21. 30 Rock

Every few years there are two similar projects that appear on the pop culture horizon and force people to choose between one or the other: Madonna and Cyndi Lauper (I liked Lauper -- hey, she sang in USA for Africa, Madonna didn't), “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” (I abstained from voting in this one), the Beatles and the Rolling Stones* (Beatles all the way). In 2006 there were two shows on the same network about the behind the scenes antics of a comedy show that grappled for a piece of America's viewing time: Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and Tina Fey’s “30 Rock”.

* Here’s something that you don’t see very often: a comparison between the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley. The question is always this: “Who's better the Beatles or Elvis?” or "Who's better, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?". You never, ever see “Who's better the Rolling Stones or Elvis?” Logic dictates that if this question is asked than Elvis, the Stones and the Beatles are so close in terms of talent, that it's not crazy to think that if A=B and A=C, then B should equal C. This never happens and the question is completely irrelevant with the Beatles becoming the undisputed number one rock band. Therefore, the question should revert to “Who is the second best rock act ever, the Stones or Elvis?”

Mystery solved, America.

During the summer prior to the debut of the two new series, it became apparent that only one of these shows will survive adn the Sorkin show was considered the favorite. For one thing he had the pedigree (“Sports Night” and “The West Wing” were loved by critics and audiences alike), it had a really good cast (Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, DL Hughley, Brad Whitford) and to me, I thought that it was going to be a weekly docu-drama about how a show like Saturday Night Live really was run. Essentially, I thought that it was go to be a serial retelling of Tom Shales’ awesome book “Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live”.

It wasn’t. At all. It was over-written, boring, ponderous and at an hour each week, it seemed like the show never ended. The characters all seemed like assholes, which is ok (see "The Larry Sanders Show") but they were dull. And that's not ok. After three episodes, I stopped watching it at its regularly scheduled time. And after five episodes I permanently deleted it from my DVR.

My initial pretenses of “30 Rock” proved to be incorrect too. Since SNL creator Lorne Michaels was among the champions of the show and Fey was heading up the writing, I thought it was going to be a weekly Michaels lap dance reminding us how awesome he is. The cast wasn’t intriguing with Fey and former SNL co-stars Rachael Dratch and Tracy Morgan. And while I liked all three in small doses, the years that they were on SNL aren’t considered the golden years. I was waiting for the inevitable casting of Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon* and Maya Rudolph to round out the suck fest.

* No two SNL castmates got on my nerves like Sanz and Fallon did. Every time they were in a scene together it seemed that they tried their best to break each other up—and often they did. I think that most “comedy rules” are stupid, but one that is important is to not laugh in the middle of a bit. It completely ruins the story for the audience and the performers look like idiots. The fact that both of them did this week after week after week without any recourse, soured me on SNL for a long, long time.

But I was completely wrong about “30 Rock”. While “Studio 60” billed itself as a drama about a comedy show (and looking back, that seems a bit absurd), “30 Rock” was lighter and also played loose with the sitcom format using a lot of flashbacks and cuts. It mirrored a lot of what made "The Simpsons" so great during their early seasons. While "30 Rock" wasn’t entirely original, it wasn’t entirely derivative either. Fey is obviously a student of pop culture with television history as her major and she uses her skills to drop a lot of pop references and have some terrific guest stars that make each episode really shine.People as diverse as Carrie Fisher to Will Arnett to Alan Alda to Matt Damon have appeared on the show. And while the guest star syndrome can get a bit stale when there is too many in one episodes, when there are only a few they are comedic gold.

But it’s not just the guest stars, Fey has surrounded herself with a bunch of terrific actors like Morgan whose Tracy Jordan is one of the most sublime, original television characters ever. He is so good that he seems to be blurring the line between his character and the real Tracy Morgan. Jane Krakowski took over for Dratch before filming began* is great as the self-centered, egotistical star Jenna, while Jack MacBrayer, Scott Adsit and Judah Friedlander round out an impressive ensemble cast.

* You have to wonder what kind of show “30 Rock” would be if Dratch was kept as Jenna. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to pull off the bulk of appearance jokes (Krakowski is very good looking) so I wonder what direction the character would have gone? Dratch stuck around as a sort of utility player for the first season playing dozens of eccentric roles, but she has disappeared from the show in recent seasons. From what I’ve read her and Fey were pretty close, I wonder if this spoiled their friendship at all?

But while all of the characters and their actors are first rate, there is no one like Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy. Wikipedia describes the character like this, “[Donaghy is] the decisive, controlling, suave and occasionally senseless network executive who constantly interferes with the goings-on at TGS.” (TGS is short-hand for “The Girlie Show with Tracy Jordan” the show within show that Fey’s character [Liz Lemon] is the head writer for.)

However, the explanation doesn’t really capture the essence of Donaghy. He’s the foil for Lemon, the suit that the creative types have to answer to. But he’s not her adversary, in fact he’s more of a mentor and a father figure which leads to a pretty interesting dynamic between the two. And that is what the show feeds on. Fey has said countless times that this relationship is not a Sam-Diane thing where Liz and Jack will eventually sleep with each other. She has flat-out said that this will never happen and I think that’s a great thing because once sex is introduced, the relationship between the characters change for the worse.

Right now, the give-and-take between the two seems fun and even though it was never aggressively pushed at the beginning of the show's run, like all good things it grew organically. And while the relationship is important, having Baldwin play Donaghy as "the heavy" is key. I’ve read a lot about him and he seems like one of the most put-together, cool men on the planet. While on Saturday Night Live, Janeanne Garofolo spoke about him as if she had a school girl crush. It doesn’t seem like impressing Garofolo is an easy trick, so his take on Donaghy seems to be grounded in some reality.

The only thing that is not fun about having Baldwin on the show is that there is always an underlying threat that he’s going to bolt the show. It seems as if he is selling himself short by being on a low-rated sitcom (no matter how brilliant) on a fourth-place network. After his public meltdown of a few years ago (where tapes of him screaming at his daughter were leaked) he talked openly about leaving the show. During the last year or so he has said that once his contract is over (following the 2012 season) he is considering jumping off the “30 Rock” gravy train. I sincerely hope that it doesn’t come to this because unlike Steve Carrell and “The Office”, I don’t think that “30 Rock” could afford to lose Baldwin. He is that integral to the show’s dynamic.

While writing this entry, I took a peek at the show’s ratings and they have never been good. During the first season they were mired in 102nd place and the highest season rating that they ever received was 69th. I don’t normally judge a show by its rating, but for one of the smartest shows on TV, how can this be? I think that quite simply, not many Americans want to watch a show that is smart. And let’s be honest here, “30 Rock” isn’t “Masterpiece Theater” or “NOVA” there are a few low-brow jokes that wouldn’t be completely out of place on a CBS show such as “Two and a Half Men”.

The problem is there aren’t many of these low-brow jokes and they’re aren’t usually strung together. Plus, I think that Fey drives a lot of middle America crazy. I don’t think that they like her too much because of her spot-on imitation of Sarah Palin and perhaps a smart, witty lady comedian scares them a bit or maybe it’s a backlash against an East coast liberal program. I don’t know. And admittedly, the last two reasons are just pure speculation on my part, but I don’t get why this show isn’t more popular. Most of the characters are original, most of the situations they find themselves in are a bit familiar but have an interesting twist and the acting and writing is terrific.

This has been a common theme for shows like “30 Rock” (see “Arrested Development”, “Freaks and Geeks”, etc.) and it’s nice to see a network ignore the ratings and continue to pump out shows that are both smart and funny. And while the program is scheduled to run until the end of the 2012 season, one has to wonder how long NBC will stick with it after that.

Change That We Can ALL Believe In

If I was the President of the United States, I would probably push for any canceled television shows that I loved to be put back on the air.

"Undeclared"
"Freaks and Geeks" (poor Seth Rogen would have to do double duty)
"Seinfeld" (though I'd be ok with the reunion that is supposed to occur on "Curb Your Enthusiasm")
Either the "Larry Sanders Show" or "It's Garry Shandling's Show" (both were awesome)
"Mr. Show"

Maybe, just for kicks, I'd see if Jerry Mathers could squeeze into his jeans and baseball cap to recreate Beaver Cleaver. That would be funny. Then I'd probably make him dance and throw nickels at him, yelling, "This displeases Hugh Beuamont" until he broke down in tears.

I would broadcast this every week on Pay-Per-View , with a new celebrity of course, until we got enough money to solve the deficit.

But I would definitely make it my mission to get "Arrested Development" back on TV. And if Michael Cera didn't want to do it, I'd excommunicate him.*

* I know that excommunication can only be done by the Pope, but it would be a modern miracle if I ended up as President, so I may as well go the whole nine yards and become the world's first Pope/President.

Anyhow, Cera would be living the rest of his life in Liberia or Burma (or is it Myanmar now?) or maybe the Arctic Circle until he wised up.

But this sort of thing happen--not the excommunication of Michael Cera--command performances by the wealthy and powerful.

When Michael Jackson died, I read an interview with Carrie Fisher, who was one of his buddies and she spoke about what a loving father the man was. As an example of his love, she said that Jackson's kids were crazy for "Star Wars" and one Christmas, as a surprise to them, Jackson asked Fisher to come over and act out a few scenes.

And she did it!

What scenes did she reenact? Did she do the Jaba, metal bra one? Did she put her hair in those space cinabuns for the kids? Did she tell Mark Hammil to quit watering her lawn for the day and come and help her out?

Can you even imagine being that insanely rich or powerful that you could call Carrie Fisher or some other actor or actress and have them come over to your house on Christmas day and recite lines from one of their movies? Of all the things I read about Jackson after his death, that's the one that stopped me in my tracks.

Elephant man bones? Meh.
Secret room in his closet he used to stash kids? Figures.
He had no nose because of all the plastic surgery and needed to wear a prosthetic--that may or may not have been stolen from the morgue the day he died? Weird, but ... no. That's really weird.

But the Carrie Fisher thing made me think that even though the guy lived the life of a pariah for the last two decades of his life, he still had a ton of influence. I wonder how much he paid her. I mean, he had to pay her, right?

And here's the thing, I know why Jackson's kids had no friends; there's no way that their parents could ever top any thing Michael Jackson did.

It's like that scene from "The Simpsons" where Homer goes to Krusty Klown Kollege* and becomes a regional Krusty. Unbeknownst to the Millhouse family, they hire him thinking that they got the real Krusty. Bart knows different, which leads to perhaps one of the greatest exchanges in Simpsons history:

Millhouse: Surprised Bart? My dad got Krusty the Klown for my birthday.
Bart: Oh. I'm sure I could do that too.
Millhouse: I don't know Bart, my dad's a pretty big wheel down at the cracker factory.

In other words, no matter how big of a wheel your dad is at his cracker factory, you're not going to beat Michael Jackson.

* This episode had so many awesome lines and was so good, yet no one talks about it. It's criminally underrated.**

** BTW, my wife hates my asterisk interludes, but I like them a lot. Sorry honey.

So if you like my platform, remember: Magrane in 2016! I don't want to run against Obama--I heard he reunited the Sweathogs just so that he could shave Gabe Kapplan's mustache.

44.Buffy the Vampire Slayer

For a movie that was essentially done to capitalize on the popularity of Luke Perry, the television version of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” did pretty well for itself both ratings-wise and artistically. I'm not going to delve into the mythology of the show nor the debates about creator Joss Whedon being a genius because frankly, the people who endlessly debate those topics scare me more than any vampire ever did.

Here's what I liked about the show: the season story arcs were intricately done and were well-plotted out. Much like a show that aired on the UPN/CW after “Buffy” was gone (“Veronica Mars”), Whedon was able to keep a nine-month story going without getting bogged down in the episode-to-episode adventures. The main villain of the season (called the “Big Bad” by fans) was usually established in the first or second episode. During this time, Buffy or her buddies would also begin going through an adolescent upheaval that had nothing to do with the Big Bad, with both plots would closely mirroring each other.

At about the season's one-quarter post, the Big Bad would make him/herself known and the Buffy gang would have to begin coming up with a solution for getting Sunnydale back to “normal”. At midseason, the first solution wouldn't pan out, and they were back to square one often licking their wounds. By the final few weeks, the Big Bad would plan something drastic causing Buffy and her friends to get back on the horse and go hell-bent-for-leather (what a set of weird clichés I decided to use, by the way) to finally get rid of the Big Bad.

The trick for Whedon and his writers wasn't the overall story arc—if I had to guess that was probably the easiest part of the job—but how to keep the arc fresh in the minds of the viewers while it lurked in the background of the “day-to-day” events. I may be wrong, but I can't seem to remember many action shows doing that before Buffy, and if they did so, it was done poorly.

Another thing that Whedon did well is present his view that traversing through the high school years, and adolescence in general, can be pure hell for everyone. In this case he skipped the metaphor entirely and went for the subtle approach of putting the gates to hell on the grounds of the local high school. Despite every thing you may have seen up until the late 1990s, for many people high school sucked and the disenfranchised were finally getting their say with shows like this and “Freaks and Geeks”. Buffy wasn't particularly popular and aside from Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) none of her friends were either.

Speaking of which, from Carpenter to Alyson Hannigan (Willow) to Eliza Dushku (Faith) to Buffy herself (Sarah Michelle Gellar) the girls of Sunnydale High School were knockouts. In fact, despite the daily threats of vampires, werewolves or other supernatural entities; Sunnydale High School is the one place that I'd like to matriculate if given the choice. The WB knew what they were doing when they casted this crew. Though I have to admit that there is a lot of things that I bought on this show (vampires, witches, etc.) but Hanngian being cast as the “ugly” chick? I'm not so sure about that.

Like I said, I never immersed myself in the whole Buffy mythology, but for the most part, I felt that this was a tremendously fun show and a decent way to escape the real world every hour. Like most shows set in high school, it began to lose some steam once the gang graduated and they all attended college together (which was conveniently located in the same town) and the whole Buffy/Angel angle was played to death and then there were the few seasons where Buffy had a sister.

Seriously, that was pretty much the final straw for me.

There's a lot of things that I can deal with on a TV show (Phil Hartman being replaced by Jon Lovitz on “Newsradio” for one thing), but Cousin Olivering a show that really didn't need it, is not one of them. It seems as if the character of Dawn, the name of Buffy's sister, was added because they wanted to put a little spice back into the characters' lives. Which is fine, I can deal with that. But after the season where she was integral to the defeat of the Big Bad, Dawn became more of a nuisance to both the characters and the writers themselves. Unlike the other characters, she wasn't allowed to grow, she sort of hung around and tagged along—mostly because Buffy would remember that she had to care for her younger sister. When this happened the normal cliches occurred, “The vampire kidnapped Dawn, what do we do?” or “Everyone made it out of the volcano alive, we're so lucky! Wait a minute, where's Dawn? She's still back in there!” That's hacky, boring stuff.

But what made Dawn so bad is what made the rest of the show so good. All of the characters seemed to grow and mature at a normal rate. The only “regular” guy Xander went from uber-geek to a confident dude, who was dating Cordelia. Willow went from a timid nerd to a legit hottie witch. Even Buffy grew and changed through out the series run. Yes, change is a normal aspect of a character's growth, but the care that Whedon had while making his changes never felt forced or rushed. Anything that happened to one of them usually had a lasting consequence that weren't usually belabored, but often remembered and felt later.

Aside from some worn-out fashions, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” will probably still feel fresh when viewed in 10, 20 or even 30 years from now. High school is still going to suck, vampires are still going to scare and well-written stories with snappy dialogue will always have their place.