Written by:
Rae • April 2nd, 2008 • Filed Under: Uncategorized
My Netflix queue is a weird place. For a long time, it was nothing but TV shows. Then suddenly I had a bunch of movies I wanted to see and now I’ve cycled back to the shows that were building up at the bottom of the queue.
Since I’ve staggered things so that I’m not just stuck with one show to watch at a time, I decided it’d be good to keep track of my progress though each series. One is a show that all of the RTVW contributors have tried to convince me to watch over and over again, 30 Rock. The other is a show I loved when it was on the air and am currently trying to decide if it’s worth buying on DVD (I can’t ever seem to find it on sale making an impulse buy unlikely so I need to be sure I really want to pay full price for it), Popular. Let’s take a look at my thoughts on each after the first disc of each series.
30 Rock, S1, Disc 1: I need to admit up front that I rarely find Tina Fey funny. I’m aware that this makes me a freak among society but I can’t deny the truth. This a huge thing to struggle with when she’s not only playing the lead character but is also the creative force behind the show. I don’t get a lot of her humor at all and, so far, that hasn’t changed. The only episode I really found all that funny on this first disc was “Jack-Tor” and it was mostly the Snapple bit at the beginning that won me over. I find very little to like about Tracy but his pretending to be illiterate in that episode just to get out of having to work so much was amusing. At the moment, Jack and Kenneth are the two characters I actually enjoy. Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of a network suit is pitch perfect and there’s just something about Jack McBrayer that makes Kenneth (a character I would normally hate) work. Still, I’m hopeful that maybe I’ll start to see what everyone else loves and I’ll warm up to Liz once the second disc arrives.
Popular, S1, Disc 1: I’ll admit that for a minute or two there in the first two episodes on the disc, I wondered if my memories (and, therefore, my love) for this show were so hazy that I had forgotten what it was actually like. That was until the second half of the second episode started and the show became everything I remembered. Not that the pilot didn’t have some great moments but the show hadn’t quite found it’s feet yet so the things I remember so well weren’t quite in place. By the time I was done mainlining the disc, I was annoyed that I couldn’t immediately pop in the next disc. The only extras included on this disc were some trailers, which are naturally quite outdated but amusing nonetheless for the flashbacks you’ll experience watching them, and audio commentary on episodes. Stupid me, I completely forgot that I was going to be reviewing the DVD set so I forgot to watch the commentaries (and I think it was just one, on the pilot episode) but I promise to watch and report on the ones available on the rest of the discs! Overall, I’m really enjoying re-watching this series. I was going to comment on how quickly I became invested in the lives of these teenagers but I can’t honestly say if that’s true. After all, I have fond memories of them and that may be why I felt like I knew them right from the get-go this time. Still, I think the show does a pretty good job of making these kids seem real and that’s why you care about what’s happening to them. Some of the more “villainous” characters are still a little two-dimensional in these first few episodes and I’ll let you know if that changes as the season progresses.
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After hearing raves for years about Popular, I broke down and watched S1 last year. It was good, but not great for me. Maybe I just had such high expectations there was no way it could live up to them. I was a bit disappointed and never checked out S2, even though it did have the awesome Chris Gorham.
I watched the 30 Rock pilot when it originally aired and hated it. Ick. I even like Tina Fey well enough. I think it was Tracy’s character who turned me off and I just didn’t think it was funny. Now I know I should have stuck with it, but there was too much else to watch and I got such a bad first impression. But now that everyone worships it and it has won awards, I wonder if I made a mistake writing it off.
I didn’t like 30 Rock all that much early on, but I stuck with it & they got better. The first few episodes still feel pretty awkward when I go back & watch them now, but I appreciate them because I know where they lead.
Hmm, you have intriuged me with this Popular show. I think we actually get it in repeats here, so I’ll have to track it down and see what I think. Thanks for sharing the rec.
I didn’t like the first half of S1 of 30 Rock. I watched the first 3 eps. and then dropped it. It wasn’t until we caught it one night a few months later that we both got back into it. And I still don’t like Tracy Jordan AT ALL. But I like the show well enough to keep watching despite him. Jack is just too funny.
Laura: I can see how it would be disappointing after so many people gushing over it. I don’t think it’s nearly as… hmm, intelligent as people label it. I’ve always felt that Freaks and Geeks, though I do love it, isn’t quite the masterpiece people claim it to be either. I can freely admit that it’s hard for me to watch it and not be reminded of the things I loved when I first watched it… so it’s hard to judge what I’d think of it now.
The thing about 30 Rock is that I think you’d be ok coming into it without having seen the rest of the show. So you could always give it a try again if you think you’re missing out. Maybe that’d even be better than what I’m doing? Because I’m not all that motivated to keep going even though everyone keeps saying it gets better.
Good to know, sarah! That is what everyone keeps telling me so I’ll stick with it. I really do want to like it. It’s hard when everyone loves a show you don’t watch!
Jo, I think you may like Popular. Just try not to go in expecting too much. Is that possible at this point?
Ok… good to know it was the entire first half you didn’t like. I never know how long it was before people really started loving it. I should ask Greg how long it took him as well. Tracy is an issue, he’s a little one-note I think, but I can mostly ignore him… I have the second disc now so I’ll be watching that this weekend. We’ll see how it goes!
[...] 30 Rock Update: Life slowed down my netflixing in the past month but I finally got around to watching the second disc of the first season of 30 [...]