30 rock
the head and the hair (11/21)

Continuing tonight is the Golden Globe- and Emmy award-winning sitcom following the fortunes of long-suffering TV comedy writer Liz Lemon (Tina Fey). In this episode, Liz is confused when she meets the perfect man; Jack spends a day in Kenneth’s shoes; and Tracy recruits Toofer and Frank to help him write his autobiography.

Liz and Jenna have spotted two NBC executives wandering around the office, and have dubbed them ‘the Head’ – a balding, nerdy type – and ‘the Hair’, his knee-tremblingly good-looking colleague. When Jenna points out that the Head seems to be quite taken with Liz, Pete says: “ I think the Head sounds perfect for you right now. Low pressure, high nerd factor – come on!” Liz agrees to ask him out, but when she goes up to his floor to do so she comes face to face with the Hair – who confounds her expectations by asking her out! “Something is wrong with this,” she tells Jenna later. “I have upset the natural balance of things.”

Regardless, Liz decides to give dating the Hair a chance and accompanies him to a swanky party. “So...” she says nervously to the Hair’s haughty, trendy friends. “You guys been watching ‘Heroes’? I like the Japanese dude.” Then, when a waiter announces that the hors d’oeuvres are “boxes of pure oxygen infused with saffron and a white truffle oil”, it all gets too much. “I just wanna go home and watch that show about midgets and eat a block of cheddar cheese,” she tells Jenna mournfully on the phone.

When Liz walks out of the party, the Hair follows her and encourages her to come back. And when they later bond over a shared disagreement with a shopkeeper, it seems that they may have more in common that Liz thought. “This is new for me,” she says as she steps out of the lift straight into the Hair’s amazing apartment. “I don’t really hang out with superfluously handsome gentlemen in kick-ass elevator lofts.” When she admits that she is just waiting for something to go wrong, he reassures her: “Liz, I am not gay; I am not married; I do not have a human head in my freezer.” Those may all be true, but Liz cannot shake the feeling that there has to be somethingwrong with him...

Expectations are turned on their head elsewhere this week when Jack informs Kenneth that it is “corporate bottoms-up day” and announces that he will be spending the day peforming the duties of an NBC page alongside Kenneth. The mismatched duo’s first assignment is to peform an unsavoury medical procedure on Tracy’s pet snake, and then they have to clean the bomb-site that is newsreader Brian Williams’s dressing room. Jack cannot believe that Kenneth puts up with being treated like dirt, but Kenneth defends his job. “This,” replies Jack, indicating the carnage around him, “is not a job. This is an exercise in constant humiliation.” When Kenneth explains that he is living his dream by contributing to the “true American art form” that is television, Jack suddenly gets an idea...

Also this week, Tracy suddenly realises that his autobiography is due the next day and he has neglected to write it. He recruits Frank and Toofer to help him knock out the story of his life, but will they get it done in time – and can Tracy remember anything anyway?