the special due to its focus on NBCUniversal's streaming service, Peacock, which these owners believed could siphon viewers away from their stations. Certain affiliates did not air the episode, while others delayed it from its networked timeslot until the graveyard slot. The following day, it was made available on the NBC website and Peacock, and aired in primetime as part of a "roadblock" simulcast on several of NBCUniversal's cable channels. Cast For the special, the entirety of the main cast of the series returned, as well as several recurring cast members. The special also saw the appearances of several stars from different NBCUniversal television properties. Reception Critical reception The special received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 31% approval rating based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 7.33/10. The website's critical consensus is, "It's fun to see the gang back together, but this One-Time Special has a little too much corporate synergy and not enough of the show's sardonic wit." It holds a score of 49 on Metacritic based on 13 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". LaToya Ferguson of The A.V. Club commented upon the nature of the special given the show's recurring themes and in-universe portrayals of NBC itself, explaining that "a blatant hour-long commercial for television is technically the natural progression for the story 30 Rock told, which allows the special to somehow reach an even higher level of meta inception than it already had". Ferguson also praised the "seamless" nature of its videoconference-based scenes, and argued that although it was not the best episode of the series as a whole (if it could be considered an episode at all), "the fact that the story in between the ads actually works as a passable episode of 30 Rock only helps the special to do the job it’s really supposed to be doing: selling NBC Universal to advertisers (and viewers, as a distant second)."" Ratings Preliminary ratings indicated the special episode scored a 0.4 rating in the 18–49 demographic, with an average of 2.49 million viewers in the 8–9 p.m. timeslot (averaging 0.4 and 2.8 million in the first half-hour and 0.3 and 2.1 million in the second). Final ratings, which accounted for local preemptions (in what is believed to be 60% of NBC's affiliates), revised the episode's audience down to 0.2 and 878,000 viewers (beaten by a Superstore re-run in the