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| The 30 Rock finale: always go out with a Hitler joke |
On this week’s podcast, CHML’s Scott Thompson asks if I’ll miss 30 Rock, which goes out with an hour-long finale Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and City.
The honest answer is no I won’t. Never a consistent viewer, I found the series funny in fits and starts but tiresome, too, sometimes too clever and often too “inside television”–and if I found it that way, that’s saying something.
The truth is the series was never a hit and barely drew a specialty-level audience in Canada. The head of NBC probably had this show in mind when he told critics last summer that he wasn’t going to order any more shows we loved but general audiences ignored.
It was an Emmy darling, however, and made NBC seem “Must See” again within the creative community, which is probably how it survived into a shortened seventh season.
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| Real NBC presidents never last as long as Alec Baldwin did at the top |
And it was occasionally very funny. Alec Baldwin unleashed all his snake-y charm as the weasel-ly network boss and Tina Fey proved herself as a top showrunner, series writer and even a pretty good series lead.
I still think one of the funniest things she ever said was at the TCA Awards a few years back. Accepting the award from critics for Best Comedy, she told a room full of scared newspaper reporters and about-to-be bloggers that it was a great time to be on network television, “like being in vaudeville in the ’60s.”
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| Fey got to send up network TV just before it no longer mattered |
Scott also asks about my Mark Burnett sighting in Burlington this week. The Survivor boss was in the GTA with his actress wife Roma Downey to promote their miniseries The Bible, which opens March 3 on History. I’d share my review of the series, but I think I’ll wait until closer to air time. Who am I to cast the first stone?
We also talk about Sunday’s Super Bowl, those $4 million ads and the show CTV is introducing right after the game: Motive, a “How-dunit” that gives away the killer right in the first few minutes.
You can listen in here.
