How to Spend $20

By Eric Hughes

September 22, 2009

It's all fun and games until Tracy goes crazy and destroys them all.

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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP's look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: Surprise, surprise. 30 Rock again wins Outstanding Comedy at the Emmys. Something tells me David Mumpower is cowering in a corner somewhere.

Pick of the Week

For people who want to go to there: 30 Rock: Season Three

30 Rock underwent what I'll coin Will & Grace syndrome in the early parts of its junior season on NBC. The laffer simply had too many stars wanting to make an appearance on the show, and clearly fashioned makeshift ways to get their mugs on camera. (Remember when folks like Hall & Oates were guesting on W&G? What was that?! On 30 Rock, everybody from Oprah Winfrey to Megan Mullally, from Jennifer Aniston to select cast members from Night Court landed spots on the show. (In an episode, no less, appropriately titled, "The One with the Cast of Night Court", which is a play on how Friends episodes were titled). And we haven't yet covered Steve Martin and John McEnroe, among others.

But once all that stunt casting, jumping the shark business was out of the way, Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy returned to the office, where the show's bread and butter – secondary characters, pop culture jabbery and the like – finally got its chance to shine. (And better yet, absolutely thrive). The season turned out to be just as good (if not better than) the series' second season, which is generally considered 30 Rock's best. Highlights include a Jack Donaghy look alike portraying a telenovela superstar, multiple-episode guest arcs by Salma Hayek, John Hamm and Elaine Stritch and the promise of a fourth season, announced before NBC aired 30 Rock's eighth episode on January 15th.




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In case you missed it, 30 Rock won Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys Sunday night on CBS, having won the prize for every year that it has been eligible. For those who have yet to add this one to their TV viewing rotation... well... it's high time you get on that.

Disc includes: Audio commentary, deleted scenes, Behind-the-Scenes with The Muppets featurette, 1-900-OKFACE featurette, season finale table read, The Making of "He Needs a Kidney" featurette, photo gallery

For people who could have sworn they saw Seth Rogen riding around in a Segwey (better watch that trailer again – he never does!): Observe and Report

In the battle for the better of the two silly comedies about an obese, white male who a) works mall security, b) has his eyes on a cute blonde who works at the mall c) lives with his mom and d) has dreams to get the promotional bump up to the big leagues – I mean really, could Observe and Report and Paul Blart: Mall Cop be any more similar? – the Seth Rogen-starrer decidedly comes out on top. (If only because it's more foul-mouthed, ridiculous and thankfully doesn't transform itself into a mediocre, kidvid-like heist film about midway through its runtime like Paul Blart did).


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