Polished 'Rock' Rolls On
NBC Comedy Rides Positive Momentum Into Season 2

By Marc D. Allan
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, August 26, 2007

"30 Rock," Tina Fey's sitcom about life backstage at a "Saturday Night Live"-like show, will return for a second season Oct. 4. Meanwhile, Aaron Sorkin's glowingly reviewed "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the 2006 drama with a similar premise, is history.

Surprised? Fey isn't. She told TV critics at a news conference this summer that she had been "100 percent" sure that if only one of the two shows succeeded, it would be hers.

In an interview about an hour later, Fey confided that what she should have said was "100 percent -- and there's a 50 percent chance I could have been wrong."

But Fey said she was genuinely confident in "30 Rock," which she created and stars in, thanks to her nine years at "Saturday Night Live" as Weekend Update anchor and head writer. There, if two writers had the same idea for a sketch, they presented their scripts -- and the better work won.

"I love that competition," she said. "It's such a fair proving ground."

But "30 Rock" didn't have to outclass "Studio 60" as much as it had to deal with serious problems on-screen and off. Though the pilot received generally positive reviews, viewers who tuned in for the first month or more saw shows that weren't consistently funny.

It wasn't until the writers discovered the core of the series -- the push-pull between Fey's character, Liz Lemon, the harried head writer of "The Girlie Show," and Alec Baldwin's domineering network executive, Jack Donaghy -- that "30 Rock" found its rhythm.

"I think we knew that they would be the central characters," Fey said. "It remains an ensemble show because we do three, sometimes four stories within an episode, and I do still feel like the rest of that bench is strong and valuable. But somewhere around the fifth or sixth episode, we started to realize that [the Liz-Jack] dynamic was really working for us."

Executive producer Lorne Michaels agreed. "I think you start off putting everything you want to put in," he said. "Then you start to see what's working and you start to simplify and make it a little less dense."

Initially, the writers packed the show with jokes, characters and even visual gags (a person wearing a Snapple bottle walked by just as two characters mocked product placement), and audiences tuned out.

The show struggled to stay alive on television's most competitive night and finished the season ranked 102 out of 142 prime-time network shows -- 41 places below "Studio 60."

NBC stuck with "30 Rock," though, as part of its strategy to rebuild Thursdays as the night for comedy, and the network's patience was rewarded when the series received 10 Emmy nominations.

Ben Silverman, NBC's new co-chairman, expressed his support for the series this summer, describing "30 Rock" as a show that "is really funny, that has some wonderfully talented performers, incredible writing and, hopefully, will start to be embraced by a larger audience just as it's been embraced by the critics."

What garnered the most public attention for "30 Rock" in its first season was the real-life scandals involving two of its stars -- an answering-machine tirade Alec Baldwin left for his daughter and Tracy Morgan's arrest on a drunken-driving charge.

Both actors will be back this season, Fey said, "and none of that happened while we were in production, so it didn't really affect us. It also feels now . . . like it was a while ago. I don't think it'll be a factor when we're working."

Morgan said he's fine and looking forward to "bringing the funny."

"I'm the Willis Reed of comedy," he boasted, a reference to the New York Knicks center who hobbled onto the court during Game 7 of the 1970 National Basketball Association finals and inspired his team to victory. "I play hurt."

Morgan started as the centerpiece of "30 Rock" -- the pilot dealt with a reluctant Liz recruiting him to join the cast of "The Girlie Show" -- but settled in as a reliable role player.

Fey said the writers found that pairing Morgan's out-of-control character, Tracy Jordan, with innocent NBC page Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) worked exceptionally well.

They figure to be teamed again in Season 2, which will start out with Donaghy returning from a heart attack even more driven and career-focused. As he said in his hospital bed, his only regret was that he didn't work more. Season 2's premiere also features Jerry Seinfeld as a guest star.

So things seem to be in place for a stronger, more consistent year for "30 Rock." The big question is whether the show can win -- or win back -- an audience. Fey, for one, isn't worried. "We can only make the show we want to make and make it accessible," she said.

Or as Morgan put it: "Nowadays, everybody wants everything to pop off immediately, you know. You have to give shows time to find their audience."

30 ROCK

Thursdays

8:30 p.m.

NBC