Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
Last night the hotly anticipated TV comedy “30 Rock” - better known at Chicagoist as The Reason That Tina Fey Left Saturday Night Live - finally premiered. We loved seeing Ms. Fey in the Weekend Update chair, so right off the bat we had some high expectations (and the show also features SNL alums Tracy Morgan and Rachel Dratch). It wasn't a perfect half hour, but we feel it's a promising start.
Its concept isn't much of a stretch: Fey plays Liz Lemon, head writer of a late-night comedy sketch show (!) called “The Girlie Show.” Everything is going just fine until a new network VP (Alec Baldwin) is brought in to vamp up ratings. Idea #1 is to bring loose-cannon star Tracy Morgan, err Jordan, onto the show since he appeals to the missing demographic of “males between 18 and 49.” And Dratch plays a cat wrangler.
Like we said, a thin concept. But who cares? It's funny. The writing is liberally peppered with double entendres, deadpan toss-off lines and other assorted goofiness. Baldwin is pitch-perfect and steals every scene he's in. We've often thought his gift for comedy woefully underappreciated, and in the first episode he gets plenty of room to show off the kind of steel-sharp line delivery that makes everything he says funnier (example: “Sometimes you have to change things that are perfectly good in order to make them your own”).
By now most people know that Fey and Dratch have strong Chicago connections. (At one point in the episode, Fey's character even mentions that she moved to New York from Chicago). In fact Fey apparently worked behind the counter at a local YMCA to pay the bills, and Dratch even failed her first Second City audition.
Another thing we liked about the show was its lack of a laugh track. “30 Rock” has plenty of funny moments, and last night we laughed out loud without any help from an unseen audience. We'll definitely tune in next week to see how the series settles in.
“30 Rock” airs Wednesday nights at 7 on NBC.
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I think NBC has a hit with this one. It has a ton of potential.
didnt see it. but studio 60 is turning into something of a yawnfest. so i will check this out.
Plus I hope to see more of Kevin Dorff (ex-Second City, current Conan O'Brien scribe) as the hot dog stand line-jumper.
it would have been even better if dratch's original role hadn't been replaced by jane krakowski.
This show is a lame combination of Arrested Development, The Office and its sister show "Studio 60." Baldwin just does Baldwin, which holds so little appeal anymore. Tina is a mediocre actress; the rest of the cast is as bland. I laughed twice the entire episode.
Tina Fey is much more suited for either sketches or one long jaunt (a la "Mean Girls"). Making a series that needs development is a little out of her reach, it seems.
http://charminggardener.blogspot.com/2006/10/30-rock-meh.html
I don't think 30 Rock has legs. I think it would do better if there was no Studio 60 - but in comparison, it comes off way too jokey.
I wanted to like it. I really did. Big fan of Tina Fey. But this really didn't feel like her. It actually felt very, very rushed.
I think my biggest problem with 30 Rock was that it couldn't seem to decide what it was - was it wacky? Was it smart? Who knows?
I'm willing to give it a few more episodes though. It got a handful of laughs out of me, but sometimes it just felt like it was trying too hard.
Oh, and for those of us who watched 30 Rock on a Tivo, we missed out on the fact that the tri-vection oven is a real thing.
From a friend's blog:
I had wondered if that was going to turn out to be real. I'm a little disappointed that it is; that bit was funny to me when I thought it was a made-up device. Discovering it was real, and being plugged, made it not only unfunny, but awkward.
I enjoyed the show but didn't care so much for the oh so subtle cross marketing of a GE product placement. The placement of the new GE oven within the show (as a prop for Alec Baldwin) and then 2 commercials for it during the show was just a bit over the top. I suppose they are trying to counter our use of TiVo and DVR to blast through the commercials. I know this is not the first show to do it, but it just felt like an obvious slap in the face during 30 Rock. Be more subtle bext time!