Great TV Comedy is Happening Right Under Our Noses!

Posted by Kyle January 5th, 2007 at 12:10pm In General

Holy crap! There are two flat out brilliant comedy shows on Thursday night on NBC. Are you watching them? Please tell me you are. By now I think everyone has come around to The Office. If there are still people griping about it not being as good as the British Office, they are missing the point and are wrong and should stick to their Britcom Fan Blog. The other brilliant show is still in danger of disappearing. Naturally I'm talking about Scrubs. No I'm not. Scrubs is on my list of shows like The Family Guy that are sometimes funny but go against everything I like about comedies. Shows like The King of Queens don't make it on that list because they're never funny.

Of course it's my new favorite show "30 Rock" (9:30, Thursdays on NBC. Check your local listings. Seriously.). The ratings aren't as high as they should be, but unlike another recent TiFaux favorite, this show is not on Fox, and has powerful friends like Lorne Michaels to keep it on the air. According to my calculations, the average Lorne Michaels-produced TV show has lasted about 8 years, so 30 Rock should be guaranteed at least 6 right? Ok, having 31 years of SNL and 13 of Conan skews those numbers a little. The truth is that Lorne has never had a sitcom last more than one season. But still. NBC seems like they're behind this one. Which I hope is not like Bush saying he's behind someone (which generally means he's secretly planning to fire them after the election).

Watching the shows back to back (skipping Scrubs, see above) on the TiFaux last night was fantastic. I haven't been surprised by 44 minutes of comedy like that in a long time. The Office came in on all uncomfortable cylinders taking a silly (and I mean that in a good way) plotline about Michael accidentally forwarding a dirty picture to the wrong person and turning it into something really unexpected. Michael's increasing desperation as the photo spreads around the office is a classic farce setup. The classic payoff is  Jan shows up, yells at him, and Michael doesn't get laid anymore. But just when we think that's going to happen, Jan shows up not having seen the picture and essentially demands that Michael have sex with her that afternoon. I've always thought failure was funny, but winning while doing all the wrong things is hilarious. The writers also have a knack for throwing in a punchline to release some of the unbearable tension. The "you complete me" line at the end was priceless.

Pam's scene with Dwight was another highlight, as Office prop guy John writes about on his fascinating prop-focused blog. Rainn Wilson is such a fantastically committed actor. His careful removal of his jacket was a great piece of work. And once again, a touching scene ends with a punchline that makes it even more touching.

30 Rock, on the other hand is in no way touching (and when are they going to release some new cast photos?). It's a flat out, old-fashioned farce. The boss is mad so Liz has to keep people away from him. Complications ensue. Liz wants a baby so her friend tells everyone she needs a sperm donor. Everyone tries to have sex with Liz. Classic stuff. Maybe it's because there's so little of this kind of high-energy mayhem happening on TV, or maybe it's just that the situations are tweaked to a point just beyond what you would expect from potentially tired situations like these, but it's getting big laughs at TiFaux headquarters. When Liz accidentally steals the makeup girl's baby, she blames the baby. ("Why didn't you say something?") with a totally straight face. It's completely unrealistic. Stand-up comic Eugene Mirman always used to say "it is never funny to just pick up a baby and run," but last night Tina Fey proved him wrong.