Secret Santa (30 Rock)
The episode featured appearances by actors Cheyenne Jackson as Danny Baker, Julianne Moore as Nancy Donovan, and Larry Wilcox playing himself.
The episode centered on a gift-giving contest between Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), Jenna Maroney's (Jane Krakowski) jealousy over new TGS with Tracy Jordan cast member Danny Baker's (Jackson) singing skills, and the writers—Frank Rossitano (Judah Friedlander), James "Toofer" Spurlock (Keith Powell), and J. D. Lutz (John Lutz)—coming up with a fake religion to get out of NBC page Kenneth Parcell's (Jack McBrayer) "Secret Santa" scheme.
Jack gets Liz a program from her performance of The Crucible framed in wood from her high school stage — and does not reimburse his office assistant, Jonathan (Maulik Pancholy) for fuel costs.
TGS producer Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) learns that the new actor on the show, Danny, is a talented singer.
[6] In November 2009, it was announced that actress Julianne Moore would guest star on 30 Rock as a love interest for Alec Baldwin's character, Jack Donaghy.
[7] Moore would later guest star in the episodes "Winter Madness", "Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter", "Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land", and "I Do Do".
[10] In one scene of this episode, Liz says "shark farts", and when asked about it in an April 2010 interview, Fey revealed that the term "was one that we ad-libbed that we ended up leaving in.
[12] Fey had seen Jackson in the Broadway musicals Xanadu and Damn Yankees, the latter that starred Jane Krakowski, who plays Jenna Maroney on the show.
In one scene of "Secret Santa", Kenneth has multiple arrangements of multicultural holiday decorations in his desk page, which includes a portrait of U.S. President Barack Obama "for the Muslims".
When Danny figures out sarcasm, he turns to the camera and says, "That went well", which Rick Mercer does in most episodes of the Canadian sitcom Made in Canada.
He appreciated Julianne Moore's appearance, but he found that some of the story lines, "though sprinkled with funny moments, were more successful as sweet tales made for the holiday.
"[18] Bob Sassone of AOL's TV Squad was glad to see Cheyenne Jackson's Danny back on 30 Rock, and noted that the plots concerning Jack and Nancy and Kenneth and the TGS writers, respectively, were "home runs".
[21] Entertainment Weekly's Margaret Lyons wrote that this episode "had some awesome Liz/Jack moments, a nice little storyline for Pete and Danny, and the invention of a whole new pizza-loving religion.
"[23] Meredith Blake, writing for the Los Angeles Times, found that television Christmas episodes generally tended to bring "an awkward shift in tone: All of a sudden, everyone's being nice to each other."
'"[19] Also, television columnist Alan Sepinwall for The Star-Ledger found that the episode compared unfavorably with the preceding one, but still enjoyed the showcasing of several minor characters, and the "tender holiday spirit".
