NBC missing its Fey moment by keeping 30 Rock under wraps
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- October
- 15
 I’ve already weighed in on how successful I think the decision was to delay 30 Rock’s season premiere for a month and run three week’s worth of cutting room scraps of SNL.
It was such an obvious blunder that even The New York Times picked up on it. Tina Fey, despite her lengthy tenure at SNL, despite being its first woman head writer, despite creating, helming and starring in the funniest show on television since Arrested Development, has never 
had a higher profile than she does now.
And she has Sarah Palin to thank. Her spot-on impression of Palin has been a boon for Fey (and ironically helping ensure a women won’t be on the winning presidential ticket for at least another four years). And how does NBC capitalize? How does the network use that to bolster the critically acclaimed but ratings-starved (an average 6.4 million viewers last season) 30 Rock?Â
By keeping it off the schedule practically until Halloween. Kudos Ben Silverman. NBC’s entertainment chief continues to dazzle. Rather than seize the moment when the nation has Fey on the brain, he’s kept it out of sight, all the while staking his future on the success of…Kath and Kim? Yikes.
About the only thing the net is doing right in this regard is putting the season premiere up on Hulu a week early. (It’ll be at the visually inferior NBC.com too.)
In other news, it’s still unclear whether Sarah Palin will appear on the Oct. 25 episode of SNL.
Some say she will, and some say she won’t. And this guy just hopes the madness stops. And he’s pretty angry about it.
Tina Fey is so overrated it;s nto (sic) funny. Yeah she does a half decent Palin impression but so does my office mate. Tina got lucky that McCain picked someone who looks like her. That’s all.
Eh, to each his own, I suppose.
Turns out Fey hopes the madness stops soon too. She went and did Alec Baldwin one better on his threat—since disavowed— to leave the country if Bush got elected. If Sarah Palin wins, Tina Fey is leaving Earth. I like Tina Fey, but I’m also a big fan of space travel. So I’m torn.
Meanwhile, Monsters & Geeks has great stills from Salma Hayek’s upcoming appearance on the show.
Here’s the episode summary for “Do-Over,” which airs at 9:30 p.m., Oct. 30 and co-stars Megan Mullally (pictured above) and Will Arnett…
Believing that Liz’s work schedule may be too hectic for her to adopt a child, adoption agent Bev (Mullally) decides to make a visit to set. Liz begs her co-workers to try to act “normal” for a chance, but chaos ensues amid an escalating feud between Jenna and Tracy. Meanwhile, Jack is back at 30 Rock to reclaim his position from Devin Banks, but quickly learns the task won’t be easy when he is given a sizable demotion. Jack vows to do whatever it takes, even if it means sacrificing his self-respect, to make it back to the top.
And check out these previews NBC is running during 30 Rock’s interminable summer hiatus…
Photos: NBC Universal
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pm by Brian Howard.
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