I guess I was supposed to dislike "30 Rock"

...but it sure didn't work out that way.

The weaknesses of the pilot were evident: Fey is no Mary Tyler Moore, for example. Believing Jane Krakowski and Fey were best friends was a bit of a stretch, since Krakowski's character traits seemed to be "pretty, useless, annoying." And as I've written here before, I think Rachael Dratch is wonderful, and really got shafted in the cast shuffle that put her out and Krakowski in.

But all of that having been said, I really enjoyed the first episode of "30 Rock." Here are some reasons why:

• Tracy Morgan. He's long had his detractors, but I've never been one of them. I even liked him in his family sitcom last year. Luckily, here we have a show built around his amazing talent for making stupid baby faces and voices. When Tracy Morgan said, "yeah... risky HBO style content!" I almost lost it, and as far as I know, that wasn't even a punchline. The show also seems comfortable playing around with race, which is one of the great things about Morgan's comedy. The closing shots of Morgan's character on stage and the audience's rapt attention and rapturous applause were great. "Honky grandma..." (AUDIENCE ROARS)
  
• Alec Baldwin. Again, credit to Fey for creating a role perfectly tailored to his talents. Baldwin's utter conviction helps ground the proceedings, despite his absurd behavior. Unlike some people, he's entirely convincing as a network executive, and his pitch to Fey and Adsit ("we need the third heat"), based on oven technology, is mesmerizing in it's bizarro logic.
• The supporting cast. Honestly, I think I'm in man-love with Jack McBrayer, whose gentle little boy act just keeps getting better. Another great pickup from the talent pool at the IO is Scott Adsit, who I think will be a great foil and friend for Fey's character. It's apparent that these are folks (Fey, et al) who really know funny, so I have high hopes.

We'll see where the show goes from here. As far as "relatable main characters" go, Fey's about halfway there, if she can get another 25%, that'll be plenty good enough. Not everyone is MTM. Hopefully they'll be able to balance the ridiculousness of Baldwin and Morgan's characters with a bit of realism. And I guess it's possible that this new role for Dratch will work, though it sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Maybe I'm just dissapointed that this isn't her big break.

Who am I kidding? Here's the bottom line: as long as Tracy Morgan is making funny baby faces, count me in.

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