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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Keep 30 Rocking On





          On Thursday January 31st, NBC will air the last 30 Rock episode ever. In many ways, the Tina Fey/Alec Baldwin comedy has become easy to take for granted. What was once an edgy and trendy, albeit niche, show has, over seven seasons, evolved into as much of a sturdy, comforting bedrock for NBC as its more awkward and popular cousin, The Office; no matter what else was going on, you could count on seeing the show somewhere in NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup. This isn’t to say that 30 Rock has lost its edge. Though it has undoubtedly passed its peak (which occurred during seasons two and three) and is much more hit-and-miss than it used to be, it still produces laughs at a reliable rate. However, with more and more quirky sitcoms – from Parks and Rec and Community to Happy Endings and the experimental Louie – picking up audiences and cultural cachet, it’s easy to forget just how damn good 30 Rock is.

            As the end nears, I’ve begun to realize – to remember – how much I truly love this show and how much I’ll miss it when it’s gone. Unlike for most of my other favorite shows, I can’t quite recall when I first started watching it. My parents followed it, so between that and reruns that popped up on various channels, I saw more than a handful of episodes every now and then before I finally became a regular viewer at some point during the fourth season. As often seems to happen with me, this was just past when the show was at its best, though I only really noticed the difference in quality after running through the first three seasons on Netflix last year. Still, back then, I wasn’t nearly as immersed in the communal aspect of entertainment – the blogs, social network sites, Internet message boards and all that – and couldn’t care less that 30 Rock was starting to get that weird, groupthink backlash (the result of a slight dip in excellence and people tired of it winning so many Emmys) that every show experiences if it runs for long enough. All I knew was that I really enjoyed watching it and looked forward to a new episode each week.


            To start with, 30 Rock has always been a laugh riot. Centered on the behind-the-scenes antics of a network TV studio that produces a Saturday Night Live-esque skit show called The Girlie Show (TGS, for short), the show draws from a number of comedy wells, mixing character-based humor, satire, wordplay, physical comedy and sight gags into a delightful stew of offbeat hilarity. What’s more, they come at such a rapid-fire pace that it’s easy to miss several, often because you’re still laughing at the previous ones, and if one falls flat, there are usually two better jokes zooming by that will make up for the misstep.

            Despite what its detractors may say, 30 Rock is more than just a consistent joke machine, though that designation alone is enough to put it above and beyond most comedy fare on TV. Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon has become something of a feminist icon, developing into that rare female character who is both distinctive and relatable. Smart but unexceptional, ambitious but lazy, self-confident but also self-deprecating, she is a neurotic, dorky mess of contradictions, a refreshing change of pace in an industry that seems all-too-eager to pigeonhole women as either saints or shrewish bitches. Thanks in no small part to Tina Fey’s considerable wit and charm, Liz remains likable no matter how exaggerated her flaws sometimes become; we root for her not because she’s perfect, but because she isn’t. Plus, she’s made some sizable contributions to our modern lexicon:


 




            As it turned out, she was the perfect foil for Jack Donaghy, her suave, articulate, alpha-male boss. The role revived Alec Baldwin’s career, transforming him from the handsome leading man of such dramas as The Hunt for Red October to a surprisingly excellent comedic actor. With his silver-streaked hair, broad shoulders and recognizable, husky voice, he seemed born to play Jack, ultimately garnering numerous accolades for his performance, and his chemistry with Tina Fey arguably served as the foundation for the show’s success; no episode ever felt complete without at least one scene of them bantering back and forth in his well-furnished office. Though the show occasionally joked about a Liz/Jack romance, it thankfully never came to fruition, and as a result, their relationship is one of the most unique and compelling on any TV show, a friendship of intimacy and nuance uncomplicated by will-they/won’t-they theatrics. It’s also a credit to Baldwin, a fairly vocal Democrat in real life, and the show’s writers that Jack avoids coming off as a caricature; they skewer his conservative beliefs and values and Liz’s liberal tendencies in roughly equal measure. Fey’s and Baldwin’s electric dynamic made them a match made in comedy heaven.

            And then, there’s the supporting cast to consider. In addition to cementing Tina Fey as a top-notch comedic force and resuscitating Alec Baldwin’s career, 30 Rock introduced us to a wide range of actors who might never have come to our attention otherwise. Most notably, there’s Jane Krakowski, luminous and hilarious as the self-absorbed yet insecure diva Jenna Maroney, a character that benefitted more than any others from the increasingly absurdist tone of the show’s more recent seasons. Tracy Morgan was perfectly cast as her TGS costar, Tracy Jordan, who resembles the actor playing him so closely that sometimes even the show itself seemed to have trouble separating them. Tracy could easily have turned into an eye roll-inducing cartoon, but thanks to the intelligent writing and Morgan’s largely self-aware acting, he was instead a rather clever subversion of the usual, offensive black buffoon stereotypes; just look at episodes like “The C Word” and “Don Geiss, America and Hope”. When you add in Jack McBrayer’s ever-smiling Kenneth Parcell, Scott Adsit as Pete Hornberger (a character that has sadly been pushed to the sidelines in recent seasons) and the endless parade of guest stars the show trotted out while rarely seeming to use the A-list names as a crutch, the talent level boasted by 30 Rock’s ensemble cast is jaw-dropping.

            More than any comedy currently on TV (except perhaps Community), 30 Rock took risks and pushed boundaries, eagerly tweaking genre conventions (see: the two “Queen of Jordan” episodes as well as the two live ones) and proving unafraid to explore some politically tricky territory. Though it wasn’t exactly conventional before, the show officially let its freak flag fly in the episode “Black Tie”, which was the 12th episode of its first season and featured guest star Paul Reubens as a crippled, inbred Austrian prince. From then on, there was no going back, and the show refused to play it safe, even as it began to dominate awards shows and became a signature part of the modern TV landscape, though it never quite garnered the ratings its acclaim and quality suggested it deserved.

            Still, while outsiders or casual viewers might see the show as strictly cold, cynical and cartoonish (and it certainly was all of those things, at times), 30 Rock occasionally allowed a love for not only its characters, but also the medium of television to peek through. In fact, its lack of sentimentality was more often than not a boon. It forced the show to be actively, constantly funny, preventing it from falling back on the easy, “awww!” moments at the end of each episode that sitcoms all-too-often seem to rely on. Furthermore, it made those rare emotional beats infinitely more surprising and poignant.


Need proof? I present to you Exhibits A and B.

            Though this final season has been surprisingly great, it feels appropriate that 30 Rock is coming to a close now, before it has the chance to jump the shark and wither away into a shell of its former self. Thursday night will see the end of a brilliant, hilarious, uncompromisingly idiosyncratic and smart show, one that gave us a constant stream of memorable sound bites and characters, that challenged network sitcom formulas while maintaining a quirky, acerbic voice that was distinctly its own. It gave us Dennis Duffy, Devon Banks and Dr. Leo Spaceman, got away with putting Jon Hamm in blackface and crafted the crowning achievement of Alec Baldwin’s acting career. Best of all, it let us bask in Tina Fey’s wit and genius once every week, and it never failed to put a smile on my face, regardless of my mood going into each episode. I’m going to miss this show.       

            Good God, Lemon, what are we going to do without you? 




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