30 Rock

It's the best new sitcom of the fall. [16 Oct 2006, p.39]

I don't want to spoil the great lines, delivered with perfect comic acting. To me, it's bliss.

One of the zaniest - and most savvy - workplace comedies in years.

The standard caution is relevant -- debut episodes tend to be highly polished. All the more reason to enjoy the hilarious scenes and fine ensemble cast here.

It's smart without either condescending to or patronizing the viewer.

30 Rock... is pretty darn funny, a bitterly merry comic jihad against corporate stupidity and mendaciousness.

A rare and almost totally unexpected triumph.

A weirdly appropriate and hilarious symbol of our times.

OK, so I admit it, the premiere isn't all that funny, but the second episode is hilarious.

Yet for all its laughs, 30 Rock does call to mind a kind of sketch show version of The Mary Tyler Moore Show — one in which everyone's playing Ted. That can be fun for a while, but eventually sitcom viewers tend to want to root for someone.

Fey's humor possesses a sly, literate snap. And like NBC's recent cool comedies, "The Office" and "My Name Is Earl," her rollicking "30 Rock" has a surplus of nutty imagination.

Baldwin's sharklike momentum pulls you through a sitcom that otherwise makes little sense.

The cast is perfectly matched to this material.

For all the show's cartooniness, its gender-conscious take on the TV business is actually more sophisticated [than Studio 60's].

Where "Studio 60" takes a scathing and indignant tone toward television, "30 Rock" offers a more sarcastic, less hackles-raised critique. It's also funnier and goofier.

Arguably the best comedy this fall.

There's reason to hope, especially for Baldwin's bold performance and the cutting dialogue.

There's plenty of charisma to go around on 30 Rock, and Fey will go just about anywhere for a laugh. Her absurd, yet almost believable, showbiz send-up is full of them.

There's a lot to enjoy... But "30 Rock" is more sitcommy than most of the single-camera sitcoms on the air now, and it has none of the sharp bite of "The Larry Sanders Show."

A good, potentially great, show.

The jokes that hit their target almost make up for the wide misses.

"Write what you know" is a cardinal rule of writing, and Fey certainly knows this world better than Sorkin -- even if "The Girlie Show" is lame, I believe it exists in a way I don't with "Studio 60" -- but the history of failed behind-the-scenes sitcoms and dramas is so long and ugly that she would have been better served using a different setting altogether.

Nothing very funny happens on “30 Rock” until Alec Baldwin enters the room, and suddenly this new NBC sitcom comes alive.

I want to like "30 Rock" more than I do so far, because I've always liked Fey. Yet it could be Fey - the actress, not the writer - I'm having trouble warming to.

When he gets a lot of air time and his worst excesses are not reined in, Morgan is the human equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard.... As a result, what could have been a rather savory dish ends up with a rather unpleasant aftertaste.

Too often it feels like a missed opportunity, though there's always hope for improvement, more realistic in this case than most.

Nobody does a deadpan line reading like Baldwin, and he alone is reason to check out this work in progress and hope that Fey gets the time she’ll need to make this hodge-podge live up to its potential.

For all the rewriting and reworking, the show needs a better premise and funnier dialogue and, most of all, a more commanding performer in the starring role.

To its credit, next week's second episode is better than tonight's revamped pilot: tighter, funnier and more expansive to other cast members.