What I'm Watching: 30 Rock (Season Premiere)

30 Rock: Season 5, Episode 1 "The Fabian Strategy" (B+)

This show is off to a strong start and on my good side with this funny premiere full of very quotable lines. Perhaps it's how intelligently self-referential this show is: after last year's season opener was actually called "Season 4," this one is a bit subtler and has Liz announcing "Season five, here we go" right before the opening credits and features constant congratulatory references to the fact that they've made it this far. If this premiere is any indication of what the season to come is like, then that's a great thing, even though I know that the quality and enjoyability of this show does tend to ebb and flow. Returning to positives, however, I loved the fact that Liz could hear that Jack had a beard over the phone, and him buying out all the hotel rooms to force Carol to stay with Liz was pretty terrific and singularly typical of his character. Jenna's ridiculous conditions turned out to be pretty funny, and I liked the way she worked herself out of the job, which presented some hilarious desperate offers from the underused character of Pete. The comment that all the internal memos were being printed on the back of Pete's kids' art was also a funny line just tossed in there and quickly glazed right over. Tracy's hallucinations of Kenneth weren't overly distracting and actually turned out to be pretty amusing. The best line of the episode comes from Carol, a.k.a. guest star Matt Damon: "Emotions just happen to someone who changes altitude four times a day."