In what has to be one of the most agregious oversights in pop culture last year, Tina Fey’s excellent freshman sitcom 30 Rock languished at the bottom of the ratings while brain dead reality shows and game shows involving no skill dominated. America – If you’re complaining that there is nothing good on TV, you have no one to blame but yourself. Hopefully, with the first season now on DVD, you can get caught up before the second season premiers on October 4.
30 Rock was one of two behind-the-scenes-at-a-sketch-comedy-show offerings NBC had on its schedule last year. The other was the now-canceled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Perhaps confusion kept people away from 30 Rock or perhaps its poor scheduling against powerhouses like Survivor and Grey’s Anatomy led to it being overlooked. But it doesn’t subtract from the often witty, topical and sometimes absurd story lines. Whatever shape it takes, it’s always funny.
Fey, as the series producer, head writer and star, does an excellent job portraying the beleaguered Liz Lemon as a kind of post-modern Mary Tyler Moore. Things start to come off the rails when a brash network executive played by Alec Baldwin forces Lemon to hire an out-of-control movie star played by Tracy Morgan to spice up the show.
The initial premise of the show causes some interesting conflict from which comedy is mined, but it begins to drag somewhat when you realize that Tracy Morgan’s antics are best in small doses.
Some flashes of brilliance are seen in the series third episode “Blind Date” when Baldwin’s character sits in with the shows writers and is drawn into their weekly poker game. Cleaning everyone out thanks to his shark-like ability to “read” people. But when he is confronted with the eternally upbeat Kenneth, the studio page (Jack McBrayer) who he cannot “read”, he sets out to mentally destroy him.
However, it isn’t until the shows’ seventh episode that it really hits its lunatic stride. When Baldwin’s character puts Tracy Morgan on Conan O’Brien, it’s a race against the clock to put Tracy back on his medication before he repeats an unfortunately near-stabbing like he did the last time he was on Conan. Between executive producer Pete’s new-found self-confidence through wearing a wig, Tracy’s hallucination of a little blue man and the introduction of Dr. Spaceman (that’s pronounced “Spa-chem-in”), the series cements it’s stance in finding absurd laughs in everyday occurrences.
DVD extras in the collection are somewhat paltry. There’s your standard deleted scenes and blooper reel, but they just kind of sit there. The blooper real is wrapped up in a kind of fake “E! Hollywood Story,” which would have been better if they had seen the concept of the parody all the way through.
“An Evening with Kenneth” are a series of shorts that the actors made while in character featuring Jack McBrayer as Kenneth the page hosting his own late-night comedy show. A few chuckles, but nothing more.
What I was curious to see was the original pilot of the series that featured Rachel Dratch as Fey’s best friend and star of the show-within-the-show. But she was bumped by network executives and replaced by the acceptable Jane Krakowski. What’s the matter, NBC? Afraid we’d see the folly of your mistake?
It should go without saying that the extras are not the reason to buy this collection. Buy it for some excellent original comedy. Disciples of Arrested Development and The Office will find plenty to like here. With any luck, Baldwin’s Golden Glove for Best Actor and the series Emmy win for Best Comedy Series will help drag it out of the ratings quagmire for season two.
