I thought by going on record with my resolution to stop procrastinating on my 30 Rock recaps that I wouldn’t possibly allow myself to do so again.

And yet, I did. So here I am, five days later, having never shared with you, my reading public, my thoughts on “Retreat to Move Forward.” And I can’t imagine you still care. But I’m going to share anyway, because that’s what blogging is about, right?

But I’ll keep it short.

I loved the revival of GE’s Sixth Sigma program from Season 1. I wonder which writer on the staff has been dying for two years to spin that into an entire episode, like they did with last week’s retreat to sunny Croton-on-Hudson.

Having grown up two towns over, I can attest that what happens there stays there.

And I loved learning what the six sigmas are: they’re execs, each with their own philosophy they represent: teamwork, insight, brutality, male enhancement, handshakefulness and play hard.

Few things are more surreal than watching Jack pump himself up in the mirror. He really does have mommy issues, but they’re nothing like Liz’s. Did she just call herself a bitch? 

Feeling guilty about ditching her with the nerds, Jack does some team-builing Lego project with Liz for CLASS, which is actually lunch. It might have ended well if she hadn’t made those lewd gestures with their sculpture. That sigma guy was right, the old Jack wouldn’t have tolerated her robot member antics.

And how funny was it that Liz showed up at Jack’s room with two omelets, both for her. Read more of this entry »

Can I call it a weekly preview even if I’ve never combined them before and don’t necessarily preview either show a lot of weeks?

To paraphrase the president, yes I can. (Also, Malia, don’t touch that red phone, sweetie.)

I have to admit, Thursday nights wear me out. Yes, a TV blogger is whining about TV blogging. But hear me out. I recap both 30 Rock and The Office, and I can’t start watching either until 9, and they’re not over until 10. Factor in time for pausing the DVR while I scribble down funny quotes and any inspired musings I may have, and it’s closer to 10:30 before I start recapping.

I’ll be honest. Before last night I’d about had it with 30 Rock’s guest stars.

I never thought I’d say it, because the show had always been so brilliant about weaving them in, but by last fall I felt like Tina Fey and Co. had hit a wall with the stuntcasting and it was time to get back to basics.

That said, Salma Hayek and Peter Dinklage brought a lot to the table in last night’s episode, “Señor Macho Solo.”

Jack found love—again. Liz found that little someone who could take her mind off babies, or so she thought. Tracy found that he didn’t need gold shoes and money shirts to keep his love by his side. And Jenna found that you don’t need the rights to a star’s name, music or likeness to launch a convincing biopic.

You just need a chunk of my love.

Here’s what I liked. Every scene with Hayek was a pleasure to watch. She’s as funny as she is pretty with her McDonald’s references and authoritative, rapid Spanish. Tracy Morgan continues to carry the show, as he has all season. (I totally have to catch his movie A Blaffair to Rememblack.) And Jane Krakowski continues to amaze with the kind of comic fearlessness that is almost extinct on TV. And she is sleepy!

I laughed hard at this one, and that’s all I ever expect from this show. When it delivers a little emotion and relatability to boot, that’s great. It hasn’t for a while now, and Tina Fey ought to be looking hard at why that might be. But funny’s enough for now, even if future guest stars do come up short. (That was not a Dinklage joke, I swear!)

Watch the full episode after the jump, followed by a detailed recap.

Did you know 30 Rock returns tonight?

I admit I pretty much forgot that it does. It’s been a while, right? But all those “Salma Hayek stops by 30 Rock” sailing through my e-mail in-box in the last couple days should have tipped me off.

Now I like Salma Hayek a lot, but she’s not what has me looking forward to plopping down in front of the TV at 9:31 p.m. ET the most. Here’s the episode summary for Senor Macho Solo…

Jenna is concerned that Liz’s attraction to a new guy (guest star Peter Dinklage) has to do with her longing to have a child. Jack is keeping busy as he helps Tracy and wife Angie arrange a “post-nup,” and tries to get Jenna an audition for the title role in a Janis Joplin biopic. Plus, he finds time to hit it off with his mother’s nurse, Elisa (guest star Salma Hayek).

Things had been so quiet at 30 Rock.

Tracy Morgan hasn’t worn an ankle bracelet in a while. Alec Baldwin hadn’t left any lengthy voicemails for anyone. But Rip Torn, who plays GE CEO Don Geiss, has disturbed the calm with his third drunken driving arrest in five years.

Torn, 77, pleaded not guilty in Litchfield, Conn., to charges filed following a Dec. 14 traffic stop.

This comes just two years after his car struck a tractor-trailer on Hardscrabble Road in North Salem. He pleaded guilty to driving while impaired, paid a fine and surrendered his license for three months.

Apparently the lesson went unlearned.

Police say Torn was driving in the breakdown lane in his 1994 Subaru with a Christmas tree tied to the top.

He failed part of a field sobriety exam, then gave up after saying the ground wasn’t level enough, state police said. He also refused to take a Breathalyzer test and used profanity while in the trooper’s cruiser, police said.

I can’t decide which is the best part, the Christmas tree on the roof or the claim that the ground wasn’t level enough.

This is a guy who beat a 2004 drunken driving rap in Manhattan following a fender-bender with a taxi. So he’s 1-for-2 in these cases and is due back in court Jan. 28 for the tiebreaker.

(Photo: The Journal News)

There are good days, and then there are bad days. Looks like Tina Fey is having both kinds today.

Even as the Associated Press is lauding her as Entertainer of the Year, deservedly so, the gossip sites are touting a scurrilous report of a nasty rift developing between Fey and 30 Rock co-star Alec Baldwin.

They all point to a Star magazine report that I’d link to but it doesn’t work. At least it didn’t at this writing. Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, here’s the gist. It starts with a snarky Baldwin comment at a photo shoot about airbrushing, a seemingly harsh reference to Fey’s once mysterious facial scar that her husband recently revealed was the result of a childhood assault. Celebuzz continues…

Tina retorted, “Something wrong with my face?”

“Tina shot back that this was coming from a guy with a double chin who thinks Sarah Palin is hot,” a set source tells Star. “Alec was steamed about it the rest of the day and had words with Tina about it later.”

So the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations were released the other day, and the comedy match-ups are pretty familiar.

It’s not surprising the same names keep coming up in these contests, since there are so few comedies on TV these days.

As usual, Alec Baldwin and the cast of 30 Rock go up against Steve Carell and the cast of The Office in the Outstanding Actor and Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series categories, respectively.

There’s every possibility, however unfair, that Jeremy Piven and the cast of Entourage could send both home winless.My money’s on Baldwin and The Office. My heart is on Carell and 30 Rock.

Weeds is up in the comedy series category, too, as is star Mary Louise Parker for Outstanding Actress, though my heart and money are on Tina Fey, but only by a little.

The 15th Annual SAG Awards airs Jan. 25 on TNT and TBS.

Speaking of SAG, by the way, OfficeTally has sifted through and pulled out all the Office folks from the list of some 130 actors opposing a strike by the union. Really? After what a hoot last year’s WGA strike was?

One curious omission struck me: Jenna Fischer. Read more of this entry »

Yes, I said “pre-cap” because I haven’t had a chance to watch this one yet.

Reviews I’ve spotted, formal and informal, indicate it blew The Office’s holiday episode out of the water, so my hopes are high. I’ll give it a gander later today, hopefully and post a true recap then. For now though, here’s the complete episode, courtesy of Hulu and Remote Access.

And just a quick news note, Jennifer Aniston seems to be planting the idea of her assuming a permanent role as the crazy stalker she portrayed a few weeks ago. The trial balloon shows up in and a GQ interview referenced here.

No offense to her, I’m an Aniston fan, but she didn’t work for 22 minutes on this show, so I don’t see how a regular spot would work.

Spoiler Alert! Details about tonight’s 30 Rock to follow…

Tonight’s 30 Rock is a return to form, a resuscitation of a floundering sitcom that puts four weeks of Oprah, adoption and idiotic Steve Martin antics to rest and reminds you why you used to love this show.

It is, to steal a phrase from your immediate viewing future, like the funniest guy on the elevator. (Trust me, that’ll make sense in a few hours.)

I lamented (whined?) yesterday about my dissatisfaction with this season so far. It has been pretty funny but also pretty uninteresting. The guest stars have been over the top and unnecessary, taking me out of the show like a bad distraction. It has seemed like Tina Fey has been suffering a Palin hangover instead of riding the tidal wave of popularity her impressions of the Alaska guv gave her to boomtown ratings.

Viewership is up so far over last year, but probably not as up as the Peacock suits were hoping.

Well, here’s some advice: do more of what you did to put together “Reunion,” tonight’s hilarious trip back in time to Liz Lemon’s high school days. What a geek she was! No wait, she was a bully, a spiteful, snarky, mean bully who pushed people away and left them scarred. Read more of this entry »

There’s a lot riding on what Tina Fey has planned for the third season of 30 Rock. An entire genre may be at stake, according to one writer.

There’s half as many sitcoms on the air today compared to eight years ago, and this one seems to be hanging by a thread. How good the funniest, smartest and most consistent 22-minute laugher on TV can be over the next eight months could go a long way to demonstrating that the sitcom as a genre isn’t dead yet.

That said, Tina Fey is hoping her current show gets the same boost from her Palin impression that her old show has gotten. I’ve weighed in already that I think the premiere airs too late for that.

Honestly, it feels like 30 Rock has been off the air almost as long as Arrested Development by now.

Sorry for the comparison, but it’s really the most apt one to make. A paltry 6.4 million viewers tuned in week-to-week last season, and that’s not going to cut it if you want the AD references to stop.

It’s with that in mind that I regret to say 30 Rock returns Thursday with a good but not as great as I was hoping Season 3 premiere. Maybe I built it up in my mind after six months of withdrawal. Or maybe I’m experiencing Tina Fey Fatigue. I can’t help but worry that six weeks of Fey-as-Palin hype haven’t created unrealistic expectations for those who do carry over and tune in to “Do-Over,” Thursday’s premiere, which hit the interwebs Oct. 23.

But don’t get me wrong. A mediocre 30 Rock is funnier than 98 percent of what’s on TV these days, so with that in mind here’s the happy recap, as someone I admire used to say.

Here’s your Spoiler Alert, if you needed one. Full episode, courtesy of Hulu.com, and recap after the jump.

The Season 3 premiere airs on NBC one week from tonight, but you can catch it online any second new.

It’s not up yet (I just checked) but Hulu and NBC.com are carrying the premiere a week ahead of schedule. UPDATE: Fancast.com has it now! UPDATE UPDATE: It’s up, and you can view it by scrolling to the bottom of this post! You can also get a free download of the premiere on Monday from iTunes and TV Guide.

Apparently, NBC is trying to make a way-too-late attempt to take advantage of the Tina Fey-Sarah Palin buzz, which already has mostly dissipated. But it’s not gone yet. Palin’s limited stint on SNL last week brought the show its best ratings in 14 years.

The line of the night: Lorne Michaels explaining to Palin that a 30 Rock sketch was nixed because nobody knows that show. Don’t get mad at him. Blame the people who are tuning in elsewhere.

It was ridiculous that Fey and Palin didn’t share the stage at all. Read more of this entry »

 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? 

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.

SNL has never shied away from the political fray, and Tina Fey’s moonlighting gig as Sarah Palin has thrust the late-night sketch show back into the election spotlight. I’d say it’s been since Clinton-Bush in ‘92 that the show has played such a high-profile part in dissecting the presidential campaign.

But SNL really stepped in it this week, not simply with a provocative skit but one NBC yanked from its Web site and later re-posted in edited fashion.

Deadline Hollywood Daily’s Nikki Finke, no politico for her part, reported yesterday about a funny jab at the $700 billion bailout that aired this past Saturday. Seems the bit, featuring the hilarious Kristen Wiig as Nancy Pelosi and Fred Armisen as an even Barney Frankier Barney Frank, depicted a joint press conference with Jason Sudeikis’s George W. Bush.

And it pulled no punches in skewering both sides. But as Finke writes… Read more of this entry »

You have to hand it to Tina Fey.

Her spot-on Sarah Palin impression, while wearing a little thin already, has thrust her into the spotlight in a way that her years as SNL’s head writer and her creation of the funniest sit-com on television never did.

If you love Obama and/or hate Palin (And really, what’s the difference, right?), you love Fey’s recreation of the GOP veep’s malaprops, question avoidance and small-town schtick. And even if you bleed red-state red, you have to admit Fey has captured the Alaska guv’s delivery. Her side-by-side with Amy Poehler’s Hillary in the late-night show’s season premiere was among the funniest bits Lorne Michaels and Co. have produced in years.

What’s a former beauty queen-turned-darling-of-the-GOP to do? Turn the tables, it turns out.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that it’s looking more and more likely Palin will appear on SNL to spoof her spoofer.

I’m hearing some sort of Palin tweak of Fey’s American Express commercials is in the works.

While next weekend’s ‘’Saturday Night Live’’ will be a rerun, it is possible Palin could appear Thursday on the first of NBC’s ‘’Weekend Update’’ specials in prime time.

Otherwise, the next orginal “SNL’’ show will be broadcast Oct. 18, a little more than two weeks before the election.

It’s a disgrace and the reason I don’t watch the Emmy Awards that The Office was shut out this year, but the sweeping recognition of 30 Rock as one of the funniest and best written shows on TV was well deserved.

Of course Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin won the Outstanding Actor and Actress trophies, while the show took top honors and Fey won for best writing. If you’ve seen the show at all, you know why.

Baldwin robbed Steve Carell—yet again. Carell’s performance  in the finale, “Goodbye, Toby,” should have made the top actor category a no-brainer win for the world’s best boss.

That said, I picked a few clips I think amply demonstrate why the academy got things right with 30 Rock.

Why Alec Baldwin deserved to win…

Read more of this entry »

No surprise here: “30 Rock” scooped up its second consecutive Emmy last night for Best Comedy, and “Mad Men” made history as the first basic cable series to ever win Best Drama.

And I’m pretty sure no one fell off the couch when Alec Baldwin finally scored his trophy for his scene-stealing performance on “30 Rock,” or when Tina Fey snagged Lead Actress in a Comedy and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.

As for Glenn Close? Please. The woman was a lock for Best Actress in a Drama for “Damages.” (It’s hard not to hand an award to someone whose character had a dog murdered—and then still made us kind of like her.)

But the ol’ Emmys had a few tricks up their sleeves.

Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” shocked everyone—even himself—by swooping in to snag Lead Actor in a Drama away from everyone’s favorite to win, Jon Hamm of “Mad Men.”

Supporting dramatic actor Zeljko Ivanek was a stunner, too. If someone from “Damages” was going to grab that one, we all thought it was gonna be Ted Danson, for sure. My guess is that Danson and Michael Emerson—who was spectacular on “Lost” this season—split the vote and let Ivanek’s Southern-fried suicide score.

But there’s no explanation for a third consecutive win by Jeremy Piven of “Entourage.”

He’s terrific as Ari Gold, no doubt, but three in a row? Come on. He didn’t deserve it last year, and there’s absolutely no way to justify not giving the trophy to Neil Patrick Harris (who’s the best thing on the mediocre “How I Met Your Mother”) or Rainn Wilson (who plays oddball Dwight to perfection on “The Office”).

As for other snubs, Vanessa Williams and Kristin Chenoweth top the list.

Williams should have won last year, and I really thought she was going to score this time around for “Ugly Betty.” Wilhelmina is a more difficult role to play than people think: Williams is brilliant at letting her character be viciously diva-licious without going over the top.

But if she wasn’t victorious, I’d have been fine with my wee personal favorite, Kristin Chenoweth, grabbing the little gold guy. Her Olive gives a little extra oomph to the delightful “Pushing Daisies,” and she got to sing “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” for cripe’s sake!

I believe the voters, however, didn’t want comedic nuances in this category: They just wanted straight funny. So the Emmy went to Jean Smart of “Samantha Who?” And while Smart is great on that show, I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen her play that kind of sassy, sarcastic character before.

Anyway, there were lots more winners and losers, of course: Check out E!’s scorecard here for more.

And keep reading to see who else scored—and bombed—on TV’s biggest night. And not necessarily because they were accepting an award…

Well, Oprah Winfrey turned her back on Sarah Palin, but Sarah Palin’s look-a-like has managed to land Oprah.

NBC made it official yesterday the Big O will guest-star in an episode of on 30 Rock this season. She joins a growing chorus of high-profile one-timers that include Al Gore, Jerry Seinfeld and Steve Buscemi, not to mention the all-star recurring characters portrayed by Will Arnett, Rip Torn and Edie Falco.

Oprah’s been on creator/producer/star Tina Fey’s wish list for a while now, and she got her girl. I wonder if they’ll do anything with the recent flap over the GOP veep’s pre-election ban from Oprah’s couch. That might be a little too much cross-over for Fey, who assumed the Palin role on her alma mater SNL’s premiere.

Oprah will show up on and at 30 Rock in the second episode of the season, airing Nov. 6.

“Oprah is very funny in the episode and we are beyond grateful to have her,” Fey said in a statement. “Also, I would like to announce that we are officially best friends.”

Of course they are. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with her? Fey, that is.

In other guest star news, funnyman-turned-distinguished fellow Steve Martin is joining the show’s one-shot cavalcade. New York Magazine carried a blurb without much detail in which Jane Krakowski blabs the scoop.

He and Oprah join Jennifer Aniston and someone from the CW’s Gossip Girls.

You know what I noticed? Tina Fey looks a lot like Sarah Palin.

The converse of that observation has been echoed through the halls of the interwebs since John McCain made Palin the most buzzed about veep pick probably since Garret Hobart. (Look him up. Interesting guy.)

Well, not one to miss an opportunity, SNL chief Lorne Michaels tapped his old friend Fey to come back and don a pair of hip eyeglasses and portray the latest entry to the national political scene. Current SNL‘er and Fey friend Amy Poehler did her usual hilarious Hillary.

Apparently Palin has a sense of humor about the comparison, which, let’s face it, is pretty flattering to both parties.

CBS News reports that a Palin spokeswoman said the Veep nom had a good laugh along with the press corps in the back of the plane watching her doppleganger steal the show.

She thought it was quite funny, particularly because she once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween.

Yeah, so NBC and iTunes patched things up, and you can buy The Office (and 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica and a bunch of other Peacock shows) for your iPod again.

I’m not going to go crazy cheearleading this move. It was dumb to split like they did a year ago. Now they’re back together. Big whoop. I can’t tell you how much money I saved since then. It was such an anti-customer feud that I’m loath to even give the reunion much free publicity.

But then there is a bright side: freebies. Go to iTunes now and you can download free episodes of several shows in both standard and HiDef versions, which are now available for $2.99 – a complete rip-off if you ask me.

I grabbed every one that interested me, and I didn’t spend a penny on anything else while I was there.

Here’s the first link from a reputable outlet that I came across, if you’re curious about the details. Don’t look for any apologies there, though.

Oh Alec, what would Jack Donaghy do?

Perhaps if Baldwin pondered that question he might choose his words—to his daughter, to his readers or to the press—more carefully.

Baldwin, who once reportedly threatened to leave the country if Bush was elected president—a report he denies—and who was recorded calling his own daughter a thoughtless little pig, and who has made a habit lately of pondering a career change even as 30 Rock is among the most critically acclaimed and just plain funniest shows on TV, has stepped in it again.

In a column at the Huffington Post, in which he lambastes Sarah Palin as the next George Bush (I, for one, don’t think they look at all alike.), he threw in a loaded tag at the end that starts like an apology and ends like a Molotov cocktail.

PS: My apologies to the cast and crews of My Name Is Earl and Scrubs. In my frustration with NBC’s reprehensible promotion of 30 Rock, I took an unfortunate swipe at both of those shows and that was not cool.

But, for Earl’s creator, Greg Garcia, who referred to me as a “psychotic”, I have only one question. Why are you Scientologists always rendering these medical opinions you aren’t qualified to give?