Don't get me wrong, I had always liked 30 Rock, but I had never loved it. I think my problem has been that I didn't start watching it when it first came on the air, so I never really understood the inside jokes and subtle character play. Every time I caught an episode, I thought it was amusing and fast-paced, but it wasn't something I felt driven to watch weekly.
However, after I read Tina Fey's biography, Bossypants, I learned a lot about what the show meant to her, and what she was trying to accomplish, and I knew I needed to give it another chance. Bossypants was a fantastic read. Tina Fey's writing was not only comical, but also insightful, both to her own experiences as a woman in a male-dominated career, and in terms of self-deprecating awareness of her own shortcomings. I appreciated how down-to-earth she was, and how important her work is to her, but not to the detriment of some pursuit of work-life balance. As Tina observes after describing a weekend jam-packed with her first time playing Sarah Palin on SNL, shooting an episode of 30 Rock with Oprah Winfrey, and her daughter's third birthday party:
"By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f***ing life."
So, after I finished the book a couple of weeks ago, I logged onto Netflix, and was thrilled to discover that 30 Rock is available for internet streaming. Score! With Conan, Jon, and Stephen all on hiatus for much of the month, I definitely had a smart comedy television void to fill. I just finished the first season, and am loving it. There are so many inside jokes that I simply did not understand because I hadn't seen it from the beginning. This is a show that has character progression, and needs to be seen chronologically in order to fully appreciate what is going on. Also, how fantastic is Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy?! Now, I have to pace myself through seasons two through five, because season six doesn't start until early 2012 due to Tina Fey's pregnancy.
