TV in 2009: Most disappointing (veterans edition)

2009 was a pretty fun year for television viewers. From epic highs (Lost season five) to sad lows (Heroes season four) to programs that are a confusing mix of the two (Jersey Shore), things have at least been interesting all year. To celebrate, I’ll be spending the next week and change looking back at those highs and lows with various categories and fake awards that cover as many programs as I can. One final note: I don’t watch everything, so if your favorite or a program that we all know as “great” isn’t noted, it’s because I haven’t caught up yet.

Today — most disappointing returning program.Let’s get this out of the way right now: 30 Rock is still really, really funny. Every week I look forward to watching it and I end up laughing at least one or two times. But is that really all we’re supposed to expect from it at this point?

I had intended to note this one as the “most overrated,” but this fall the tide has turned against 30 Rock in a way that shows me that other people are catching on to the decline in quality over the past two seasons, so it’s not really overrated anymore. It surely didn’t deserve that Emmy it got for S3, but hey, what do the Emmys really matter anyway?

Obviously, 30 Rock has some major expectations to deal with, as the latter half of S1 and all of the strike-shortened S2 are the closest to Arrested Development excellence that comedy has gotten in recent years. But the direction the program has taken since the beginning of S3 and now into S4 is just so disappointing it hurts. People talk about 30 Rock as the epitome of comedy that’s so much better than the likes of Two and a Half Men, but really both feature extremely broad “characters” that do whatever the plot requires. Now, the former is clearly much, much funnier than the latter, but I think you get me.

In the past, Tracy and Jenna were outrageous characters, but still had some depth and reasoning behind whatever nutty thing they were doing. Jenna might have always been played too broadly, but Tracy was especially interesting because of his self-awareness about his career, his position as a black entertainer, etc. But for the most part, all of that is gone now. Tracy acts like a complete fool almost all the time, until randomly he acts completely sane when it fits the story. Meanwhile, Jenna continues to be overwhelmingly annoying and at this point only exists so that every episode she and Liz can fight about how they’re “friends,” and “friends don’t treat each other like this.” I no longer even believe that the two of them were friends at all, but instead hung around one another so that they could blame the other when something went wrong.

And that leads us to Kenneth. Oh, Kenneth. I think Jack McBrayer plays Kenneth the right way, but his earnest, naivety is only still charming in spots — which sucks because the writers have decided that “spots” means for a lot of the episode. Kenneth worked much better when he was hosting his own show in Conan’s studio in the episode-ending button. Like Tracy and Jenna, he hasn’t grown in any way.

I will give the show credit for pulling back on the guest stars this season, which was the primary failure of S3. They’ve also gotten back to some media/big business criticism and show-within-a-show stuff, another positive. But aside from the always charming Jack-Liz relationship, the writer’s incessant need to make every line a pun or joke just doesn’t work. The actors are good enough to deliver some of the ridiculousness the best that they can, but anymore, the best I can hope for from 30 Rock is one LOL moment and a few chuckles per episode — and that’s not good enough.

Past days of TV in 2009:

Most underrated