BC Tube: A non-believer

I will admit I didn't believe it. People touted its hilarity and I shot them down. Maybe I felt drunk with the power of not liking something that everyone else loved. Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I watched it for the very first time. Whatever the reason, I was a non-believer. Leave it to the Queen of Television, Oprah Winfrey, to convert such a heathen. Last Thursday she did something very unlike her - she guest-starred on NBC's 30 Rock. Where Oprah goes, I go, and so for only the second time, I tuned in to one of the only true sitcoms left on TV.

For those of you living under a rock other than the 30 variety, 30 Rock is crafted from the mastermind of Tina Fey. It is my sincere belief that Fey belongs behind the scenes more so than in front. I'm not trying to say that I don't think she's funny - she certainly is, and far be it from me to take down one of the few powerful women left in TV besides Oprah. But Fey's real genius lies in writing snappy, intellectual, culturally critical comedy. Her talent has grown significantly since her Saturday Night Live days, and as television viewers, we should feel lucky that she left SNL in the dust and moved to primetime.

In front of the camera, I would say the real star of 30 Rock is Alec Baldwin. I always found Baldwin somewhat of a creep, and consider his best career moment prior to 30 Rock to be his classic SNL character Pete Schweaty, the baker of Schweaty Balls. As network executive Jack Donaghy, Baldwin is the perfect contradiction - powerful yet subtle, awfully serious yet scathingly funny.

The cast is rounded out by another SNL alum Tracy Morgan as the show-within-a-show's star Tracy Jordan, and Jane Krakowski as his co-star, Jenna Maroney. The two characters practically hate each other, and Morgan and Krakowski have fantastic chemistry in that department. In last week's Oprah episode, Tracy and Jenna get into an epic battle over who has it harder, black men or white women. After a few words are exchanged, each decides to dress up as the other to find the answer once and for all. Then Fey's character, Liz Lemon, brings in who she believes to be Oprah to mediate the situation. Turns out, Liz actually mistook a young girl that she met on the plane for Oprah while she was under the influence of strong painkillers. Still, the tween gets Tracy and Jenna to sing "Lean on Me" and make up their racial differences. This is just one example of the inappropriate humor of 30 Rock that not only made me laugh out loud, but convert to the possible status of regular viewer.