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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