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Vogue is a fashion magazine, so you know that this Tina Fey interview in the new issue is going to focus a lot on clothes, hair, and weight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of good stuff in it for fans of Fey and '30 Rock.'
What I like most about the interview is that even though she's doing poses in front of the New York City skyline and having people fuss over her clothing and her hair, you still get a strong sense of the nerd girl inside of Fey. In the video diary of the photo shoot (after the jump), Fey talks about how it's funny that the interview for the shoot is being held in the former bathroom of a restaurant, and in the print interview you can tell that while she finds all of it fun, she knows it's pretty silly, too.
She also talks about how she was treated differently by people over her Sarah Palin impersonation when men like Dana Carvey (who did Bush) weren't, and discusses everything from the Emmys to Rosemary Clooney to Chicken McNuggets.
THR puts 'Community' in the safe category, giving it a 90% chance of renewal. It also put 'Chuck' in the 90% category.
Joe Adalian wrote about bubble shows on The Wrap, and he has 'Chuck' slam-dunking another renewal out of NBC. The surprises on his list was a death blow for 'Gary Unmarried' and 'Rules of Engagement.'
Really? That's not a certainty considering that 'Rules' hasn't even aired yet. It did well in the ratings last spring, enough to be a midseason renewal. And 'Gary' has performed on par with 'The New Adventures of Old Christine,' which has a good shot at being renewed.
There was a commercial for Volkswagen that aired during Super Bowl Sunday last week, but it didn't make Kona's best of the best. Still, having seen it a couple of time since, perhaps it should have been. Do you remember it? It's based on a game called punch dub, and every time a person sees a Volkswagen before the other person, they get to punch their partner and call out the color of the car.
I had some friends who played a car game like this, punching each other each time one saw a vehicle with one light not working. They called it pediddle. Ridiculous name, but then punch dub is just as silly. But it's real. And that's a big part of why this commercial is so good. You can relate to it. Everyone can play. There's the kid with his grandfather. The two Amish folk. The drunk guys in the limo.
(S04E13) "Valentine's Day is a sham created by greeting card companies to reinforce gender stereotypes." - Liz, to Pete's daughter
So here we have a Valentine's Day episode of '30 Rock,' where we find Liz without a date, Toofer set up on a date (with an ... urban woman), Frank doing his usual Frank stuff, and Lutz talking to the gang about his girlfriend, who no one believes is real. But he says that he has the proof on his web site.
And the web site is real! He insists that she, too, is real, though the pics show Karens Carpenter, Black, Allen, Walker, and whatever the last name of the girl from 'Frosty The Snowman' is.
If you haven't heard this morning, '30 Rock's' Alec Baldwin was rushed to the hospital late last night. CBS News says that someone, probably his daughter, called 911 after Baldwin was "unresponsive" in his New York City apartment. A law enforcement source told the AP off the record that Baldwin had argued with his daughter and had threatened to take pills, which prompted the phone call.
However, Baldwin was only at Lenox Hill hospital for about an hour and then he was released. In fact, his publicist says that he is already back at work today. So this is either a misunderstanding, a real incident that they're trying to cover up for obvious reasons, or it's the worst promotion for '30 Rock' (tonight at 8pm) that I've ever heard.
(S04E12) "It was perfect. Like a John Mayer song." - Jenna, on meeting with her mom
There's a 1984 episode of 'Kate & Allie' titled 'New Year's Eve' where Kate and Allie make a bet: Kate has to give up smoking and Allie has to give up eating chocolate (never mind that we never even saw Kate smoke before, but that's another story). Sound familiar? OK, so Liz had to stay away from all junk food and not just chocolate, but still, that was one of the plots of tonight's '30 Rock.' It's an old staple with sitcoms, of course, I just didn't think that '30 Rock' would necessarily go there.
I also don't want to see yet another character have to stay at Liz's apartment. Pete has stayed there, Tracy, and now Frank. Who's next, Jack? Kenneth? Luckily, even a couple of creaky plots can't completely hurt an episode of this show because there are so many great jokes flying at you from all directions.
This week we finally meet Jenna Maloney's mother, Verna, on '30 Rock.' Not that we've heard too much about her, I don't think, but it will be interesting to see where she came from (I'd also like to meet the sister who peed in Jenna's eye).
She's not in this clip below, but Verna is played by ex-'SNL' star Jan Hooks.
A couple of weeks ago, Kona wrote about the campaign to convince ABC to save Better Off Ted. Despite these grassroots efforts, the rating for Ted continue to be dismal and ABC probably has "cancel Better Off Ted" on the corporate to-do list.
That's a shame, because the more I watch of Better Off Ted, the better I think it is. Smart, funny, observant and surreal, Ted is an office comedy that makes deserves to survive. If more people gave it a shot, I think it would be a success. Maybe not a monster hit, but there aren't many of those in the sitcom field right now. Emmy winner 30 Rock is anything but a ratings hit.
They seemed to list some compelling reasons, especially the fact that it would play well with fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So when Cody was at the TCAs to promote the upcoming season of her Showtime hit United States of Tara, I decided to ask her about the prospect as she got off-stage.
"I had never heard that," she replied. "That would be amazing."
When I asked her if the show would appeal to Buffy fans, she asked, "Did the original Buffy movie do well in the theaters?" When we said it didn't, she shot back in self-deprecating fashion: "This could be the perfect metaphor, then."
(S04E11) "They're all named Sean, they're mean, and I hate it here." - Kenneth, about Boston
Being from Boston myself, I'm really enjoying these Boston (and Waltham)-centric episodes of 30 Rock. I often cringe at shows that have episodes set around this area. They'll get a location wrong or make dumb assumptions about us or get an accent wrong (more on that after the jump), but this show is getting a lot of little things wrong. Even the street scenes were well done, with the brick and all that.
And wait... Nancy mentioned Kelly's Roast Beef and, holy crap, Jack and Nancy actually imitated Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson? That is 55 kinds of awesome. Someone at 30 Rock knows Boston well.
(S04E10) "For four years I've had to make do with what passes for men around here, with their untucked shirts, boneless faces, theirStars, bothWars andTrek." - Jack
So Tina Fey got a lot of action in this special double-header. In the first episode, she did it with James Franco (and a pillow - I don't want to know more than that), and in this one she makes out with Danny. Which reminds me: we need more episodes where they actually show what's going on with TGS. We don't see many skits anymore or anything else to do with the show, just plots involving the personal lives of the characters (with the occasional plot about a problem/scheme Jack has concerning NBC and executives). I'd like to get back to more of that.
In the meantime though, this was another good episode. Facebook!
(S04E09) "The local station edited 'Will & Grace' so much that it was just called 'Karen'." - Randy Lemon
In my mind, Jack Donaghy had nothing to do with the whole Leno/Conan/NBC mess. Sure, he's not as high up as Jeff Zucker or Jeff Gaspin or any other executives named Jeff that the Peacock Network might have. But he's the head of a couple of divisions, so they might have asked him for his opinion on the matter. Jack cares about money, sure, but he seems like a Team Conan guy to me.
But I don't like him in "lost Jack" mode, where's he's lovesick and/or frazzled. And that's how he was in both of the new episodes tonight.
Now, even Kenneth the Page (Jack McBrayer) is getting into the fray. He made an appearance last night on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, during Conan's monologue. He was there to give a studio tour, as pages are wont to do, and he was showing the tourists the former home of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Or, as he corrected himself, "the soon-to-be former home."
There's been so much action going on with the TCA and the midseason returns and what-not that we sort of missed the announcement for the DGA Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Television nominations for 2009. It's quite an interesting bunch, as much for what and who's included and who and what were left out.
Since the DGA noms come from the directors themselves, these awards are indicative of what the professionals really think of their peers. Very illuminating, if you ask me. Check it out, category by category, and feel free to comment on my comments.
I'm not sure what the heck James Franco is doing on General Hospital (though I kind of admire his quirky career strategy), but I do know what he's doing on 30 Rock: he's playing himself, trying to set up a fake romance with Jenna. Here's a sneak peek of the episode, which airs on January 14.
Vogue is a fashion magazine, so you know that this Tina Fey interview in the new issue is going to focus a lot on clothes, hair, and weight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of good stuff in it for fans of Fey and '30 Rock.'
If you read 
There was a commercial for Volkswagen that aired during Super Bowl Sunday last week, but it didn't make 
If you haven't heard this morning, 
(S04E12) "It was perfect. Like a John Mayer song." - Jenna, on meeting with her mom
About a month ago, our friends at CliqueClack listed 
There's been so much action going on with the TCA and the midseason returns and what-not that we sort of missed the announcement for the 
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