A new 30 Rock thread because I can't find the old one

ilxicle

I hate to ruin the 12-hour streak of this thread just being E + T talking to each other to state the obvious, but surely the thinking behind guest stars is pretty simple: you have a show that's "successful" in every respect apart from lots of people watching it, so you run promos about Oprah and Seinfeld guest spots in an effort to convince viewers that this is not just some second-string show they don't need to pay attention to, and is actually the kind of big and important cultural sensation that can attract big talent, therefore it must be high-quality and funny and you should try watching it, etc.

(This is kinda distinct from the way Will & Grace always had to do it, because their problem was being a successful show that had gone on long enough that nobody felt particularly compelled to watch new episodes, so they had to cast around doing guest spots and "live" episodes as a form of meta shark-jumping "please still be interested in us" move.)

(What's funny is that I think more and more shows have to resort to this just for their own network promos, because the old ways of trying to hype a particular episode -- the whole "biggest episode yet!" and "dramatic secret revealed!" hyping -- got so run into the ground that nobody reacts to it anymore; you have to pull out a guest star as evidence that this episode is unmissable in some way the last one wasn't, or else everyone knows you're lying.)

yeah it's kinda sad how rarely networks promote comedy shows with a simple clip from the episode of someone saying something funny anymore.

It's like, instead of promoting a comedy as, "Hey, this is funny! We're pretty sure you'll find it funny, too!", it's all, "YOU CAN NO LONGER CONSIDER YOURSELF A MAMMAL IF YOU MISS THIS IMPORTANT EVENT."

anyway I still fail to see what the bfd is. Lorne Michaels has probably been calling Tina Fey once a week for the past 10 years saying stuff like "we got [big star X], can you write something funny for him/her to do on the show?" so it's not like her and the other ex-SNL folks at the show don't know how to handle it better than the staff of fucking Will & Grace.

xpost

How did Will & Grace become shorthand for "awful" on a network that once included Suddenly Susan and Just Shoot Me? W&G wasn't great, but it had moments.

no no no no

Megan Mullaly is a treat.

it's a good shorthand for "popular awful" whereas NBC has other examples of "cancelled awful" and "coasting along awful" in spades.

i'd forgotten the seinfeld cameo until reading this. it makes me think of kenneth singing the bass-motif in the elevator, with lip-poppin'.

it's a good shorthand for "popular awful" whereas NBC has other examples of "cancelled awful" and "coasting along awful" in spades.

Was it really that popular? I thought all the stunt casting happened for the same reason it happens on 30 Rock?

it was popular and it was hideous

Polyphonic, like I said -- that show was like top-level sitcom popular for years, and only started leaning hard on the cameos/guests/stunt-casting toward the end, after people's interest in the core show had started to evaporate.

(They also seriously did "live"-to-tape episodes, which still strikes me as a fascinating leap to decide to make, though really all it meant was that things looked more stagey and Debra Messing would occasionally crack up.)

Will & Grace ranked in the top 20 shows on TV for 4 of its 7 seasons. 30 Rock's rank last season was #94.

Good grief, 94.

I found myself agreeing with lots of that Nancy Franklin review. I think she's right that Alec Baldwin's charm carries a lot of the show, and the chemistry between him and the Fey character is probably the main reason to watch. Tracy Morgan's acting style is a strong spice that people will either love or hate. The Kenneth character is usually funny but sometimes he threatens to become a bit one-dimensional - the writers will need to work hard to keep from falling back on the same hick jokes. I think the clever-clever dialogue falls flat or breaks character almost as often as it provokes a belly laugh - it tends to cause whichever character is speaking the dialogue to recede and Fey to appear hovering overhead, as I imagine her writing the line and chuckling to herself (I'm not sure how much of it she actually writes, but it's what plays in my head anyway). It breaks the illusion that these are real people, which can make it hard to care about what happens to them.

it's a tv show, none of them are real

Hence my use of the term "illusion".

not sure the show has ever particularly cared about that illusion

In my view, that's possibly a weakness of the show.

this show is no way grounded in reality

whoever made the point about friends getting good for the last two seasons because of season arcs and drama and characters very otm. some of 30 Rock's arcs have been great, but this season has been kind of a list of very good jokes so far.

yes well in my view it makes the show hilarious and awesome

note: i still love it and it is my favorite show, but that is not an interesting comment.

(my comment is not interesting, not yours max.)

it's a tv show, i watch it, i laugh, i chuckle, i groan at the lame lines. i enjoy the characters. i could give a rip about illusions and such

I think it privileges the writer and the expense of the actors when all of the characters tend to become sock puppets for one distinct writerly voice and tone. It just becomes less interesting to see them interact when they're all kind of stand-ins for one person, rather than distinct people with a voice and perspective of their own.

"at the expense of the actors"

OK at the expense of that dude who plays Josh.

that is the style of the show, though. those rapid fire lines that take a moment to set in. take it or leave it nate.

i think people over analyize tv shows sometimes

\Oo/

yeah ok that's actually just wrong xxxpost

its totally weird to me that you get that sense since they all have very distinct voices and the lines are hardly interchangeable--not to mention that the very fact that the show is set behind the scenes at a comedy show is like a constant reminder that tv comedy is not at all the product of a single writer or voice

I cannot imagine anyone but Tracy saying his lines

they all seem like they have distinct voices, that's what makes the show great

Of the ones I've seen, my favorites were probably "Rachel Getting Married", "Tropic Thunder", and "Run Fat Boy Run". (I'm not counting "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will be Blood", which were 2007 releases here.)

― o. nate, Thursday, December 4, 2008 10:05 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this invalidates o. nate's opinion about anything comedic

Sometimes, if I squint*, I can't tell Jenna and Tracy apart.

* by "squint" I actually mean "close my eyes, block my ears and lose the ability to understand English"

I'm not saying that the characters don't have the illusion of having distinct personalities on the show (though for all you people who say that you don't care about that particular illusion, I wonder why you're suddenly defending this canard so passionately). What I'm saying is that in those moments when they speak one of those arch self-referential lines, they break character. I'm not saying every line is that way.

the "illusion" of having distinct personalities is different from the "illusion" of being real characters i think

this invalidates o. nate's opinion about anything comedic

Hey! Simon Pegg is a talented comic actor - in fact, I imagine he'd be a nice choice for one of the guest star slots on 30 Rock.

my favorite "illusion" on television is when the glowing box i point my chairs at comes alive with demons telling stories.

I would like an example of an "arch self-referential line".

o.nate we're basically kicking you off the thread.

i think what's great about 30 rock is not only that the characters each have their own distinctive voice, it kinda goes beyond that to the point that they're operating in different comedic modes altogether, and yet they all work together so well. o. nate you're fired.

I would like an example of an "arch self-referential line".

Many have been posted on this thread. E.g.,

"i cant believe you are out of the game. thats like picasso not painting or bruce willis not combining action with rock harmonica, don't you miss it?"

self-referential because... its said by picasso?

Self-referential because it's about the writer not the character speaking the line - ie., I can't even remember who said the line because it's coming from that ironic writerly voice that comes through from time to time regardless of who's speaking.

That's the kind of thing I was talking about earlier.

do you guys have other tv shows that you watch that you can hold up to the high standard of being able to extract one line of dialogue and know which character said it?

1. Wasn't that line from Jack to Steve Martin's character?
2. "self-referential" usually implies "refers to self", not "is very wry"