30 Rock’s hormones were raging this episode: At the start, in walks the new cast member — “Danny,” formerly Jack, formerly the Robot — and it turns out he’s a hunk. Canadian, but a hunk. And as soon as you find yourself asking, “What’s that aboot? ” flash to Jack (Donaghy, the one who renamed the new Jack Danny) and Liz Lemon sharing a shockingly intimate dinner: He predicts her every utterance, moves the candle so she won’t catch fire reaching for his dessert, and shoots her dolefully loving looks to rival King Kong. And we can’t help but love her loving it. It’s pure fan fiction, minus the part where he tells her to take off everything but her glasses.
When Jack offers Liz a Dealbreaker chat show, the things go from sexually tense to boringly adversarial. This pays one principal dividend: another weirdly real scene of heavy flirting, this time between Jenna, instigator, and Jack, opportunist. This was a fine episode, with Jenna and Tracy in classic dopey-duo form and a couple of great fantasy bits (Sports Shouting, hilarious; Sports Shouting with guest Tracy Jordan, priceless). But the Jack, Liz, and Jenna triangle felt like the funniest-ever Three’s Company episode squeezed into a couple of minutes. Wang!
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Jim Rohner at Film School Rejects is feeling the dynamic duo: “Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski are possibly at their strongest they’ve been so far this season.”
TV Fanatic says it’s “not the best 30 Rock has ever produced,” and quotes Kenneth (“Miss Maroney, your Mexican diet pills came. Should I start taking them to test their side effects?”).
Referring to the “Chinese copy of Dealbreaker written by ‘Lesbian Yellow Sourfruit,’” Laura Kelley of The Two Cents says, apparently without irony, “Oh, how I love Engrish translations.”
