Has "30 Rock" squandered its creativity?
tehMot...@gmail.com
can chase away even more viewers.
Over the past few weeks, 30 Rock (NBC, tonight, 9:30 ET/PT) has gone
into a surprising, unsettling decline, as it set consecutive season-
ratings lows. And this, by the way, after NBC put it behind the
network's highest-rated sitcom, The Office — a move you'd expect to
boost viewership, not deflate it.
Granted, 30 Rock has never been a ratings blockbuster: It survives on
critical acclaim and on its appeal to a younger demographic.
Nonetheless, this is not how anyone would want TV's reigning Emmy
winner to perform. Whatever boost the show got from that victory, and
from Jerry Seinfeld's season-opening guest appearance, has been not
just lost but squandered.
Were numbers the only problem, Rock fans might be able to relax. The
show, after all, has already been renewed for next season. But since
the strike, this once-dependable sitcom has also lost its way
creatively, ditching plot and character in a desperate, scattershot
search for laughs, as if its new goal were to become a live-action
version of Family Guy.
Certainly, that's the approach taken in tonight's hectic finale. On
the plus side, it does yield some funny moments from Alec Baldwin,
Jack McBrayer and Matthew Broderick as a Bush official who is
desperate to join the ranks of the unemployed. (Even those who dislike
the administration, however, may not want to see a network sitcom go
so far out of its way to mock it.)
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Bush | Office | Rock | Emmy | Tracy | Studio |
Alec Baldwin | Jerry Seinfeld | Family Guy | Matthew Broderick | Tina
Fey | Liz Lemon | Jack McBrayer
But as often happens lately, the jokes come at the expense of our
attachment to the characters and to the show's fraying links to
reality.
The chief blame for the decline rests with Tina Fey and her fictional
counterpart, Liz Lemon. At one point tonight, Tracy (Tracy Morgan)
asks Liz, "Do you know what it's like to be the only one who cares
about your job?"
There was a time when the payoff would have depended on our knowledge
that Liz did, indeed, know what that was like. But now it leads to a
joke about a missed period — and leads viewers to ask when exactly was
the last time Liz showed any interest in her job at all. A woman who
at least used to try to make her show better has spent the spring
dragging through outlandish romantic entanglements and going ballistic
over missing sandwiches.
Liz doesn't have to be sane, but when she's as unstable as the nuts
circling around her, you get a show that plays more like a barely
related series of sketches than a sitcom.
It's possible that 30 Rock is trying to learn from the failure of
Studio 60, which took the efforts involved in producing comedy too
seriously. But as is so often the case in life and art, one can also
fail by moving too far in the other direction. If the show she's
writing doesn't matter, then there's nothing at risk for Liz — and no
reason for us to care about Jack's efforts to mentor her, which were
once 30 Rock's best asset.
To be sure, this lurch toward absurdity does fit into NBC's current
comic style, which tends toward the detached. Then again, that may
also explain why a sitcom block that once dominated the night now
struggles to reach third place, and frequently falls below even that
unimpressive benchmark.
It's a losing game, and 30 Rock used to be too good for it. The
writers might want to spend the summer remembering why.
the Bede
RSPWTube
@bignews6.bellsouth.net:
> No. these anti-30-Rock editorials Motty keeps posting are stupid.
>
>
>
Yes, but then again so are you.
And while we're on the topic, has 30 Rock ever had any creativity, ever?
This is the show Tina Fey created, after she was finished ruining SNL,
isn't it?
the Bede
"RSPWTube" <rs...@tube.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9A98B73036C45re...@194.177.96.78...
Victor Velazquez
Hating on 30 Rock is the new bandwagon for all the cool haters.
Whatever people like now, they'll hate in three months. Why do we do that?
remys...@yahoo.com
> Hating on 30 Rock is the new bandwagon for all the cool haters.
> Whatever people like now, they'll hate in three months. Why do we do that?
Being a troll feels rebellious, like you're actually having your own
thought. And you force people to react and respond. I think, therefore
I am? It's better to piss someone off to be sure.
Victor Velazquez
Of course! I'd completely forgotten what it felt like to be a teenager.
Mason Barge
"Victor Velazquez" <k-ca...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:XLOdnTRfYdDKTb7V...@comcast.com...
That's an interesting question.
Not directly on point, but this one is in a subcategory. Devotees who feel
betrayed by lack of success can sometimes really hate the people
"responsible". Think of the Italians and Mussolini.
You could call it the "anti-halo effect" -- the ratings are declining,
therefore someone has done something bad and we should hate them for ruining
a show we liked.
Victor Velazquez
> "Victor Velazquez" <k-ca...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:XLOdnTRfYdDKTb7V...@comcast.com...
>> RSPWTube wrote:
>>> "the Bede" <rspwsow...@yahoo.com> wrote in
>>> news:SlJUj.130613$Er2.73779 @bignews6.bellsouth.net:
>>>
>>>> No. these anti-30-Rock editorials Motty keeps posting are stupid.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, but then again so are you.
>>>
>>> And while we're on the topic, has 30 Rock ever had any creativity,
>>> ever? This is the show Tina Fey created, after she was finished
>>> ruining SNL, isn't it?
>>
>> Hating on 30 Rock is the new bandwagon for all the cool haters.
>>
>> Whatever people like now, they'll hate in three months. Why do we do
>> that?
>
> That's an interesting question.
>
> Not directly on point, but this one is in a subcategory. Devotees who
> feel betrayed by lack of success can sometimes really hate the people
> "responsible". Think of the Italians and Mussolini.
Or the Austrians and the Nazis. I certainly hated on Lucas after seeing
Return of the Jedi (and all subsequent films).
> You could call it the "anti-halo effect" -- the ratings are declining,
> therefore someone has done something bad and we should hate them for
> ruining a show we liked.
I never pay attention to ratings unless they are shoved in my face. Am I
atypical? I think most people just understand that as likeing something
obscure makes them cool, so too does hating something popular (the point at
which the ratings are shoved in one's face). For some folks, this may
explain the life cycle of pretty much everything they've ever been into.
remys...@yahoo.com
> Of course! I'd completely forgotten what it felt like to be a teenager.
I was thinking more along the lines of my nephew's rare temper
tantrum. He's three.
Benjamin Pavsner
place.
"the Bede" <rspwsow...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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