Another creation of comic genius is a big part of this episode, as a dedicated hater of reality TV, I find the entire concept of MILF Island to be entirely hilarious. It’s a shame that it’s quite so close to reality, but that is part of the greatness of Tina Fey. The mixing in of the horribly scripted tension building parts of the MILF Island actually worked really well. They feel much more sensible as part of a show like this than they do in so called ‘reality’ TV. As always ‘reality’ is a horribly inappropriate term, all they mean is unscripted, the situations in reality TV are so incredibly artificial and the entire production seeks to create a storyline that can’t be formed from a script. The editing and commentary is intentionally designed to remove the reality, to create characters as artificial and caricatured as possible.
30 Rock creates characters brilliantly as well, and all the usual suspects had some excellent moments in this episode. I think this show is as good as any I’ve seen for subtle touches and moments that add humour without the need to be connected to anything else in the episode. The relationships are great in this show, and they don’t need any character to do a lot to feel like they’re a big part of the episode. Tracy was only in a small bit and yet was as funny and as strange as ever.
The Pete bit in the episode was cool, and though it felt derivative at times it still managed to be funny and a nice bit for that character. I tend to expect a bit more originality from 30 Rock though, and though things don’t always need to be connected I did start to wonder if the Pete stuff was there just to make up some time.