Weekly Poll Winner: 30 Rock

The results are in and you have selected 30 Rock as your favorite comedy-driven TV show. I can't say I'm not a little surprised, being that the choices were last year's Emmy nominees and 30 Rock won the award.


30 Rock has, in just it's first three seasons, won nine Emmys, including in two consecutive years for Outstanding Comedy series. They have also taken home five Golden Globe awards, including Best Television Series this year.


Produced by the legendary Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels and Tina Fey (among others), 30 Rock follows Liz Lemon (Fey), her boss Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and the crazy actor Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and their adventures at NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza


Liz Lemon is the head writer of an SNL-like sketch comedy program called TGS with Tracy Jordan (formerly known as The Girlie Show, until Jordan joins the cast in the first episode).


Tina Fey does a stand-up job making fun of herself on the show, always pulling out the stops and ready to have a joke made at her expense. But still, Liz Lemon is comparatively normal to the other characters.


30 Rock is one of several successful shows that revolve around one main character who happens to be surrounded by other characters who are different variations of crazy. (Arrested Development, The Office and Seinfeld are other examples.)


Unlike its NBC Thursday night counterpart The Office, however, 30 Rock maintains almost always a light-hearted atmosphere throughout, never creating real drama or making you feel sad or upset about how the episode ended.


One of the great aspects of the show is the relationship between Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy, her self-absorbed executive boss. He often seems to be a bit irritated by the way she behaves (since the two are so different), but you can tell he thinks she's fantastic. Maybe they'll get together by accident on the show someday. Maybe not? (Leave a comment if you want to discuss this topic--I'm interested to see what people think.)


Here's a clip:






The relationship between Lemon and Donaghy is future classic, but another hilariously-written character is that of Tracy Jordan, who plays the lead actor on TGS with Tracy Jordan (obviously), and is just about the last person on a live show cast you would want to have around. He is completely insane, and almost any interaction involving Jordan on the show brings howls of laughter.

In this clip, Kenneth the Page has a date with a blind girl, but is too nervous to talk himself, so he enlists Tracy to be his Cyrano (Also, the "waiter" is named Dot Com). The second half shows Donaghy in confession: