Reception
On its original broadcast in the United States, "Episode 210" was viewed by 6.0 million viewers and earned a 2.8/7 in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. This means that it was seen by 2.8% of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 7% of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast.
Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Labrecque wrote "the episode really finished strong with a fabulous Gladys Knight musical number". Matt Webb Mitovich of TV Guide also praised the musical number, saying "that 'Midnight Train to Georgia' number at the end of tonight's episode... Wow. So out of nowhere and so fun." Bob Sassone of AOL's TV Squad said that the episode "was a good episode to go into the hiatus with, if that makes things better". He criticized the fact that the fictional TGS writing staff was not present in this episode, even though they could have been effectively used. Michael Neal of Television Without Pity awarded the episode a grading of A+. The Boston Globe's Joanna Weiss reviewed the episode positively, saying " concluded with a musical interlude that was both hilarious and wistful".
Despite the good reviews, there was no universal acclaim from critics as a whole. Robert Canning of IGN said that " wasn't the most spectacular half-hour from this truncated season" and "unfortunately, there wasn't all that much that was funny about it. Sure, there were a couple of decent one-liners, but overall offered up nothing new." Despite these criticisms, Canning added further praise to the "Midnight Train to Georgia" performance. Canning gave this episode a rating of 8.4 out of 10.
Edie Falco was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for this episode.
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