HE'S EVIL TRACY? OH, HE'S EVIL COMMA TRACY. GO ON: Some people have called this a down year for 30 Rock, though I question whether it's a down year or we're just becoming overly accustomed to the show's pace, cadences, and characters.* However you feel about the season as a whole, though, I certainly hope you were looking forward to this year's installment of Everything Tracy Jordan Said, from Unlikely Words, because it's as good as I remember it.
*We've now had the show for four years, and I think the maximum ideal lifespan for a show is five seasons. Go ahead and think of a show other than The Wire or maybe BSG that ran five or more seasons and never had a creative drop-off or an extended period of mediocrity (and The Wire benefited creatively from both the short cable season and at least one extended hiatus). True excellence in a television show depends to some degree on a show's ability either to present us with something new or to present something in a new way. Comedy in particular requires an element of surprise, which must be extraordinarily difficult to maintain for 100-plus episodes without wholesale cast changes.
