TV. Review: 30 Rock

In its fourth season, Tina Fey still manages to make me laugh out loud to her zany pseudo alter-ego "Liz Lemon".30 Rock has managed to last one season more than Arrested Development, and unfortunately, like all great comedies that critics give two thumbs up, the audience response seems to be mildly lukewarm. So goes the formula when it comes to witty comedy.

The fourth season continues where the last season left off with Liz Lemon, played by the charming Tina Fey, continue to be the head writer for The TGS with Tracy Jordan (played of course by the unpredictable and often times unnecessarily obnoxious Tracy Morgan). A common plot for the beginning of the fourth season includes finding a new cast member to join the show. Of course, egos clash between Jenna Maroney (of Ally McBeal fame, who basically plays the same character she did for Fox as she does for NBC) and Tracy Jordan who fears that a new cast mate will steal the spotlight from their comedic (only in the actual real characters that they portray) faces.

The requisite and brilliant Alec Baldwin continues his role as Jack Donaughy, an NBC executive who is Lemon's superior and who enjoys making appearances every now and then to suggest ways on how to improve the show (often times when it will benefit his career). Personal lives interconnect between Lemon and Baldwin as they look towards each other for relationship advice and overall well-being--which often never works out for any of them, considering most of their advice turns out to be crap.

Despite the humor that these two evoke when they play a game of witty remarks ping-pong style, it is the supporting cast that truly makes the show radiate with warm humor. With their one-liners and quirky off-the-wall personalities, the rest of the writers that write for the show emanate and exaggerate the stereotypes that come with television writers who write for a mediocre sketch-comedy show: they really don't care that much. This extreme apathy shows not only in their perfect delivery but in their facial and body expressions as well. No one can piss out a window better than Frank Rossitano, played by comedian Judah Friedlander--who also obviously has an identity esteem problem with his image, considering he has to change his hat every single day in order to pretend and convince himself that he is funny. And no one can put on airs like Toofer, who is convinced that his Ivy-league educated brain is more funny than anyone else. And who doesn't love NBC page, Kenneth Parcell, played by Jack McBrayer? You'd have to be a robot not to love that kid.

Overall, the show is charming, even the token black man playing the token black man along with his articulate entourage following him like dogs manages to crack me up every once in awhile--even when he is being over-the-top loud. The show is full of great dialogue, with many references to pop culture, and with an ensemble that comes off as one big Jewish family--because they sure seem to know how to bug the heck out of one another, they are always eating, and they always know how to be in each other's business--even when it has nothing to do with writing a television show.