a priest, a politician, and an astronaut walk into a bar . . .

Alisabeth and I have been watching "30 Rock" on Hulu for a few months now. The first few shows were pretty consistently funny, but the last, I don't know, 5 shows or so have been hit or miss. Sometimes there's a joke that has an acceptable set up, and bearable timing and delivery, but the writing is so flat, cliched and unsipid that not only don't we laugh, but it breaks the spell. We get a little annoyed. It's as if you were watching a film performance of King Lear and in a scene cut they suddenly replace the cast with muppets. Ok, that's ridiculous, but you get the point. When the spell is broken, you haven't just thrown away a line, you've created a situation where you're behind the eight ball, where you have to rebuild the trust of your audience.

As a member of the audience I want consistent entertainment. There's just too much competition for my interest. If an entertainment source isn't producing, then I'm gone. It doesn't have to make me roll on the ground and laugh until I choke. In fact, it doesn't even have to make me laugh at all, but it has to keep me entertained.

So how do lines that fall down so hard make it into a show that is written and run by some very sharp comedic writers with a huge budget? For instance, there's a scene in the most recent episode, "Generalisimo", where a main cast member who plays an ambitious, egotistical actress meets a nurse who is helping to translate a telenovela script (that doesn't involve the actress), and offering ways to improve it to the another cast member (the head writer). The actress says to the nurse (to the best of my recollection)

"Are you an actress?" (because the nurse is beautiful)
"No," says the nurse.
"Oh, well if anyone ever tells you you should be an actress, don't listen to them."

That's it. That's the punchline of the over-long sequence. So what happened? Do writers just count on the actor making it work through timing, tone, and inflection and that when combined with the camera work, film editing, and soundtrack the joke will sell? I don't see it. Jokes can be very complex in that there are so many ways they can succeed and maybe even more ways they can fail. But in this case, I think the writers failed to give the cast anything they could use.

And now, for your entertainment: