30 Rock Live Show II: Electric Boogaloo - "Live From Studio 6H"

Season 6, Episode 19

When I first heard that 30 Rock was planning on doing another live show as part of this season, my first response was an incredulous “why?” Last year’s live episode of was a grand experiment, sure – with an emphasis being placed on “experiment”. While I recall enjoying that episode quite heartily, my enjoyment was mostly existent on the same reason that the show tried it in the first place. It was formal experiment that was a marvel to watch the show pull off, but I was still aware of the shortcoming of the episode. And as the weeks passed, I think remembered the stepped-on lines, slower pace, and relative lack of gags more than I did the joy of laughing along with a live audience. In short, “Live Show” may have made for a great episode of television, but it made of for a terrible episode of 30 Rock. With that in mind, “Live From Studio 6H” would have to prove it’s worth, because the thrill formal experimentation alone wasn’t going to cut it. To my surprise, the episode did prove it’s worth and this live episode ended up being better than the first.

If you may recall, “Live Show” was only somewhat interested in using the live format to inform the story that was being told. Granted, there were the requisite meta jokes about the change in format (because this is 30 Rock after all), and Tracy’s forced attempts at “breaking” were an acknowledgment on the show’s part about the dangers of doing live television. However, so little of the episode’s narrative was concerned with what “going live” meant, that there was an obvious cognitive dissonance between the format and the narrative. (It was this dissonance that only helped to highlight how poorly suited the live formats it to 30 Rock’s sense of humor.) Sure, it made sense given in the sense that the show-with-the-show “TGS” was a live show, but given how all previous episode about that live show were filmed in advance, there was no real connection to cling to.

“Live From Studio 6H”, however, was able to use the live format to comment of the characteristics of live television – specifically by using the episode as a sort of history lesson for the various phases and iterations of the live show. This essentially meant that the episode boiled down to a series of sketches with a framing device connecting them all together. This should feel like a knock against the episode – and in fact, this episode was once again struck with the same problems of pacing and timing, which only seem more apparent with this second iteration. However, by turning the show into something more like an episode of SNL rather than an episode of 30 Rock, it allowed for more breathing room, and the various cameos didn’t feel like such a distraction as they did the first time around.

It of course helped that the various show spoofs – or sketches, if you prefer – was how solid they were at spoofing their source material. “The Lovebirds” was great at mocking the casual violence against women of the 1950s. “The Joey Montero Show” was a send-up of the self-centered nature of famous celebrities. “Alfie and Abner”, which was perhaps the strongest of all of these segments, and was a great commentary on the racism of the 1950s, including a great performance by Jon Hamm in blackface. “The Gruber Brother and Nipsy” and “The NBC News Special Report” were both great representations of 70s entertainment. There was of course certain limitations to these sketches, as they were really only focused on the 50s and 70s. (Granted, that’s because 60s television wasn’t all that great, and the form was mostly dead by the 80s.) Additionally, they seemed to feature Baldwin and Fey more than the other players.

There’s no doubt all sorts of justification for why the second live show was so much more successful than the first – starting with the obvious fact that the writers were more comfortable with the live format, and could write to an episode that reflects that. Regardless, this was a much better live episode than the previous, and I hope that if they try doing another one, they take the lessons they learned here about what makes one of these things work.

Other Thoughts:

Of all the performances, Kristen Schaal’s was perhaps the best, which is surprising given how she’s only been on this show for this season.

I also loved how Fred Armisen’s role in the episode was essentially “Notable Background Extra”, given how many times he popped up during the twenty-two minutes.

Differences between east and west coast airings: Kim Kardashian took over for Paul McCartney’s cameo. In “Gruber Bother” sketch, Baldwin played a Nixon impersonator in the east coast airing, and a gay man in the west. Brain Williams replaced Jon Hamm during the breaking new segment, although with the same lines. Not to mention a varied of changed one-liners.

But perhaps the weirdest difference was how much lighter the audience laughter was in the west coast airing (perhaps due to it being the same audience), which is sad considering that the cast seemed much more on their game the second time around.