30 Rock

Seasons 1-3

If you've spoken to me recently, you'd probably have noticed I have a wee bit of a crush on Tina Fey. Known to many, perhaps, for her dead on portrayal of Sarah Palin back when the election was in full swing and her stint as the first female head writer on SNL, she is also the head writer and lead actress on her show, 30 Rock.

Now entering it's fourth season, 30 Rock is a show about a show. Reflecting its principals lives possibly more than they care to admit, we follow head writer Liz Lemon (Fey) as she struggles to hold together the "TGS with Tracey Jordan" show. Various forces, such as her moody and needy actors, studio exec Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and her own insecurities, act to make her life difficult.

The cast includes Tracey Morgan as the insane actor Tracey Jordan ("I'm black, very proud, like peacocks, baby!") and Jane Krakowski, from Ally McBeal, as his attention seeking and vain co-star, Jenna. Jack McBrayer, whom I had only seen for his small role as the sexually confused Christian newleywed in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is the not dissimilar, but more cheerful and rosy-eyed page, Kenneth. Rounding out the regular cast are Scott Adsit as Pete Hornberger, the show's producer, and Judah Friedlander as the perpetually-capped Frank, one of the writers of Liz's eclectic staff.


The show is, essentially, a sitcom, though the single-camera setup, lack of laugh track and ongoing storylines give the characters more depth and reality than normal, even when the situations they find themselves in are often absurd. Liz is the heart of the show, a wonderful character that stands in for us all. Jack says accurately of her, to her: “"New York third-wave feminist, college-educated, single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it, over scheduled, undersexed, you buy any magazine that says 'healthy body image' on the cover and every two years you take up knitting for...a week." Intelligent, funny but at heart a bit of a nerd and out of her depth, she faces many empathetic problems, even if they are as ridiculous as Tracey and Jenna attempting to one-up each other by dressing as a white woman and black man, respectively.

A revelation, of sorts, is the comedic talents of Alec Baldwin as the Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming. His backhanded compliments to Liz about her masculine clothing and love-life advice are pure deadpan genius. It is particularly interesting that Jack, initially an antagonist to Liz, has become her closest confidant as the seasons have progressed, and a character that has shown much compassion underneath his manipulative streak.


The writing, lead by Fey, is smart, wry and clever. It's much more sophisticated than most other current TV comedies, and makes other current favourites of mine, such as The Big Bang Theory, seem hammy and formulaic. An extra layer is added simply by being a show-within-a-show, providing plenty of opportunities for stabs about the unpredictably of actors, the meddling of studio bosses, product placement and TV as commodity. Particularly hilarious and bizarre are those occasional moments when the characters, usually Liz or Jack, break the fourth wall and stare down the barrel of the camera, almost as if Fey and Baldwin are winking at you, letting you in on the joke.

As the show has progressed, it has only gotten stronger, giving more depth to their lovable characters and consistently providing laugh-out loud laughs. Tina Fey is obviously riding a whirlwind right now, with a cabinet full of Emmys and her creation a critical-smash hit. Her show deserves all the accolades heaped upon it, even if it curiously does not have the ratings figures to match. Maybe that will change upon the imminent arrival of the fourth season. I can't wait.

Season 4 premieres on October 15 on NBC.

Stargate Universe

SyFy Channel on Fridays from October 2, 2009



Stargate Galactica
Air Parts 1, 2 and 3

I have just had the modest pleasure of watching the three-part pilot of the third Stargate TV series, Stargate Universe. It shows great promise and is far more interesting than the later seasons of either earlier series, which seemed too stuck within formula and their clean, PC sci-fi world.

Entitled "Air" and set in the present day, it follows the story of a group of humans stranded far from Earth on the spaceship "Destiny", built eons ago by the Ancients. It a familiar but reliable conciet already exploited in shows such as Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek: Voyager.

As one may expect, aboard the newly discovered ship are a diverse array of military officers and civilians, a perfect setup for much of the tensions which will no doubt arise. Characters which make themselves notable are Robert Carlyle as the practical and not-entirely likable Dr. Nicholas Rush and the requisite geek character, Eli Wallace (David Blue), who finds his way into the Stargate world by solving a mathematics puzzle embedded in a MMO game. While perhaps sitting well within the world of SG-1, his presence is mostly a contrived distraction in Universe, which draws more than plot inspiration from the recent gritty, and brilliant, Battlestar Galactica.

If nothing else, creators and Stargate veterans, Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper must be applauded for trying to create a show distinct from either of its forerunners. Still, at this early stage, much of the attempts for darkness seem as tepid as Susan Ivanova's lesbian dalliance in Babylon 5. There's a 20 second sex scene, for example, that seems included merely to say "look BSG! Stargate can be racy too!", and while the plot revolves around usual Stargate territory (the main problem facing the crew at the outset are the malfunctioning life-support systems), there are attempts to give major characters moral dilemmas. One particular moment late in Part 2, everyone's survival on the line, sees Dr. Rush intending to choose a sacrifical lamb. Later it is implied that it is instead through an act of noble sacrifice than the crew are saved, though the dialogue itself is somewhat ambiguious. It is possible the writers are planning something more subversive that is evidenced here, and I certainly hope they are willing to have faith in their characters rather than bending them to the whim of the plot.

Despite these quibbles, and the other leads which have yet to establish an obvious identity, there's plenty to enjoy: Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping all make cameos, the mammoth ship clearly provides endless scope for storytelling and the use of flashbacks help ground the characters in real emotion. The heavy use of hand-held cameras also works suprisingly well in conjuction with the slightly darker tone.

Stargate Universe has little claim to originality solely by being part of a franchise, and especially in light of its borrowings from BSG and Voyager. Still, if there must be another Stargate TV series, this is probably the best one could have hoped for. Now it just depends on whether the writers continue to follow the more innovative (at least for Stargate) elements rather than falling back upon the less-interesting and formulaic tropes already established.