30 Rock

[7/4]

Anybody else watching this? I watched last season, but missed all but tonights show this season. It's a blast, the best NBC has...

[Larry Kart]

Usually makes me laugh out loud at least twice per episode -- which is an amazingly high standard in my experience. Also, Tina Fey has improved a lot as a comic actress since the show began; her sense of physical comedy is excellent now, without being broad. And the syncopation of the writing and directing! It's like the show is moving to a different beat and at a swifter tempo than anything else on the air.

[AndrewHill]

It's a blast, the best NBC has...

Woah, woah, woah. The Office is the best NBC has. :rsmile:

[7/4]

It's a blast, the best NBC has...

Woah, woah, woah. The Office is the best NBC has. :rsmile:

I tried watching an early episode and it was a bit too much for me...working in an office all these years. Now that I'm not, I should give it a spin.

[AndrewHill]

It's a blast, the best NBC has...

Woah, woah, woah. The Office is the best NBC has. :rsmile:

I tried watching an early episode and it was a bit too much for me...working in an office all these years. Now that I'm not, I should give it a spin.

I think that would make it all the more funny for you. All the nuances that go on in a day-to-day office is excatly what they focus on, making it all the more entertaining. Check out season one, if you can, especially "Diversity Day."

Edited October 12, 2007 by Holy Ghost

[7/4]

It's a blast, the best NBC has...

Woah, woah, woah. The Office is the best NBC has. :rsmile:

I tried watching an early episode and it was a bit too much for me...working in an office all these years. Now that I'm not, I should give it a spin.

I think that would make it all the more funny for you. All the nuances that go on in a day-to-day office is excatly what they focus on, making it all the more entertaining. Check out season one, if you can, especially "Diversity Day."

Not after what I went through. I may have post-traumatic stress syndrome.

[AndrewHill]

It's a blast, the best NBC has...

Woah, woah, woah. The Office is the best NBC has. :rsmile:

I tried watching an early episode and it was a bit too much for me...working in an office all these years. Now that I'm not, I should give it a spin.

I think that would make it all the more funny for you. All the nuances that go on in a day-to-day office is excatly what they focus on, making it all the more entertaining. Check out season one, if you can, especially "Diversity Day."

Not after what I went through. I may have post-traumatic stress syndrome.

The Office will cure you of that

[jlhoots]

Back to 30 Rock - it's really good.

[RDK]

30 Rock and The Office are the two best sitcoms on TV (imo of course).

[AndrewHill]

30 Rock and The Office are the two best sitcoms on TV (imo of course).

I agree with that. We (me and my wife) watched a little bit of 30 Rock last season and we enjoyed it. I think Baldwin/Fey/Morgan are a very good comedy team and 30 Rock will get funnier and funnier as time goes by. The Offfice is a clear-cut favorite for me and my wife, so there is a little competition as to who has the better show....But who knows, this season may surprise us.

[Quincy]

I came for The Office and watch Earl too, but I think 30 Rock in-between may be(come) my favorite. It's weird to have an old fashioned "tv night" again.

[AndrewHill]

Its funny because for my wife, "Friends" has been replaced by "The Office".

[JohnS]

This has just reached UK tv. Missed 1/1 last night but I'll catch a repeat over the weekend. Always nice to see Alec Baldwin.

[BERIGAN]

... Always nice to see Alec Baldwin.

Unless you are his daughter.....

Edited October 12, 2007 by BERIGAN

[AndrewHill]

... Always nice to see Alec Baldwin.

Unless you are his daughter.....

Doh!

[catesta]

I've never watched it, but I do like Tracy Morgan.

[7/4]

cracks me up...when I get the sound workin' on my machine, I should go check out the shows on the web site.

[WD45]

I just started watching this on DVD from Netflix, and I am through one and one-half of the discs. This is the best writing! Tina Fey has a gift. She is what made the movie Mean Girls worth watching. I dunno, just something about her humor that gets me everytime.

[7/4]

April 14, 2008

NBC Tests Family Hour Boundaries

By EDWARD WYATT, NYT

LOS ANGELES — It was almost as if the NBC comedy writers had decided to test the limits of prime time taste just as the network unveiled a family-friendly philosophy of scheduling.

Thursday’s episodes of “30 Rock” and “The Office,” the first new installments to be broadcast since the end of the writers’ strike, each included coy references to a vulgarity: in one case it was bleeped out; in the other it was winked at in an acronym. While not unprecedented, the occurrences in the back-to-back prime-time shows were jarring. They also raise questions about the placement of “30 Rock” as an anchor of what an NBC executive, Ben Silverman, has designated the “family hour.”

In the case of “30 Rock,” the reference came in the form of an acronym — part of the title of a make-believe “Survivor”-like show — referring to a teenager’s crude designation of someone’s sexy mother. In “The Office,” besides the bleeping, the character’s lips were even pixilated to prevent lip reading. But it was not difficult for many viewers instantly to realize what was said.

Mitch Metcalf, NBC’s executive vice president for program scheduling, said in an interview on Friday that the shows were not breaking new ground: comedies on NBC and other networks have used the vulgarity before, he said, and cited a 1993 episode of “Seinfeld.”

Mr. Metcalf also noted that both of Thursday’s shows carried a TV-14 rating. That rating warns parents that they might find some of the content unsuitable for children under 14.

The general content of the “30 Rock” episode, however, appears to work against NBC’s positioning of the show in its family hour, the 8 to 9 p.m. block of programming that Mr. Silverman said would consist of shows a family could watch together.

The contestants on the island-based reality-show-within-a-show on “30 Rock” are described as 20 “holy hot mamas,” who are accompanied by 50 eighth-grade boys as they compete at tasks like “eating bugs to earn tampons.” They square off in “Erection Cove,” with the loser having to remove her bikini top and burn it in the fire.

Mr. Metcalf said that the family-hour designation should be seen as offering “direction for program development,” not “black-and-white expectations” for the audience.

“It was not to be construed as a return to a strictly defined family hour,” he said, featuring wholesome shows like “Little House on the Prairie,” a hit on NBC in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

“Those days and those audience expectations are gone,” Mr. Metcalf said. He further differentiated NBC’s Thursday-night comedy block from the family shows planned for other nights at 8. “Our tradition is one of adult, edgy, sophisticated comedies” on Thursday nights, he said. When appropriate, the shows would get a TV-14 warning, he said, and “30 Rock,” though scheduled at 8:30 p.m. (or 7:30 Central time) “meets the expectations for that night.”

“There are not going to be hard and fast rules” for the family hour, Mr. Metcalf added.

Mr. Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, seemed less nuanced in his descriptions of the family hour during a conference call with reporters earlier this month. Asked about the Thursday-night comedies, Mr. Silverman said “30 Rock” was a show that would appeal to families because its star, Tina Fey, is “about to become a cultural icon.”

Ms. Fey, who has recently appeared on the covers of magazines as diverse as Parade and Vanity Fair, is starring in the coming film “Baby Mama.” Mr. Silverman said that role could give her the wide appeal that Jason Lee, the star of NBC’s “My Name Is Earl,” received after starring in “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” which earned a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award.