TV Recap: ’30 Rock,’ “Sun Tea”

Photo courtesy of NBC

Characters took the long view of their lives on this week’s episode of “30 Rock.” Liz wanted to buy a bigger place for the family she hopes to have some day, and Jack decided to have a vasectomy to save himself from the horrors of having a family some day.

Liz’s apartment building is on the verge of being transformed into condominiums, so she has to decide whether or not to buy her current small place, something totally incompatible with her vision of the future. Jack advises her to just buy the apartment above hers and turn the space into a second level, but to make this work she first has to convince the guy living above her, Brian, to get out.

She plans to move in with him and then get him to agree to leave somehow, but Liz can’t buy him out a la Jack, drive him off with drama queen antics like Jenna’s or scare him away with her fake black boyfriend (Dot Com playing astronaut Mike Dexter) per Tracy’s advice. Liz eventually sinks to the lowest level of all and gets rid of Brian by peeing in a jar – something Frank has been doing around the office.

Don Geiss’ family members are feuding over their stake in GE, leading Jack to the conclude that the best thing to do is get his vas deferens snipped so no future progeny can tarnish his legacy in the same way. Tracy comes along for the ride after being thwarted in an attempt to tell a strip club joke by the presence of his young son, Tracy Jr. Tracy is on the operating table when Jack realize he does want kids – he comes to this conclusion while helping Tracy Jr. with his homework – and both procedures are called off.

I always enjoy the episodes where Jack and Tracy bond over their daddy issues, though this time the storyline felt like it was blown through pretty quickly and insubstantially. Jack has been vehemently anti-kid through the whole series, and it seems very slapdash to have his whole worldview rocked by one conversation with Tracy’s son, especially when Jack has had much more significant, un-life changing interactions with children before. We all remember when he and Tracy coached little league, right?

In fact, none of the storylines in this week’s episode felt very substantial, something I blame on the addition of the green-week mandated focus on Kenneth’s attempts to reduce NBC’s energy use. Though I like seeing characters other than the big two get screen time (especially when one of those characters is Kenneth), I thought the focus on him drew attention away from the main action revolving around Liz, Jack and Tracy, and didn’t add many laughs. Oh, and Al Gore was back. Woohoo …

I had a flashback to my childhood when Kathy Geiss’ lawyer turned out to be Teddy Ruxpin. The only thing I really remember about my toy is that it had a faulty battery door and sometimes its giant, creepy eyes would scare me at night.  

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