30 Rock

NYPress.com
FEY ACCOMPLI
Tina Fey looks unstoppable in ‘30 Rock’

Being the best new sitcom of the season is a little like being the prettiest gal in the leper colony, but “30 Rock” keeps face with many a good reason to tune in. First and foremost is Tina Fey. Adhering in extreme to the old adage, “Write what you know,” Fey has taken her experience as head writer of “Saturday Night Live” and created the part of Liz Lemon for herself, the head writer at an NBC late-night comedy show. Fortunately, Fey is no hack. With hints of “Arrested Development” and the movie Airplane!, the scripts are full of silly cut-aways, obscure references and, God bless her, intelligence. Remarkably, NBC is letting her bite the hand that feeds her: Liz’s new boss, Jack (Alec Baldwin), is the “East Coast vice-president of TV and microwave oven programming for NBC-Universal-GE-Kmart.” And in a snide homage to Aaron Sorkin (whose identically themed NBC dramedy “Studio 60 …” is on life support), Liz and a cohort carry on a conversation as they stroll the studio hallways only to find that they’ve gone in a circle. “Good walk and talk,” they assure each other. Fey even turns out to be a surprisingly adept physical comedienne. Consumed with fear of choking to death, a series of self-Heimlich maneuvers puts the work of Julia Louis-Dreyfus to shame.

Jack’s character is still in formation, sometimes too hard-nosed, other times too compassionate; but Baldwin is uniformly funny—having taken his cue from the Leslie Nielsen school of deadpan. He assumes Liz is a lesbian because of her fashion sense and explains matter-of-factly that her shoes are “definitely bi-curious.” Tracy Morgan, another “SNL” alum, is also on hand as a movie star with a touch of insanity who’s been brought in by Jack to boost ratings. His less lucid moments are his best, such as a poker night scene when he suggests playing Texas Doozy (“Face cards are wild, threes are jinx and fives are twos”). Meanwhile, Jack McBrayer, a barely known improv comic, has scored the role of his life and steals every scene he’s in as Kenneth, a naive NBC page with a blank-slate face and near-perfect comic timing. Supposedly, Jane Krakowski is a series regular, yet she disappears for weeks at a time. Fey and company will hopefully have a long enough future to find more room for her as NBC moves the show to an all-powerful Thursday night timeslot beginning Nov. 30.
- Stan Friedman   November 15, 2006