After seeing SeinfeldVision, I was fairly convinced no episode of 30 Rock's second season could improve on that kind of self-referential madness. How wrong I was: Rosemary's Baby is the standout of the show's second year, not to mention Alec Baldwin's golden ticket to receiving the Emmy Award he lost in 2007.
The episode kicks off with Liz attending a book-signing by Rosemary Howard (Carrie Fisher), a has-been comedy writer who greets Liz's offer to do some stuff for TGS with wild enthusiasm, although her racy ideas quickly clash with NBC standards and Jack's policy (even if he agreed to air a sketch about dog penises), leading to Liz's decision to quit and create a new show with Rosemary (a decision she regrets fast enough). Another problem tormenting Jack is Tracy's tendency to do the exact opposite of what people tell him (in this case: don't dogfight), an inconvenience he believes can be solved with therapy. Also, Jenna causes a mess with Kenneth, which almost degenerates into a trivia contest with the page's most bitter rival.
The appeal of the episode lies in how the actors are willing to make fun of themselves with all the ease in the world: Fey, of course, does that all the time, since the whole idea of the series derives from her experience at Saturday Night Live, but the major contributions come from Fisher and Baldwin: the former, a has-been in real-life as well, was Emmy-nominated for her loving deconstruction of her persona, on screen and off, culminating in the ultimate Princess Leia spoof ("Help me Liz Lemon, you're my only hope!"), beating the hell out of her equally smart cameo in Scream 3 (remember? She played an actress who didn't get the Leia part because she refused to sleep with George Lucas); the latter, almost always the funniest thing in the show, mocks his SNL impressions with a borderline mental therapy session scene where he ends up impersonating the most unexpected people (must be seen to be believed). Forget Glengarry Glen Ross or The Cooler: this is the definitive showcase of the full extent of his versatility. The well-deserved Emmy win confirms that beyond any doubt.