[Bianculli here: Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, NBC presents a fresh episode of 30 Rock -- a delightful episode guest starring the equally delightful Jan Hooks. One week from tonight, NBC presents the final installment of the prime-time Jay Leno Show. Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller connects the dots, and suggests that as Leno leaves for later pastures, 30 Rock should watch its back...]
Thrill of the Chase? Not When It's Chevy
Is Tina Fey the next to go?
Like Conan, she and her 30 Rock are Lorne Michaels proteges. That seems about as healthy, in today's NBC environment, as a three-pack-a-day habit.
But there's more reason to worry she'll be canned. Hers is the only intentionally funny series left on NBC. The same NBC that for many decades gave shelter and encouragement to classic comedy series.
(It's also the same network that grew wonderful drama series, from St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues to The West Wing and ER. But since it has so badly botched Friday Night Lights, Heroes and Southland, and just abandoned high-end series like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, drama is deader than comedy there, and talking about its health is just moot.)
Community and Parks and Recreation are uselessly void of humor, and The Office ran out of gas a season or two ago.
ABC, which once produced as many laughs as a clown car full of Republican senators, now kicks butt with the season's best new comedies. CBS promotes and protects its reliably funny carryover comedies. But NBC only produces laughs when David Letterman talks about it in his monologue.
Which brings us back to Tina Fey and 30 Rock. Now that it's been shown, courtesy of Jay Leno, that a never-that-funny old guy can engineer a coup and retake the once-glorious nighttime palace, what's to keep the same from happening in prime time?
The threat, of course, is Chevy Chase, the gooey prototype for the later Leno model of the much ado about nothing product NBC now produces.
Chase, too, is out of place in prime time. He, too, once was anointed by NBC's executive wing of 30-watt bulbs as a cornerstone of its late night. Except for falling down a lot and coining the phrase "and you're not" (and I always was glad to hear that), he has no trophies to show for more than three decades in entertainment.
Chase, no doubt, has watched and drooled as Leno unseated O'Brien. And his attack, perhaps, is imminent. With Dick Wolf's many Law and Order offspring as his model, Chase just may use his leverage at NBC to spread even more Communities around the network.
After all, if a town has a fire engine and its own garbage trucks, it probably also is big enough to support a community college. Community: Altoona. Community: Toledo. Community: Cherry Hill. They all could be coming soon to TV listings near you.
And they'd be every bit as wonderful as the rest of the slop NBC now nurtures. And just think what they would do to improve unemployment prospects for third-tier actors.
And what about Tina Fey and 30 Rock? They'd not only be occupying a space which Community: Biloxi could use -- they'd be a too-painful reminder of the high quality NBC has flushed away. And who wants people remembering originality when the generic brand is so much cheaper?
Say goodbye to Liz and Jack and Tracy and the rest. The only long-term hope they have at NBC is to gain a whole lot of weight and try out for The Biggest Loser -- which, of course, is us.
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Disclaimer: Tom Brinkmoeller holds no financial interest in NBC-Universal (he's done some dumb things in his life, but nothing that stupid), and he has no interests in nor prejudices against this country's many fine community colleges. Nor does he find them inherently funny.