Once again I revel in being out of touch with the tastes of the viewing public. I've tried to appreciate this show for weeks now, but it's just the lamest piece of crap I've subjected myself to in decades. I had high hopes for a Tina Fey show, but I happily admit that I don't 'get' it, and I don't want it.

But after that Earl show, which I HATE, is The Office which I LOVE, not Scrubs, which I can tolerate. I like your column, and I have had that feeling of late, that I am a lame loser because I can't afford anything. You so get me.

I love Heather Havrilesky's column, but 30 Rock is a lame, unfunny show, and Tina Fey is a lame, unfunny heroine. I didn't like Mean Girls, either. Fey has too many agendas to really be funny. She's always trying to make an ideological point. Even her schlumpy persona on this show is geared to make an ideological point. It's dull.

Baldwin isn't good either. He's playing a tired concept, and the writing isn't snappy enough or inventive enough to find a new way to present it.

Tracy Morgan is something I would have thought him incapbable of: unfunny.

By the way, I liked Ally McBeal, at least until it fell apart in the last two seasons. I prefer agressive, funny comedy to schmaltzy "gee-aren't-I-the-unappreciated-intellectual" little-guy comedy.

This week's edition has been online for literally *minutes* and you haven't posted your tirade yet? Are you in bed with croup or ague?

(JK)

By far, my favorite new show this season -- the show that keeps on giving! When I can, I rewatch shows because there are always small details (treasures!) that I missed the first go'round. Give this show a chance!

30 Rock has really found itself after its first few episodes. Recent episodes are nearly up there with The Office or Arrested Development in density of quality, laugh-out-loud silliness.

Honestly, I don't see any agenda there other than to make people laugh. Considering that at least half the laughs are at Liz Lemon's expense, it's hard to see how Tina Fey is pushing any kind of politics. I think she's at heart a comedian (screw the feminine spelling)-- she's all about what's funny.

Alec Baldwin should have been doing comedy his whole life. 15 years ago, when he was at his cheesy stud action-hero peak, who could have guessed that one day he'd be the funniest man on TV?

Nothing created by Tina Fey can be considered funny. As Head Writer of SNL for something like eight years, she oversaw the worst era of the show. Even Jean Doumanian was better than she, and it's time everyone acknowledge that. The irony is that, during her rein, the only time SNL was funny was when Alec Baldwin was the guest host, so she somehow hoodwinked Baldwin into being on this show.

Oh and by the way, HH sucks the Big Red One. Right down to the lowliest private.

marktgarden asked: "This week's edition has been online for literally *minutes* and you haven't posted your tirade yet? Are you in bed with croup or ague?"

No, those are diseases of rich, pointless, aimless people like Ms. Havrilesky. People like me, who actually live in a country you may have heard of called America, get shot by gangbangers, rednecks or psychotic postmen.

It just happens that I'm on vacation this week, in a place outside the U.S. called Burbank, California. Even attended a book signing party (no, not my book, Bush hasn't finished coloring it in yet). Havrilesky would love it here. A large percentage of the colorful natives here are arrogant, heartless snobs like her. And they would offer her a wonderful life direction; they don't feel the need to put their thoughtless opinions into print, only yell them at each other over a too-loud DJ playing techno crap. If only she'd do that instead...

Not too much to say this week, except that "30 Rock" and "Studio 60" prove that late-night comedy is indeed dead. Intellectuals only find significance in popular culture when that culture appears to be dead; thus the name "culture vultures." They only paid attention to popular motion pictures when the studio system was dead, and they only showed appreciation for TV when cable, DVD's and YouTube made broadcasting a terminal patient.

"Saturday Night Live," the unspoken model for these shows, stopped being the generator of fresh comedy and the showcase for new comic actors a long time ago. (Arguably it never was; did Chevy Chase, John Belushi or Dan Aykroyd ever make movies that really lived up to their hyped status as comic geniuses?) The promise of semi-improvised sketch comedy has evaporated, and these backstage dramas confirm it. Of course, they wouldn't do fictionalized versions of the real history like the drug abuse permitted on the SNL set, or the way SNL's women were shut out of the creative process by the comedy world's intrinsic sexism. If they had, perhaps these shows would be worth watching.

Something about way this article was written brings to mind an SNL sketch featuring one of Tina Fey's departed ancestors...

"Hey, you 'member that time on '30 Rock' when Tina Fey says 'what, because I'm eating a turkey sub,' and Alec Baldwin goes 'you have a piece of lettuce stuck in your hair'? You 'member that?

That was AWESOME!"

While Studio 60 irritated me from the beginning, 30 Rock was terrific to me. The tag team of Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan just totally worked. Alec Baldwin simply throws away NO LINE. Any time his character opens his mouth, I wind up smiling, and most times, LOL. I want 30 Rock to make it.

Unusually, most of the new shows from the States this year have yet to make it over here - we are still waiting for Studio 60 (though I am not holding my breath), 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, Heroes etc. Despite this, I still avidly read Heather every week, just because she is one of the few guarantees of genuine laughs on Salon (not necessarily a criticism, but the last truly funny article from another writer was Andrew's description of Fox News on election night). I laughed loud enough at this article to wake my roomate and her girlfriend - one of your funniest pieces in ages!

By the way, you guys should give the Tsunami mini-series a go - its got some absolutely superb acting in it (Toni Collette, Gina McKeee, Chiwetel Eljiofar and Sophe Okenedo are brilliant) and despite some corney dialogue, especially in the second half, its largely well paced, complex and sensitive.