After Weeks of Suffering, TV Strikes Back with Plenty of Content to Fill Out Its Season

30 Rock

With the re-emergence of a throwaway joke from months past, Tina Fey’s brilliant showbiz satire and all-around absurdist lark returned last week with an episode titled “MILF Island”—a tribute to trashy reality shows that makes exploitative dribble like The Moment of Truth look like... well, nothing can make The Moment of Truth look good. That point aside, the first post-strike episode of 30 Rock reveled in the parallels between the “I-didn’t-come-here-to-make-friends, I came here to be #1”-spouting MILF contestant DeBorah on the fictionalized reality show-within-the show and the increasingly desperate Liz Lemon (Fey) in her attempt to find someone to blame for her own gaffe—calling her own boss Jack Donaghy a “class-A moron” who can eat her poo. It all sounds very confusing, but that can be the joy of watching 30 Rock—a show that blends pointed jokes with broad humor, all the while rewarding longtime viewers with its knowing winks to episodes past and references to the medium of television at large. By the time sweet and innocent Kenneth the Page (Jack McBrayer) warns a rabid Liz that her eyes look like his uncle’s “after he would drink from the air conditioner,” something wonderfully bizarre, and more importantly, something right, in the television ethos has clicked into place. 30 Rock has returned, and it feels so good.
—Sam Bellikoff

The Office

With the return of The Office, viewers are taken away from the comfortable surroundings of Dunder Mifflin paper company to a dinner party at boss Michael Scott’s (Steve Carell) condo. The event turns out to be as awkward for viewers as it is for the party’s unenthusiastic guests. As Jim (John Krasinski) hides in the bathroom to craft an exit strategy, he remarks that his hosts seem to be playing a game called “Let’s See How Uncomfortable We Can Make Our Guests.” It seems like the writers are playing a similar game with the show’s fans. Normally, Michael’s position of power makes his pompous ramblings amusing—how is this guy everyone’s boss? But as host of a dinner party, Michael’s personal life is on display for all to judge. Absurd details about how he’s forced by his domineering girlfriend to sleep on a bench at the foot of their bed and how he broke their sliding glass door by running through it to chase the ice cream truck don’t come off as quirky, but pathetic. Glimpses into employees’ home lives can work—a barbecue at Jim’s house two seasons ago assured that he has a life besides wasting time at a paper company. A look into Michael’s life shows that he doesn’t.
—Ariel Karlin

Scrubs

New episodes of Scrubs are finally back, giving hope to premed students everywhere. The writers exhibited last Thursday that a few months of downtime won’t take the edge off their creative juices. As per usual, Turk (Donald Faison) and Carla (Judy Reyes) reinforced their love, J.D. (Zach Braff) and Eliot (Sarah Chalke) reinforced their awkward friendship, and both Doctors Cox (John C. McGinley) and Kelso (Ken Jenkins) reinforced their miserly roles as unhappy old men, all with a dose of potty humor and sly wit that makes us both laugh and shake our heads at the utter dysfunction. The show is progressing, with the added layer of Turk and Carla’s baby and increasing tensions between J.D. and Eliot. Each episode alludes to the fact that J.D. and Eliot are both single and actively working to repair a friendship damaged by respective relationships—this dance must be going somewhere, and we are sure to explode in fits of either giggles or tears sometime very soon (though perhaps no sooner than next year, where we might find the show on ABC for one last season). Thursdays are back: the mix of sweet and sour that makes Scrubs stick is finally upon us again.
—Shane Ferro