30 Rock (esteemed winner of the 30 Rock vs. Studio 60 deathmatch)

Started by ono, September 18, 2006, 08:00:42 PM

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JG

i only saw the first 30 rock, and i don't even know that i like it very much, but tracy morgan was so hilarious.  everything he did was just great, even the hard-to-explain-and-make-sound-funny things, like when he came out on stage and everybody went crazy and there's like a one second shot of him doing the robot.   classic. 

polkablues

Quote from: modage on October 19, 2006, 10:23:02 PM
yeah does anybody who was raving about this a few pages ago still feel like its any good?

I still do.  The self-righteousness is a little much, but I'm still getting enjoyment out of the thing.  Maybe I just miss West Wing so much, I'll take whatever I can get.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Kal

Ok for everybody talking before time... 30 Rock lost like half its audience from the 1st show to the other... rating was way worse than Studio 60...

Havent seen it yet... but it doesnt look good for NBC... except for Heroes

MacGuffin

Quote from: kal on October 19, 2006, 11:57:34 PMHavent seen it yet... but it doesnt look good for NBC... except for Heroes

NBC Says 'No Deal' to Scripted TV
As part of the network's cutbacks, the 8 p.m. hour will feature low-cost game shows and reality programs.
Source: Los Angeles Times

In another sign that television is no longer the juggernaut that it once was, NBC Universal on Thursday announced a retrenchment and cost-cutting that will eliminate about 700 positions to save $750 million over the next two years.

In a particularly stunning move, NBC executives acknowledged plans for a partial retreat in prime-time — the lucrative three-hour programming block that has long been the petri dish for U.S. pop culture. Instead of using the 8 p.m. hour to showcase its most popular scripted shows — from "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s and "Friends" in the 1990s — the network plans to instead fill the hour with game shows and other low-cost fare.

Doing away with scripted programming at 8 p.m. could be another blow to the Hollywood machine — the thousands of actors, writers, producers, crew members and talent agents — who have long enjoyed fat paychecks that come from feeding the broadcast networks' voracious appetite for new dramas and sit-coms.

But scripted shows aren't working as well at 8 p.m. these days.

"The audience just isn't there," Bob Wright, chairman of NBC Universal, said in an interview. "Nobody has tried harder than we have to make our shows work there. We have some of our best stuff at 8 o'clock, and it's struggling."

Instead, he said, unscripted shows such as NBC's game show "Deal or No Deal," CBS' durable "Survivor" and ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" have built solid followings at 8 p.m.

NBC's shift in strategy, which likely will go into effect next year, means that NBC will be ordering fewer new shows in the spring because it has fewer holes to fill in the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. hours, where proven veterans make up its roster.

The changes at NBC Universal go beyond prime-time. Every division of the once-proud peacock will be trimmed, from NBC's news gathering operations to the Universal film studio. Division heads have been asked to identify employees and find other ways to streamline operations to boost profits for its parent company, General Electric Co.

The planned layoffs total 5% of NBC Universal's full-time workforce of 15,000.

NBC Universal's reorganization follows that of other media titans that are struggling to remain relevant as more consumers turn to the Internet for their news and entertainment. Both Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. announced cuts earlier this year.

NBC executives declined to say how many people would be let go from its operations in Burbank and Universal City. Instead, they said the bulk of the cuts will come from the company's TV division, which makes up two-thirds of its workforce. The company's news gathering operations, from NBC network news, its local stations, Spanish-language Telemundo network and cable channels MSNBC and CNBC, will feel the sting. The one division that might see an increase in worker is the Universal Studios' theme parks.

But for the National Broadcasting Co., which formed 80 years ago as the nation's first chain of radio stations, the announcement marked the company's latest attempt to reinvent itself to keep up with the times.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

ono

Quote from: polkablues on October 19, 2006, 11:41:06 PM
Quote from: modage on October 19, 2006, 10:23:02 PM
yeah does anybody who was raving about this a few pages ago still feel like its any good?

I still do. The self-righteousness is a little much, but I'm still getting enjoyment out of the thing. Maybe I just miss West Wing so much, I'll take whatever I can get.
I do, too.  I think Sorkin could swallow some of his pride and do whatever he needs to do to work on whatever it is that ISN'T working, but I still see the potential in the show, and get more enjoyment out of it than anything else on TV right now.  I think all of the criticisms of the show could be answered validly, but what does it matter to the people who've already made up their minds about the show?  It's got a lot of potential.  That's what I saw in the first few episodes, and that's what's being squandered because right now the tone is a bit off and the characters are being misused.  This past episode was a little weaker than the rest, but still the last bit with Matt, Harriet, and Sting was inspired (save the "you knock my socks off" line, though what else could she do besides kiss him?).  I don't like how their romance is being focused on so much.  The impression I got from the first show is these are two people who are better off apart, and the struggle will be them working together.  Show us interesting interaction, and not just romance.  The best scenes are when characters do something unexpected yet totally in character in hindsight.

30 Rock is okay, but the fact that Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, and Rachel Dratch are hilarious should be a revelation to no one.  This show has more potential.

modage

ok just so you know when this is cancelled we're going to turn it into another LOST thread.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

grand theft sparrow

Quote from: onomabracadabra on October 20, 2006, 07:17:34 AM
30 Rock is okay, but the fact that Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, and Rachel Dratch are hilarious should be a revelation to no one.  This show has more potential.

I'm betting that 30 Rock will get cancelled this week.  It's an amusing show but not as shit your pants hilarious as I was hoping.  Tracy Morgan doesn't even have to do anything and he makes me laugh but it was doomed from the start; it's not like he, Fey or Dratch had the popularity of Will Ferrell or even Jimmy Fallon.  It's yet another show that would have done better as a one-off movie, so they don't have to stretch storylines over 13-22 episodes but rather 90 minutes and no restrictions on language.

And it fucking figures that nobody likes the first show that ever made good use of Matthew Perry!  I guess with him and Amanda Peet soon to be out of work, we can look forward to The Whole Eleven Yards.  Nice!   :doh:

Ravi

Oh come on, 30 Rock is funnier than you make it out to be.  Its certainly better than S60, which could be interesting if Sorkin would get to some interesting storylines already.

grand theft sparrow

Like I said, it's funny and I'll watch it as long as it's on, but I laughed harder at Mean Girls than most of the first 2 episodes, and it's not the sort of broad humor that screams "hit."  I'd like to see it keep going (especially if Rachel Dratch plays a completely different character every week, that's genius) but it's just not going to happen unless Tracy Morgan stars in the number 1 movie in America this week, like what happened with The Office.


diggler

Quote from: MacGuffin on October 20, 2006, 01:25:03 AM
Quote from: kal on October 19, 2006, 11:57:34 PMHavent seen it yet... but it doesnt look good for NBC... except for Heroes


In a particularly stunning move, NBC executives acknowledged plans for a partial retreat in prime-time — the lucrative three-hour programming block that has long been the petri dish for U.S. pop culture. Instead of using the 8 p.m. hour to showcase its most popular scripted shows — from "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s and "Friends" in the 1990s — the network plans to instead fill the hour with game shows and other low-cost fare.


kinda funny how this was a major plot point in the last S60 episode
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

MacGuffin

'Studio 60' needs a renovation
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has offered viewers a variety of pleasures, but not the one that may matter most: a reason to care.

That's not how Studio's story was supposed to go. Heavily promoted and critically praised, this NBC drama (tonight, 10 ET/PT) combines two of TV's best-liked stars, Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford, with one of its best writers, West Wing's Aaron Sorkin. As you'd expect from a show with so much going in its favor, Studio quickly found an audience, and just as rapidly chased it away.

The problem is that rather than use his setting — behind the scenes at a Saturday Night Live-like show — as a jumping-off point for relatable workplace stories, Sorkin has delved ever more deeply into the intricacies of the television industry and, it seems, into his place in it. The background notes of self-righteousness and self-reference that were present in the pilot have become the dominant tone, to the extent that too much of the show comes across as a giant ego stroke.

The last straw was perhaps last week's episode, built entirely around a magazine profile being written by a famous reporter. Ostensibly designed to give us background on the romance between the show's head writer, Matt Albie (Perry), and one of its stars, Harriet Hayes (Sarah Paulson), the story actually seemed to exist to provide another opportunity to lecture us on the importance of the show to America, pop culture and democracy, delivered by yet another smug, glib, overly confident character.

What's hard to fathom is the air of portent that seems to surround everything that happens at Studio 60. When was the last time all of America was riveted by SNL? And while it's true we love a good celebrity scandal, it would take a lot more than a bad marriage and an old drunken-driving charge to get most Americans to even remember the name of a network president like Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), let alone be consumed by her personal problems.

Studio 60 still has far more going for it than most TV shows could ever hope to match, from the talents of its cast and crew to the underlying appeal of its main characters. But unless it wants to see those assets go to waste, the show has to make some course corrections. Five places to start:

1. Can the comedy

Sorkin has a prodigious gift for writing witty, literate, dramatic dialogue that can break the tension in a scene. But that's not the same as writing sketch comedy, and his show's attempts to do so have been so painfully dull, they call into question the oft-praised talents of Sorkin's alter ego, Matt. Tell us the idea for the sketch, but don't actually produce one.

2. It's not all about you

If you're giving your show autobiographical flourishes, as Sorkin admits to doing, you have to be careful not to make it look as if you're constructing the podium for the statue to come. Too many speeches praise Matt's genius, and too many characters exist to do the same.

3. More real/less ideal

West Wing's view of the White House as a world where personal ambition was set aside for the public good was a fantasy, but it was one we wanted to believe. Move it to Hollywood, and the fantasy becomes far less enticing. We're supposed to believe that no one is jealous of Harriet's favored status among the cast? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

4. A grateful nation does not await

Supposedly, Matt and his old friend and creative partner, executive producer Danny Tripp (Whitford), took this job because it was the only way they could work together, a situation that earned them instant sympathy. But rather than saving their careers, they now act as if they were saving us from reality-show madness and the pit of political divide. We would miss Studio 60 if it were canceled, but we would survive. All involved need to keep that in mind.

5. A little less earnest, please

You're making TV, not curing cancer. Stop putting such a burden of import on both versions of Studio 60, fictional and real. The shame is there is plenty of fodder for drama in network TV. Studio 60 airs for a company that is about to make some 700 underlings pay for the almost unprecedented incompetence of its top brass — who will, of course, go on collecting their outrageous salaries and bonuses.

That's a story that would resonate with a lot of Americans. Maybe even enough to make them care about your show.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

polkablues

That is all fantastic advice.  I hope it's heeded.
My house, my rules, my coffee

pete

how can he heed it?  I mean, the entire season's probably all shot already right?
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

polkablues

Quote from: pete on October 23, 2006, 02:55:58 AM
how can he heed it?  I mean, the entire season's probably all shot already right?

I doubt it...  Shows like this do tend to stay weeks ahead, but I'd be absolutely shocked if the initial 13 episode run has all been written and shot already.  And if they do get picked up for the full season (and even with the numbers they're currently getting, I would deem that a likely prospect), that's another nine episodes right there to make amends with.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Kal

They can make overnight changes... that is for sure. Especially on shows that dont have so much post-production or location shooting. But the problem is that as far as I know they already confirmed that FNL will move to their spot Monday at 10pm starting next week. So unless they will try a different day/time and see what happens, its already gone.

Too bad... because those things Robert Bianco says are true. They can still save the show. I kinda like it... its not great, but I'm hoping it gets better and I like Mathew Perry. Joey already failed, so it sucks that again because he was so successful with Friends now everything else is bullshit no matter how good he is.

NBC is going from dumb to dumber to dumberer. The new low-cost/gameshow/reality bullshit is a disaster considering there are so many good ideas for shows and existing shows that can already fill that time if they would do a better show placing it and promoting it. They have some of the best rated shows on TV and they cant get the ratings... FNL, Studio 60, Heroes, The Office... they have to change something else, not get rid of the good TV.