What has happened to you, 30 Rock?  You’re like that best friend in middle school who, as soon as we got to high school, ditched me for the Abercrombie & Fitch crowd.  Why?!  Were our jokes not cool enough?  My clothes not fake-torn enough?  Why have you changed?  I used to like you, but now you’re like Diet Snapple – just unsatisfying.  (That’s right, I said it.)

What has happened to Tracy?  His troubles used to be things like people thinking he’s normal, not getting home on time for role-play, getting chased by the Black Crusaders, and having his meat machine spray hot oil on people.  Now he’s having marriage problems because his wife is mad at him for going to a strip club.  I don’t buy it!  Tracy went from living in an ultra-realistic celebrity world to living in boring old reality.  If I need reality, I’ll watch CSPAN.  But I don’t want reality, I want Tracy to go on Dr. Phil, or to have Dot Com make a time-machine out of 8-tracks.  I don’t want to see him with divorce issues.   Give me more!

Jack used to have all the answers.  He was that character that we knew was always right and, for that, we love to hate him.  Now he’s just vulnerable to everything.  His heart attack makes him a limping gazelle near a pack of lions.  He can’t even keep it together for Jerry Seinfeld.  (No disrespect to Jerry but I never got the “intimidating” vibe from him.)  Like Tracy, Jack’s problems are now just run-of-the-mill for a TV exec.  Someone who’s trying to get the same job as you is doing underhanded things to embarrass you?  No…I don’t believe it.  And I wouldn’t have minded the whole cookie jar incident, but again it just leads to Jack being vulnerable.  The other times when Jack was vulnerable, it led to a story or at least a little bit of interaction between characters.  For instance, when Jack couldn’t act, Liz was there to be part of it.  Again, when Jack was going through his divorce, Liz and Tracy were there to support the scene.  With the cookie jar thing, Kenneth had a 2-min scene with him about it.  That’s it.  And Steve Buschemi was just sort of weird.

Hey, where’s Rachel Dratch?

Now for Liz.  I have a big gripe when Liz loses her tooth.  …  Yeah I don’t know what happened either.  It just drops from her mouth and none of the writers on 30 Rock cared to explore that anymore.  From season 1, we know that Dr. Spaceman is a pretty good dentist.  Couldn’t he have done something?  And when there’s a joke about how Liz hasn’t set up her home office yet, they cut to a clip of her home office still in the boxes.  Some advice: you don’t need to cut to another clip if it provides nothing more than we expect.  There’s nothing funny about seeing the expected, especially when it’s just boxes.

Liz needs to do some soul searching.  Let her go to yoga looking for peace and tranquility, then let her find Jack in spandex.  And let the yoga instructor be Rachel Dratch.  Then she can go in the self-help aisle and find Dr. Spaceman’s book entitled “Finding Inner Peace With Your Piece” and he can be pictured there with some semi-automatics.  Let Liz do the boring and mundane things but then make them go wrong somehow.

I like Jenna.  She’s still in her own little world of fame.  I’m concerned about Kenneth.  I’m worried that he’s going to talk too much and we’ll find out too much about him.  Please don’t complicate Kenneth.  He’s such a simple boy.  I wish the other writers in the show had a part.  I miss Toofer, Frank and Josh.  Again, where’s Rachel Dratch?

Let us hope that 30 Rock comes back around.  Those Abercrombie & Fitch kids don’t care about you.   They just need you for profiling purposes.

Jack mentions “The Liberty”, referring to the New York Liberty WNBA team.

Jack calls Liz a “clintonista”.

Whoopi Goldberg is a woman.

The biggest mirror was actually this large (?)

When Toofer and Tracy are thinking of a skit, Frank is reading a magazine about butts.

Jenna and Liz go to Duvet.

Check out Urban Dictionary’s definition of izzle.

Havard really has an a capella group called the Krokodiloes.

Liz mentions the Carlyle Group, UNICOW pipeline, and assassination of Olof Palme.

Liz says you can put a long blond wig on a ferret and it would look like Jessica Simpson. What do you think?

In the bar, Liz sings “At Seventeen” (Janis Ian).

The 1986 World Series was between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. The Mets won.

Dennis refers to women’s liberation as “new”. It’s really not that new.

Tony Blair was the prime minister of the UK. Bashar Al-Assad is the president of Syria.

Some of the pros on Liz’s list are “rarely wants to do it”, “is funny when he goofs on his friends”, “loyal”.

Some of the cons are “dental hygiene”, “catholic”, “I don’t like his mother”, “his mother doesn’t like me”, “loves Family Guy”.

Star Jones had gastric bypass surgery in 2003, according to Wikipedia.

Kandahar is in Afghanistan.

Abu Ghraib is a city in Iraq.

When Dennis comes over, Liz turns on Dateline NBC with Chris Hansen.

- Is trusted by Jack

- Believes medicine is not a science (Ep.7)

- Has wildly experimental treatments (Ep.7)

- Is also a dentist (Ep.7)

The movie time stamp says C. Affleck (perhaps a reference to Casey Affleck) and Tom Houghton (was cinematographer for this episode of 30 Rock).

Stone Phillips is an anchor on “Dateline NBC”.

ShopRite is a supermarket chain.

David Hasselhoff is a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent.

Conan calls Jack a “black Irish bastard”.

Bryn Mawr is a college in Pennsylvania.

Does giving blood burn calories? According to the Mayo Clinic, it does!

There is a GE toaster in back of Pete in Jack’s office.

Liz tells Kenneth to go to 46th and 8th. There doesn’t seem to be much there.

Jenna prettier than Debra Messing?

When Dennis is talking to Liz about buying concert tickets, he’s standing near Best Value Electronics – 6 W 14th St.

Tracy acts like Chewbacca – one of many Star Wars references in this series.

According to a quick search done on Google, there are still several stores that appear to sell beepers.

The song that Liz sings when Jack walks into her office is called “Maybe” and is from the musical Annie.

Stone restaurant doesn’t appear to exist…perhaps it’s just unlisted.

Jack Welch was the CEO of GE.

007, like Jack, often wore tuxedos.

Dennis’ tie is a clip-on.

There really are a lot of rats in New York City.

There are beauty products with shark chondroitin in them.

Rat kings might be real!

Liz Taylor scream “White diamonds!” This is her perfume line.

James Blunt doesn’t have a lot of hit songs to sing.

When Liz enters Tracy’s dressing room when he’s sleeping, a Who Dat Ninja poster is near the door (though “ninja” appears to be spelled wrong).

Wayne Brady has won Emmy’s for “The Wayne Brady Show” and “Whose Line Is It Anyway”.

August Wilson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright.

The New York Islanders don’t have a very good record.

While Jack is speaking with the writers about product integration, Liz exclaims “We’re not your shills.” A shill is a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.

Jack sarcastically says the writers are artists like James Joyce (one of the most influential writers of the 20th century) and August Strindberg (one of the fathers of modern theatre).

According to this, Holland’s national dog is the Keeshond.

Frank says he’s got a friend in accounting named Lando Calrissian. Lando is a fictional character from Star Wars.

In 1999, Sweden graduated about 41% of students from secondary schools. According to this, in 2001, Philadelphia graduated about 70%. Chicago, the study found, graduates 47 percent of its students; New York, 54 percent; and Los Angeles, 56 percent.

See a clip of Nixon’s “Sock it to me”!

When Jack says to Liz, “You’re such a Monica” he’s referring to Monica on Friends.

When Liz talks to Tracy, there’s a picture in his dressing room which looks like Tracy on Conan O’Brien.

- Her mom is about 38 (Ep.6)

There are lots of references to Star Wars and politics throughout the episodes.

Many names that are affiliated with NBC are mentioned in the show.

Learn more about six sigma!

Frank thinks that six sigma is a special type of GI JOE. Although there is no “six sigma” GI JOE, there are a bunch of special ones.

Jack’s story in the writer’s room mentions “Brokaw”. Tom Brokaw is a former NBC news anchor.

Yankee Stadium is about 8 miles away from 30 Rock. This is about 17 minutes if driving.

Jack says he was at a luncheon for Ann Coulter’s 60th birthday. Ann Coulter was born in 1961, making her about 46 years old.

When Liz and Pete talk about going to apologize to Jack, Pete presses the down button on the elevator, but Liz says she hates going “up to Jack’s office.”

Much of Liz and Pete’s conversation before going to Jack’s office references Star Wars.

On his bike ride home, Kenneth sings “There’s No Business Like Show Business”.

- Went to White Haven High School (Ep.3)

- Taught improv to senior citizens (Ep.4)

- Had boobs humped on jumbo screen by Dennis during the playoffs (Ep.6)

- Is 35, single, has no children, and has had 3 sexual partners in the last 10 years (Ep.7)

- Is left-handed

- Lives in apt. 3B (Ep.8)