Stream It Or Skip It: ‘30 Rock: A One-Time Special’ On NBC, Where NBCU’s Upfront Is Presented By Liz Lemon And Company

Just about half the country didn’t see 30 Rock: A One-Time Special when it aired on Thursday night. After we watched it, we got why. Even though it serves as NBCUniversal’s 2020 upfront, the presentation they traditionally give to advertisers in may to get them to buy ad time “up front”, ahead of the beginning of the season, there’s quite a lot of it devoted to NBCU’s new streaming platform Peacock, which the affiliate owners were not happy with. But was the reunion of Tina Fey’s 2006-13 series funny enough to make you forget you were watching an infomercial?

30 ROCK: A ONE-TIME SPECIAL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) seems to have adapted quite well to the pandemic, as she has no problem shaming someone for not wearing a mask. She even has a second layer that’s got a picture of her screaming mouth on it.

When she gets back to her apartment, she sees some muffins, and gets a FaceTime from her old boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). He’s retired, lounging around at his estate. He tells Liz that the current NBCUniversal chairman, former page Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer) wants Jack to oversee a reunion of TGS as a way to promote NBCU’s new property, Peacock (more on this later). Liz wonders if Friends is on the streamer, but gets slapped by a feature on Jack’s “iPhone 40.”

Even though Liz is out of TV and doesn’t really want to deal with talking to her former writers or actors, but she’s also getting pushed around by her teenage daughter and Jack thinks it would be good for the “otherwise unemployable” staff to get working again, for the economy’s sake. She first reaches out to Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander), Lutz (John Lutz) and “Toofer” (Keith Powell), who doesn’t want to be called that anymore. She reaches out to producer Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit), who’s become a middle-aged rocker. Then she reaches out to Jack’s old assistant Johnathan (Maulik Pancholy), who now produces horror movies.

Next, she does what she’s been dreading: Reach out to TGS stars Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski). Tracy is living in Canada with huge fish tanks everywhere, and he doesn’t really act anymore; he just reads the dictionary in front of a green screen. Jenna has been “cancelled” after pooping in Mandy Moore’s thermos. Liz tried to get other NBCU stars to replace Jenna but Jenna desperately Zoom-bombed a call between Liz and Khloe Kardashian and convinced Liz to cast her.

Liz gets everyone together and they call Kenneth, who has a very familiar looking assistant named Vivica. He doesn’t want a TGS reunion, he tricked everyone into calling in so he can guilt them over not attending his TGS reunion parties on Zoom. He “bloops” everyone off in favor of his NBCU “friends” like Dwayne Johnson and Al Roker. The next day he plays charades with more NBCU people, including Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Andy Cohen, Mike Tirico and more. But he’s not happy at how they laugh at all his stupid lines and never tell him the truth.

To make up for the slight, Liz, Jack, Tracy and Jenna plan to Zoom-bomb him (even though they’re using Webex) on his upfront presentation to advertisers. He brings them into a private room and asks Liz and Jack to be honest about the shows he picked for the new season. To his surprise, they love what he picked.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of?: 30 Rock if it was married to an NBCU upfront infomercial.

Performance Worth Watching: Every scene where McBrayer plays both Kenneth and Vivica, who will forever be in love with her boss, we laughed out loud. It was one of the consistently funny parts of what’s essentially a long commercial.

Memorable Dialogue: Nothing super memorable, except for maybe Mandy Moore being shamed by Jenna into singing that she forgives Jenna for pooping in her thermos.

Our Take: Listen, we were warned that 30 Rock: A One-Time Special was going to serve as NBCUniversal’s upfront. So anyone disappointed with the fact that this remotely-produced reunion special was rife with NBCU references, agonizingly long self-promotional ads for NBC’s new fall shows, Peacock’s debut, NBC Sports and other NBCU properties should have seen stuff like that coming. That’s why DVR’s with one-minute skip buttons were invented.

Maybe it’s because we’ve sat through NBCU and other network upfronts live in New York before, but we’re much happier with how this upfront was presented instead of the puff-fests that are presented in New York every May. Still, as a true reunion for 30 Rock, it was a bit thin. Sure, there were laughs to be had, from Tracy’s fish tanks (which are a real part of Tracy Morgan’s real house) to Jenna’s co-opting of the 7 PM essential worker cheering for herself, to Jack’s hatred of retirement. Fey even gave Liz a little bit of a reckoning for the show’s checkered racial past.

But Liz is still Liz — she eats blocks of cheese and hates her husband’s affection — Jack is still Jack, etc. Everyone slipped back into their characters so easily that it would have been a shock if the show was completely devoid of laughs. But, unlike the Parks and Rec reunion whose production earlier in the lockdown seems somewhat primitive compared to what 30 Rock did, there were no warm and fuzzies here. This was pure commerce, something that the show used to make fun of. But they made it work.

Oh, and the NBC fall previews were interesting. Kenan consisted of a Zoom call between Kenan Thompson and co-star Don Johnson. The L&O: Organized Crime promo was just old scenes of Chris Meloni and Mariska Hargitay on SVU. Debris looked pretty boring. The only one that looked remotely interesting was Ted Danson’s show Mr. Mayor, whose EPs are — you guessed it — Tina Fey and her 30 Rock showrunning partner Robert Carlock.

Our Call: STREAM IT, if only for seeing some well-loved characters again. Yes, it’s an infomercial and yes, the NBCU ads during the “commercial breaks” are pure puffery. But there are more than enough funny moments to keep you watching. Just keep your finger poised over that one-minute skip button; you’ll need it.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream 30 Rock: A One-Time Special On NBC.com