Quick Thoughts: 30 ROCK, "I Heart Connecticut"

Before its break, 30 Rock gave us a pretty decent episode in "Plan B", so I was hoping that the show would be back with a vengeance. Rather than another solid outing, "I Heart Connecticut" was a decent outing with only a handful of great moments.

After some great Kabletown/network TV satire, Jack Donaghy aimed his sights on the movie making business, and the way the show poked fun at product placement and how executives can give so many notes that a creative work looks nothing like it did at the start was all good stuff. Heck, Jack was even able to turn a somewhat annoying Jenna story into something worth while, which is not an easy thing to do.

In a rare occurance, the Liz story started out strong but lost some steam towards the end. Watching her continue to deal with Tracy's absence had promise, and I'm always a fan of watching her interact with Griz and Dot-Com, but I started to lose interest when she and Kenneth actually went on their man hunt. Luckily, the resolution (her realizing that Tracy was in her apartment because of her sex-stain less futon and her convincing him to lose credibility by acting up) ended things on a high-note.

As always, the one plot that I didn't care for involved someone not named Jack or Liz. I get what the show was trying to do with Pete and his daydreams about being a strong winner, but I just don't care enough about him or his sadsack routine to get too invested in the C-plot. At least they used Pete, who can be interesting every once in a while instead of someone like Lutz.

"I Heart Connecticut" wasn't a horrible episode of 30 Rock thanks to Jack and Jenna (shocking, I know), but it wasn't completely on the ball either. Hopefully, the return of Tracy will reinvigorate the show, and we'll be in store for some brilliance over the next couple of weeks.