesion between its talented performers and its writers. Without that synergy, the result is just plain weird. Not good weird, mind you, but to quote Jack Donaghy, "last night weird."