30 Rock season 3 episode 7 review

7. Senor Macho Solo

The first episode of the new year sees Liz revisit baby frenzy, cooing and goo-goo-ga-ing over every baby and tot she sees. All she wants is to get her adoption plans back on track and let the mommy inside her emerge.

With his professional life now sorted, Jack wants little more than to get out of taking care of his recuperating mother, the mother he carelessly mowed down with his car just before Christmas. She’s been staying with him since her surgery and wearing his already thin skin thinner.

Jenna aches to star as Janice Joplin in an upcoming movie to expand on her own fame through Janice’s glory. She’s got the look and voice down, but urges Liz to be more like Janice by learning self-control. (Jenna clearly hasn’t yet made it through to the concluding chapters of the biography of the singer’s life.)

What each gets is far from what they crave…

Liz tousles the locks of what she thinks is a young boy waiting at an intersection, creating a situation where she’s forced to date a stranger, a ‘little person’ played by Peter Dinklage, because she can never admit she mistook him for a child. The kitty is out of the bag soon enough as she tries to keep him from scalding himself and makes other blatant maternal moves during their brief relationship.

Jack gets a gorgeous nurse, a guest-starring Salma Hayek, to care for his mother, but also gets a major medical scare when he finds a lump on his Jack sack. Fearing he’ll die, he falls in love with Nurse Elisa in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to partner up before he pops his clogs.

Jenna loses the biopic role to Julia Roberts, but does get to perform the part on TGS with Tracy Jordan – sort of.

Tracy’s usual, more meaty screen time was star-jacked by Jenna in a very well-performed storyline and song time, while his own problem of having too much money to spend took a back seat. But the few brief scenes and a flashback were full of Tracy brilliance and, together with the pursuits of the rest of the Rock cast, made for another fine, funny, outing of the show.

Memorable moments include:

Liz’s painfully poignant purse full of tiny, single shoes.

Jack’s take on Jenna’s bid for the biopic part: “By putting a TV actress into the movie world we can promote both. It’s like how we’re including a Heroes DVD with every missile guidance system we sell.“

Tracy’s salute to Benny Hill, his currency shirt and solid gold shoes.

Jack’s post-test results pondering: “Can two people fall in love over a benign gonad cyst?”

Jenna’s pre-rights approval protection performance as Janet Jopler singing Break Another Little Chunk of My Lung Now, Mister (pictured above).

“You know you bought it if life makes you sweet food.” I bought this episode from appetiser to dessert. Sweet stuff.

Check out our review of episode 6 here.

19 January 2008