User Reviews

And it is Christmas time again! Jack runs over his mother with a car and has to take care of her, she really drives him crazy so he arranges a Christmas Special for his show to be away from her. On the contrary Liz's family decides not to celebrate Christmas with her, so she goes for the Secret Santa program.

It is always great so see Jack's mom. Elaine Stritch and Alec Baldwin on screen together are priceless.Loved their arguments as well as the nice exchange at the end. And the fact that she was putting out to get toys for her kids is a great addition to the episode and their mother son relationship.

Again we see a bit of the selfish/evil Liz as she ends up telling the poor boys that there is no Santa. Very funny part.

It's easy to forget that 30 Rock debuted along with Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, both on NBC. The conventional wisdom was that Sorkin's series would survive renewal as there was only room for one. But we know 30 Rock survived and the rest is history.

I'm a sucker for Christmas episodes and this one from 30 Rock doesn't disappoint. Jack's reconciliation with his Mom was very moving, with them singing together in the impromptu Christmas special.

Liz decides to become a secret Santa because her family doesn't want her, Jack makes everyone do a Christmas special because he doesn't want to be with his mother who he accidentally ran over with his car, and that mother, Colleen, is proving to be such a nuisance to her son...As in the last episode, someone says he/she isn't going to die. In "Reunion", it was CEO Don Guiess, here it's Colleen. The back and forth between Alec Baldwin and welcomed back guest star Elaine Stritch are priceless. Seeing Dotcom and Grizz have more scenes were also pleasurable as they were last episode as well. And what a treat to not only see Jane Krakowski once again display her singing talents but Ms. Stritch as well. All I want to say now is, Merry Christmas to the cast and crew of "30 Rock". May the new year bring even more fans to this highly excellent comedy series!

So far season 3 of 30 Rock has been turning out great; I thought the weakest episode of the season would turn out to be Gavin Volure until Christmas Special came along; it's the weakest episode of the series since SeinfeldVision. In it, Elaine Stritch, who won an Emmy for playing the part of Jack's mother on this show, returns and Jack accidentally hits her with his car. He has to spend Christmas with her as she heals, but she proves difficult to get along with. Meanwhile, Liz buys presents for a poor family but comes to think she was scammed- the guys who took the presents might be selling them on the Internet rather than giving them to kids.

The problem? I've watched this episode three times now, and each time I've found that it's just not funny. That's foreshadowed in the beginning, where usually a joke is followed by the opening credits- here there is no joke at all, just the dramatic point of the car accident, followed by the credits. Part of the problem is that some of the jokes are lazy- Stritch calling Jack a girl must have been easy to come up with, it's been done before, and it wasn't funny. The Neverland Ranch joke was also just strange. Liz talking about how her parents weren't spending Christmas with her this year was more sad than funny.

So why am I giving this episode a passing grade? It's Christmastime so I'm being generous. Besides, even if the jokes don't work, it's not like the plot of the episode was bad. On the contrary, Jack's mother turning out to have slept with the owner of toy stores to get her kids presents was a nice twist. Christmas Special didn't have me ho ho hoing, but in terms of drama it's not a miserable failure.