30 Rock - Season 5

I'm glad the show bounced back this year, because last time it was a little sad seeing it flounder a bit in comparison to Community and Parks and Recreation. Really, there are two things amazing about 30 Rock. The first that it's still on at all, and has passed the 100 episode mark. Absolutely no one expected that when it started. The second is that they still find ways to make it funny after all that time - you'd think there would be a shelf life on most of these characters, but even the more one-note ones like Jenna and Tracy still manage to be humorous thanks to writers who never seem to run out of weird, unique things for them to say and solid performances. Next year will be Alec Baldwin's last on the series, and it should probably mark the end of the show as well. I'm already dreading the thought of a season of The Office without Steve Carell (and I lived through a season of Scrubs mostly without Zach Braff), and the thought of a Baldwin-less 30 Rock running alongside it is just terrible to imagine. And really, they can't keep it going forever. But I did like this season a lot, and I hope I'll like the next one too.

Watching this season, I came to appreciate just how much Baldwin really brings to the show. I was skeptical of him in a long-term comedic role when I started watching, and while he mostly won me over, I don't think I fully grasped how good he was, or maybe I just forgot during the mild stumbling of last season. But he really is fantastic. On a show full of constant one-liners, his are usually the best, both because the character seems interesting to write for, and because his delivery is just so consistently razor sharp and perfect. There's no sentence you can give Baldwin that he wouldn't make better just in the saying of it, and while at times they undercut his effortlessly cool demeanor for some broad comedy, you never forget how fun he is when he's on. Without Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock is just a shell, and no amount of Tina-Fey-is-unattractive jokes and slapstick sitcom antics could fill that hole.

That kind of shows in how Jack and Liz are written over the course of the series. They pretty much split protagonist duties, sometimes sharing the load evenly and sometimes having one take center stage more, but the meaningful development of their characters is so heavily in Jack's favor that it's not even a contest. When the series started, Jack was a rising executive who didn't know much about the TV channel he was taking over and completely disregarded thoughts of a family with a focus on work, and Liz was a fumbling head writer who couldn't find or keep a decent guy. Five years later, Jack is a much more people-oriented business man who still finds ways to keep his operation running, with a (still kidnapped) wife and child, and Liz is a fumbling head writer who can't find or keep a decent guy. Consistent, meaningful development for Jack, zero forward progress for Liz. She's not the only one of course, basically every character on the show is like this. If anything, Jack's the only person that hasn't gone backwards, regressed into more of a caricature. It's a cartoon with one real person in it. How on earth will this show not rip itself to shreds when he's gone? I hesitate to find out, and I hope the people involved don't try.

Mary Shelley's Frankenhole - Season 1

Nine of the ten episodes produced for this season has aired, and the tenth, about Mother Teresa, is nowhere on the schedule. So I'll go ahead and talk about this. It's the new show from the creator of Moral Orel, and is both weird and subversive in similar ways, although I think it's also more immediately humorous. It likes playing around with classic horror and time travel story tropes, and also being as offensive as possible with its frequent fake celebrity appearances. Everyone's a target, from Jesus to LBJ to Ron Howard. I almost felt like they were trying too hard with the pop culture stuff, but kept with it because the central premise is pretty interesting.

It begins with the classic (movie) Frankenstein story, and then deviates from it pretty wildly. Victor has taken an immortality potion and given it to his assistant Polidori (the show's best character) and his wife Elizabeth. So now they're living forever, and he has created a system of "Frankenholes" that allow important people from everywhere in history to visit him for help with problems no one else can fix. Plenty of other classic characters have parts, although they're a bit different. Igor is voiced by the creator's daughter, the monster himself is very insecure, and Dracula and Death are thorns in his side. It's a very cynical show, but there's so much creativity in the setting and the problems the celebrities come to him with are so bizarre that it can't help being a lot of fun. As always it's questionable whether it gets to continue, but I hope they go on to explore the concept a lot more in future seasons.

30 Rock - Season 4

Yes, that is a picture of Tina Fey and James Franco hugging an anime body pillow.

Of the four shows NBC has in its Thursday comedy lineup, 30 Rock is currently the weakest, although that's less of a knock on it than a testament to the quality of the others. Still, it's inaccurate to say it's as good as it's ever been, and it's really about time that it stops dominating all the nominations and awards for TV comedy. It's funny! But it's not that funny. Rather than building humor naturally into the plot they just sort of fire jokes out of a shotgun haphazardly the whole time. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. The show's famous for its casting of celebrities in bit roles, but it's clearly more of a stunt than a good creative decision. What's the point of having Buzz Aldrin on if the man clearly can't act? He says his lines with the stiffness of a board. And it's rough when they take a great actress like Julianne Moore and saddle her with an accent that just kills me every time I hear it. Matt Damon was funny in the finale though I can't see how he's going to have the time to make the character worthwhile.

The season was mostly about Alec Baldwin having to choose between two women, only one of whom is actually appealing on the show, and Fey wrestling with whether she should keep looking for the perfect man or settle for something less before she gets too old. They add a new cast member to TGS, although it seems like they forgot about him most of the time. Tracy and Jenna continue to provide aggravation for Liz while providing some of the better, if more obvious laughs. The show kind of seems like it has less of a purpose to its existence than the other NBC comedies, but that's okay as long as it's mostly funny. As long as it keeps getting awards and about six million viewers per episode, it will probably stick around a while.

30 Rock - Season 3

Lots of renewal news coming out. Castle, Chuck, and Dollhouse are all coming back, the latter two with slashed budgets. Less excitingly, Scrubs will also return, although with some or all of the main cast in reduced roles and possibly a different format. I sort of wish they just let that one end.

Anyway, 30 Rock is another show getting another year despite less than stellar ratings, although it's actually improving year to year, so maybe people are catching on. I didn't until this January either, but since I have it's become one of my favorite current comedies. It doesn't have the infectious characters or comedic peak of NBC's other Thursday night heavy hitter, but it's probably laugh out loud funny more often. It struck me a few weeks ago how much I appreciate Tracy Morgan's character. Early on he was more of a catalyst for a lot of the major conflicts as he disrupted the balance of a show that was struggling until he got there. He said a lot of outrageous and ridiculous things, and I liked him quite a bit. Lately, he causes problems occasionally, but he's less in the forefront. Still, he's always there with something amazingly dumb yet poignant to say that just makes me feel better.

I also really like how the protagonist role is sort of shared by both Fey and Baldwin. If you have to pick one person you're rooting for it's probably the head writer struggling to manage a ridiculous crew along with a pathetic love life over the successful CEO, but the combination of great writing and Alec's performance makes you love him just as much anyway. They're both very flawed people, but they're a lot of fun to watch. The rest of the cast rounds out everything really well, and you rarely go a few seconds without someone else getting a good line or moment. It's just a really tight, really funny show. I can't wait for more.

30 Rock - Season 2

Season two was shortened by the strike like everything else earlier this year, but still put together a solid story arc and some good comedy. There are a few little storylines that come and go, and provide for some decent laughs over multiple episodes. Jenna becoming more popular when she puts on weight during a hiatus, her feud with Tracy, his quest to make a porn video game, Jack's quest to get a promotion. You know, I always have trouble writing about a comedy show when I already wrote about it fairly recently, so I'm not going to try too hard. I like Scott Adsit. His character usually isn't very important to the story, but he's likable and funny whenever he's on screen. It's not the most glamorous role but it's the kind I appreciate. And I have to like anyone who can act on a sitcom AND do a lot of work on an Adult Swim show my friend hates. Anyway, 30 Rock is a funny show that perhaps goes to the "Hey, here's a big celebrity playing a character against their type" thing a bit too often.

30 Rock - Season 1

I was expecting 30 Rock to not blow me away but still be pretty funny, and it basically met those expectations. It's not the funniest show ever, but it's consistently good, and with The Office dedicated to awkwardness and other shows a little too crazy and shocking for its own shake, it's probably the best "normal" comedy on TV right now. It sort of feels like the heir apparent to Arrested Development; a bit wacky at times but generally very intelligent, with a great cast, the love of critics and award givers, and an unfortunately small viewership. I don't understand why most people seem so resistant to good comedy. Here's hoping NBC gives it more of a chance to grow into its own than FOX gave Development.

30 Rock is about the makers of a fictional live sketch comedy show like Saturday Night Live, and starts when Alec Baldwin comes in as the new VP of such and such and forces head writer Tina Fey, playing a younger version of herself, to hire Tracy Morgan, playing a crazier and more famous version of himself, to star in it. It goes from there as Fey and Baldwin alternately butt heads and help each other out, as she tries to manage all the strange personalities working on her show and her personal life at the same time. Fey rose to fame as head writer and fake news reader on SNL, but I didn't know if she could actually act and carry a whole sitcom, but it turns out she can, and pretty well too. All the supporting characters are funny in their own way, and I like the way the show handles continuity too - it's not chained down so there's always room for fresh situations but there's enough of a storyline to keep it satisfying. If you aren't watching you probably should be.

Moral Orel

Adult Swim just finished "44 Nights of Orel" showing the entire series over the course of eleven weeks in a special order to compliment the new episodes of the third and final season. I'm still not fully clear on whether it was canceled because it was so depressing or it was so depressing because it was canceled, but based on the last episode I think it's the latter. When the show first aired a couple years ago, it was a unique but somewhat simplistic parody of old sitcoms and religion. Every episode featured Orel, an innocent and painfully devout Christian boy, grossly misinterpreting some sort of lesson from his father or pastor and doing something horrible like selling his urine or raising the dead. Afterward his dad lectured him on how he was wrong with the help of his belt and then reminded Orel of one of God's "missing commandments". It was often clever and funny enough, but pretty disposable too.

I didn't watch as much after that, but as I learned in the last couple months, they started going in a much different direction with the show starting in season two, and taking it even further with the last one. The focus is less on being funny and more on just developing the characters in the strange town of Moralton. There's still some darkly humorous stuff happening, but starting with the hunting trip that ends the second season, it can get downright disturbing. Orel's less pervasive of a protagonist, and it starts to be about his dad's dirty little secrets more than him. Just because it's not that funny doesn't mean it's without merit though, as some moments in the last season are as meaningful as any I've seen on Adult Swim. And it's not all bad though, with the final episode doing a nice job of showing that there's still hope in the world. It's probably not for everyone but I liked it.