30 Rock is almost solid as a (ahem) rock. I'm surprised though at Nancy Franklin's take on it since I generally find her TV crit pretty good. If there is any problem though with 30 Rock (and I don't think this is going to kill it) it's that they are not including the "show's" staff or Kenneth or Tracey & Jenna as much as they used to. It seems to be all Liz & Jack getting the juicy stuff. What made 30 Rock good to my mind was that it had more of an ensemble approach. The same thing is happening to The Office. More ensemble less duo relationship type stuff. Imagine if Seinfeld had turned out to have a permanent romance between Jerry & Elaine --as planned-- that would have killed that show. Just saying.

I despise Tracy Morgan. I think he's just loud and obnoxious, not funny. His stuff on SNL was amongst the least funny crap I've seen (and that was in the days of Mary Catherine Gallagher, the cheerleaders, and Horatio Sans, wasn't it?)

However, his character on this show is supposed to be just that. And, unlike SNL were it seemed like he thought he was cool for being so annoying and stupid, this show just treats him as, well, annoying and stupid.

That makes it funny.
He fits in well.

I'm disappointed that Franklin would make such solid opinions about a show when she's openly admitted that she fast-forwarded through a majority of the scenes.

I, too, gave up watching---couldn't stand the Tracy Morgan minutes.

30 rock is an acquired taste for me, l love the show as much as l love the Office but for different reasons.

The New Yorker article made me so angry until the last paragraph where Franklin said Tina Fey won 2 Emmys for best actress in a row and l just laughed. How could they print such a huge mistake. She dug her own grave there.

I agree with the article-- for the most part.

I absolutely love The Office, Summer Heights High and Arrested Development, but I cannot stand 30 Rock. The writing seems too broad, the characters too far-fetched, and I find that more often than not, the jokes fall flat.

I understand the convention of casting the 'straight' character, with all the craziness happening around him/her (Jerry in Seinfeld, Michael in AD)-- but Liz Lemon just seems to have such little personality. Maybe it is because I've only seen 4 episodes, but I find nothing redeeming about her character. She's cute as a button, but she doesn't point out others ridiculousness enough to make it funny.

Tracy Jordan does absolutely nothing for me. He's borderline believable, and he seems to belong more in a farce than a 'smart comedy' like 30 Rock.

I can't fault Alec Baldwin for his acting-- but once again I don't quite think the jokes hit on point. I'm not sure if it's a generational gap, but his obliviousness to everything just seems completely uninspired. I see Alec Baldwin and not the character.

His assistant truly annoys me too. It seems like Kenneth and Tracy are just there for the cheap laughs-- one about a stereotypical gay man (think Jack from Will and Grace), and the other a full-of-himself movie star.

I feel like the show is one of those where you need to tune in every week to really 'get it', but each episode I've seen doesn't move me to the point where I'd want to. With AD, even the standalone episodes were funny, and the more episodes you watched-- the more the plot developed, and the more long-running jokes developed.

Finally I need to touch on the cameos. I saw the episode with Steve Martin (maybe there have been more), but his appearance and character seemed to be so pathetic. It reminded me of him in 'The Pink Panther' (I wish I would have never seen that). My dad would have loved this episode, but I barely even cracked a smile.

Celebrity appearances like that just seem to be such a desperate ploy at getting ratings. For a show like '30 Rock', it is permissable (like it was in Studio 60), but the way they handle the guests is exploitative. It's boring and trite.

I'm going to start out in Season 1 on Netflix, and hope that I am persuaded; this show seems like it has a huge following, and is a new 'smart' comedy. I'd really like to see it live up to the hype.

I generally enjoy 30 Rock, but I have noticed in the last year or so, the show's been doing a lot of stunt casting at the expense of the supporting characters. That is- any regular character that is NOT Liz, Jack, Tracy, or Kenneth.

I mean, look at the storylines for this season alone, and count how many of them actually involve Jenna, Frank, Toofer, Cerie or Pete? They're just getting in am obligatory screenshot and wisecrack, then the show moves on.

I have to agree, that I find storylines with Tracy Morgan have been mostly unfunny/unwatchable for me.

Bob, confusing "just doesn't get" with "has a different opinion about" is the province of fourteen-year-old forum trolls and seventeen-year-old 'Twilight' fans.

I still enjoy the show but this season has been shaky. The celebrity cameos aren't *smart* celebrity cameos -- they're the sort of cameos you get when an NBC VP of Something breezes into the office at 11:35 on a Monday, speed-dials Tina Fey and says "Hey, I ran into Steve Martin at a party last week and he really loves your show, so I said you'd write a part for him." The resulting cameo pulls Liz and/or Jack away from the ensemble, dilutes the goodness and screws up the show. There must be some chinless lifer asshat deep in the bowels of the NBC management infrastructure who hasn't seen fresh audience data since 1955 and who truly believes that what people really want to see is More Big Stars. Meanwhile, when was the last time Josh had anything meaningful to do? How long has it been since Jenna was a three-dimensional character? What's going on with Lutz?

Of course, I forgot about the stunt-casting. "30 Rock" as the new "Will and Grace", which was the new "Love Boat". It just destroys a show, leaving the regulars there as hosts for the celebrities, never growing or developing themselves. I hope it doesn't become a permanent condition on "30 Rock".

It's impossible to fast-forward through half the show and have a full appreciation for its brilliance. The writing is too clever and layered to get it only taking in 50 percent of what they give us.