What I'm Watching: 30 Rock

30 Rock: Season 4, Episode 15 "Don Geiss, America and Hope" (B+)

I love the way this episode started out, with Jack holding a ridiculous press conference that devolved into an argument about which city is a better city than the next. The fact that Liz brought a snowball with her was funny, as was Jack lobbing a battery back at her. It's flat-out hilarious that the first thing cited about L.A. is Michael Bay. Having Liz and Wesley both go see "Hot Tub Time Machine" is a nice attempt to be hip and reference current events, though the film doesn't actually open until this Friday. Wesley asserting that it was not the science of the time travel but rather the science of the hot tub that doesn't make sense was great (he should know, after all, he's been in a hot tub twice). So many of the subtle differences in between Liz and Wesley were fantastic, including Wesley's belief that God is a woman and that a video camera is known as a film pod in England. The revelation that his full name is Wesley Snipes made for a truly stellar scene. Tracy's problems were a hoot, and the notion that he doesn't want people to know that he's not an adulterer is marvelously preposterous. Of course, this is the same guy who literally had a bat in a suitcase. Kenneth had his share of wacky references to his upbringing, like memories of being back at school learning about the dangers of bookreading and how his cousin in Atlanta is a business model and holds up staplers. Jenna comparing Tracy's situation to when she ate the pig who played Babe was quite funny. Jack the "master baiter" is a bit too obvious of a pun for me, but his end-of-episode speech fully excused that line. He may be the reason microwave trays rotate, but there's no matching Don Geiss, who invented the nightlight and spearheaded the campaign to make children afraid of the dark: "a monster under every bed." I love this show.