30 ROCK Season 1 (2006-07)

30 Rock is the name of an American comedy series which Tina Fey created partly based on her experience at Saturday Night Live. So here we have a fictional live sketch comedy show called as "TGS with Tracy Jordan" (initially called as The Girly Show) whose head writer is Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey). We see what happens behind the production of this TV show along with knowing about the various persons/characters involved with it. 

Season 1 was nominated for 10 Emmy awards. Apart from the writing, the really best part of the series is actors. Casting was absolutely fantastic. Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Lonny Ross, Maulik Pancholy everyone was great in their roles.

But the 2 people who really stood out for me are Jane Krakowski as attention seeking star of TGS and Jack McBrayer as the ever happy, obedient, stupid NBC page. For me, these two and Tina Fey of course are the real stars of 30 Rock. 

The comedy is top notch. If what you want is plain don't-use-much brain comedy, this is the thing for you. As far as the characters are concerned, they make me laugh very much but somehow I'm really not concerned about what happens with them except Liz Lemon. But my liking towards Liz Lemon might have to do more with Tina Fey than Liz Lemon (also I guess there might be a lot of similarities between Fey and Liz Lemon). With other characters, it's more like you make me laugh but I don't care if you are out of the show because someone else is going to do the same job. But once again the comedy is really good.

Verdict: 8/10

Some of the episodes that I felt to be very very good are episodes 13, 14, 18, 20 which are Up all night, The C-word, Fireworks, Cleveland respectively. But my top 5 favourite episodes are

1. The Head and The Hair (episode 11)

2. Corporate Crush (episode 19)

3. The Rural Juror (episode 10) & Black Tie (episode 12)

5. Jack meets Dennis (episode 6 )

Love to know your favourite ones,

Pilot episodes of The Office & 30 Rock

Last year at this date, I didn't knew that there were two comedy series by the names of The Office & 30 Rock. In the last 6 months, I've read a lot of praise for these two series. One of my friends got the dvds for these shows, so finally I've decided to watch these comedies from today.

After watching the pilot episodes, these are my initial thoughts & reactions about these.

In The Office, we follow the chronicles of people working in a fictional company by the name Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

It is like one of these cluttered govt offices where people are so bored. They appear kind of content but not content. You know what I mean. I am introduced to some of the key characters neatly such as Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Pam Halpert (Jenna Fischer), etc,. All of them looked really good in their characters. Steve Carell was sometimes funny but mostly I felt his character was kind of irritating & slightly lunatic. I wanted to throw paper weight on his head after his practical joke on Jenna but that is the reaction they wanted from audience I suppose. It would be interesting to see how these characters are going to develop in my view. Especially Carell's after that irritating sketch in this episode.

Date Night (2010)

Verdict:  8/10

Ads before the movie in theatre:

1. New Samsung 3D. The ad was amazing on the big screen although I doubt the real effect of the T.V.

2. Trailer of The A-Team, which was rather uninspiring with the only inspiration being Liam Neeson's face.

3. Insipid trailer of The Bounty Hunter starring Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler. I found the comedy rather bland. Never a fan of Aniston.

Date Night is directed by Shawn Levy whose previous credits include The Pink Panther & Night at the Museum movies amongst others.

The movie stars Steve Carell & Tina Fey as the married couple Phil and Claire Foster living in New Jersey with 2 children. They are one of those couples who lead the same monotonous routine life, day in & day out. Although they do love & admire each other, they feel nothing "special" or magic in their relation as well as life. Every week they go on a date night to the local restaurant where they make jokes & amuse themselves by imitating other couples' talks & guessing their stories. But even this has become a tiresome experience now. When their best friends inform the Fosters about their divorce by saying that they no longer feel like couple but good room mates, Fosters feel the same about themselves. So in order to rekindle their romance Steve takes Claire on a date to a costly Manhattan restaurant.