30 Rock: Season 1

Liz Lemon (geek goddess Tina Fey) juggles her hapless personal life with her chaotic professional one as the producer and head writer of an SNL-ish sketch comedy show. She has a new boss, cunning and ruthless GE executive Jack Donaghy (a peerless Alec Baldwin), who insists on being her mentor, and a new star, the unstable comedian Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), who steals the spotlight from the show's flighty star, Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski). Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Remember Arrested Development? History seems to be repeating itself with 30 Rock. It's the smartest, funniest show on television. A critics' darling. Ten Emmy nominations. And it finished its 2006-07 inaugural season in 137th place! Hopefully, this 21-episode first season set will help 30 Rock find the audience it so richly deserves. Briskly-paced and perfectly cast, the show rewards viewers with brilliant dialogue (when Liz asks Donaghy why he is dressed in a tuxedo with no formal event to attend, he coolly responds, "It's after six—what am I, a farmer?") and fresh characters you haven't seen on a hundred other sitcoms (Jack McBrayer is the series' scene-stealing breakout star as NBC page Kenneth, a sweet and innocent "rube"). It's a testament to this show's brilliance that the episode generally cited as an instant classic ("Black Tie," featuring Paul Rubens as severely inbred royalty) isn't even the season's best: "Tracy Does Conan," "Jack the Writer," "Jack-Tor," and "The Head and the Hair" are all gems. It would have been interesting to see the original pilot, which starred Rachel Dratch as Jenna (in one of this series' few missteps, Dratch appears as different characters in many of the episodes), as one of the DVD extras, but instead we get a handful of "An Evening with Kenneth" shorts (which are also available online), five episode commentaries, deleted scenes, and behind-the-scenes featurettes. By the hammer of Thor, watch season two! Highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)