For the past couple TV seasons, I've pretty much sworn off the half hour comedy format. I don't know if the genre has just gotten worse over time, or I've seen too many thousands of hours of it to be able to enjoy it anymore, but whatever the reason: sitcoms tend to leave me cold nowadays. I sample the odd few minutes of Two And A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, or (while it was still on) Everybody Loves Raymond, and it's always the same: telegraphed jokes, unlikable characters and humour aimed at the lowest common denominator. Or maybe I'm just too old for any sitcom that isn't The Simpsons. Whatever.
And then we tried out 30 Rock when it debuted earlier this month. It's the brainchild of, and stars, Tina Fey, from Saturday Night Live, who I've always enjoyed in her Weekend Update role on that show. So we put it on our Give It A Try list for the new season, and had almost forgotten about it by the time it started (it was by far the latest debuting of the new shows on our list). Fortunately, I hadn't really forgotten about it (actual lists, on actual paper, are a good thing!), and so we caught the debut around the middle of the month. And I proceeded to laugh more in that half hour than I normally would in a week of sitcoms!
It's hard to say exactly what works so well about 30 Rock. The premise is oddball, to say the least: Fey plays Liz Lemon, head writer and producer of The Girlie Show, a sketch comedy show that's doing OK in the ratings but has generally stayed under the radar of NBC execs, allowing Fey and friends to basically do whatever they think is funny. Then Jack Donaghy, hilariously played by Alec Baldwin, arrives from another GE division (where he revolutionized convection ovens by introducing a third type of heating) to take over as Lemon's boss and work his special magic on the show.
In the series debut, Jack sends a reluctant (to say the least) Liz out in search of movie funnyman and eccentric-to-the-nth-degree Tracy Jordan (played so over the top by fellow SNL alumnus Tracy Morgan as to almost seem like he's on a different show) as a guest star and potential new regular on The Girlie Show. Clearly modelled after Eddie Murphy, complete with gangsta entourage, but amped up beyond anything even Murphy could be accused of, Jordan's recent escapades include running down the freeway in his underwear screaming, "I am a Jedi!" and being found on someone's roof. It's quickly apparent he's not all there, and yet he has huge audience appeal as the cast of the The Girlie Show discovers when he makes a brief cameo. The studio audience goes nuts, and the ratings go through the roof. By the next day, the show's been renamed to TGS Starring Tracy Jordan, and Liz has to run damage control with the female lead (and her best friend) who's now relegated to second banana status.
The episode from this week had bossman Jack deciding that Liz needed a special someone in her life and so he took it upon himself to set her up with Thomas, a former co-worker of his. Liz fights the idea but since she's not doing so well on the boyfriend front lately, she eventually relents. After handing Liz a wad of money with which to go buy herself some better clothes for the date, he considers the dumpy outfit she's wearing and feels compelled to add, "... at a store that sells women's clothing." That evening, decked out in a drop dead gorgeous outfit, Liz heads out for her blind date, only to discover her date's with a Thomas alright: Gretchen Thomas. Jack had pegged Liz as a lesbian and so naturally set her up with his hottest lesbian friend, Gretchen. The two women quickly become fast friends, despite the lack of any romantic future for them, but even that's doomed when Gretchen realizes she needs to move on to someone with whom she has more prospects. Desperate not to lose her new friend, Liz offers to make a pact: If, in 25 years, they're still single, she'll try to play for the other team (so to speak) and, while she's not really into that lesbian stuff, she'll allow Gretchen to "do things" to her if that makes her happy! At which point, Gretchen walks, of course, throwing over her shoulder a parting shot of disgust that prompts Liz to exclaim, "Hey, wait, that's the same thing my boyfriends always say!"
Not sure if I've captured the feel of the show well or not, but three episodes in, I have to say I'm starting to love it! Tina Fey, in the tradition of Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore (but updated for 21st century sensibilities and sense of humours), isn't afraid to write herself into the most unattractive situations, all in pursuit of laughs. Her character's endearingly flawed in all the right ways. If you didn't love her, the rest of the show wouldn't work; but how can you not? After all, she was going to make a pact to let a lesbian "do things" to her rather than end up alone!
30 Rock. Mondays at 8:00, on NBC. Half an hour of pure fun!
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