So Direct TV screwed some viewers last night by some technical glitch that had NBC HD not available for awhile. If it wasn’t for a friendly call from my friend Scott to alert me, we’d have totally missed 30 Rock. I was in the middle of Smallville when he called, so I had no idea.
Luckily I have an Over the Air Antenna so we switched to that and all was well.
Needless to say, we missed the first eight minutes of 30 Rock, but the rest of the episode was awesome. Tina Fey doing a Jerry Seinfeld impression right in front of him was hilarious. I can’t tell you how much funnier I thought that episode was compared to the next show on the agenda today: The Office.
Egh. There were good moments. Creed was funny. The whole Toby thing was great. But the rest of the episode was blah. Driving into a lake? That seemed like a stunt that shows do when their ratings are low. It was over the top.
I think the hour-long format is hurting the show. They aren’t tight and they have things in it that just aren’t as funny. The Ryan thing is playing out weird to me. Maybe it’s his beard that just makes him look ridiculous.
One of the best moments was Pam and Jim’s little fake conversation where she said he repulsed her now. That was a nice little scene.
The episode was just average for me. They are trying to do too much. Focused on too many things. It used to be less about “relationship-y” plots and more about mundane office things. Now it’s Ryan-Kelly, Pam-Jim, Dwight-Angela, etc. Those things used to be more of an underlying plot than the main stories, which I think works better.
What did you guys think? And I totally off base?
Something screwy overall was going on. Since I primarily watch Smallville, the over the air HD feed was off and on (and I never have issues with it). Not sure what was happening, weather it was lingering storm or what, but i had issue not only with NBC last night, as I had to watch Smallville in regular ole non HD viewing…
You werent *totally* off base on The Office.
The beauty of the lake scene was that it was a single long shot and (I suppose) a single take of putting the car in the lake. Plus the actors did it themselves, which I found hilarious.
I feel like even though the episode runtime has nearly doubled, the number of jokes and gags havent.
I am excited for them to go back to 22 min.
You are right Adam, the lake scene was good that way, hitting the lake and getting out in the water was one shot and pretty cool at that.
Cap’n, I had Smallville problems too, the OTA kept skipping…like a record player jumping ahead. Was weird.
Wow Mikey, hating on the office esp after just 2 weeks! I think it’s been great so far, although I would agree that an hour is too much of a good thing.
The relationship stuff should run its course in the next few weeks. But I love the whole Ryan as boss and Micheal as sub-ordinate thing. I also really liked the whole ‘old school’ philosophy of customer retention/anti-technology part, that was classic Office.
And Creed rocks….’gotta ride the bull…later sk8ter’!
The Kelly “I’m pregnant” thing was funny too…there were some great, classic Office moments, but I just felt that some of it seemed like they tried too hard, and I’m just not used to it.