Well, Alec Baldwin is finally clarifying his latest Twitter bombshell — which must be nice for Tina Fey, considering how much damage control she’s had to do in the past year on behalf of both him and Tracy Morgan. For those who’ve lost track of what Baldwin’s complaining about, last week he called out Today(and a bunch of other news sources) for camping outside his New York City home while reporting the story of a stalker who had recently been arrested there. The actor ended his rant with the pronouncement, “I think I’m leaving NBC just in time,” inspiring some speculation as to whether he planned to duck out of his 30 Rock contract.
As the AP reports, Baldwin is back to set us straight. He professes to be over his anger at NBC and confirms that he will return for the show’s seventh season — which he also says will be its last. Meanwhile, he’s got some Jack Donaghy-style advice for the network: redo your line-up or continue to languish in ratings hell. We have to agree on that count, especially since 30 Rock is faring so poorly this year that all this talk of whether Baldwin’s going or staying could be moot. The series hasn’t even been renewed yet.
Have you ever had a fake boyfriend or girlfriend? Y’know, someone who spontaneously sends you flowers, chocolates, letters, and all that lovey-dovey stuff, but actually doesn’t exist? If you’ve had one, don’t feel too embarrassed. After all, everyone from Jan Brady to Napoleon Dynamite has succumbed to the odd urge to fabricate a relationship as to impress those around them. After the jump, we’ve gathered nine imaginary boyfriends and girlfriends from pop culture and rated ‘em from worst to best. So, if you’re in the market for a new, exciting fake romance, click through to see what we’d consider somewhat acceptable.
This morning on ABC’s The View, Tina Fey joined the ladies on the couch and addressed a topic that’s been very much on the minds of her fans: the fate of 30 Rock. “The end of the show is visible on the horizon,” she said, responding to the hosts’ inquiries about Alec Baldwin’s recent insinuation that he’s leaving NBC. “We can’t do this for, like, 35 years… You don’t want to see me with a gray stripe, eating a slice of pizza, going on dates.” Although this time last year, as the show wrapped up a strong fifth season, we would have dreaded the thought of 30 Rock ending. But since this season, while thoroughly watchable, has rarely reached the comedic high points of previous years, we think we could actually stand to watch it wrap after one more round of episodes. (In fact, it hasn’t even been renewed for the fall yet, and the ratings are even lower than usual.) There’s nothing sadder for a TV fan than watching your favorite show cannibalize itself after it’s run out of ideas.
Thankfully, it wasn’t all gloom and doom from Fey. HuffPost reports that another Queen of Jordan episode — yes, the faux Bravo reality show starring Tracy Jordan’s wife, played by The View co-host Sherri Shepard — is in the works. Watch a clip from the segment after the jump.
When Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf takes an internship at W in Season 4, she has her boss’s job by the next episode. But when Hannah Horvath asks for a salary at her unpaid publishing internship in the pilot episode of Girls (premiering this Sunday at 10:30 on HBO) she gets fired. As any 20-something can attest, the latter scenario feels painfully real. Internships are the new entry-level job, and they don’t always guarantee advancement or pay (unless you do have a last name like “Waldorf”). Which of course got us thinking. If Hannah is “at least a voice of a generation” — someone who feels as lost as she does destined to be heard — which of her TV peers also qualify as real voices of today’s 20-something crowd? And who doesn’t? To investigate we did a survey of their career paths, ranking from “as real as your local government ” to “her work-shirt doesn’t have a midriff.” Please feel free to disagree, and add any we missed!
First he was leaving. Then he wasn’t. And now… maybe he’s leaving again? Alec Baldwin has spent the past several days under media siege, since the news broke that a woman, Genevieve Sabourin, who showed up at his New York City home over the weekend was charged with stalking the actor. Since Baldwin isn’t known for suffering his hardships in silence, it’s no surprise that he’s taken to Twitter to complain that the New York Post, NBC’s Today, and other news organizations are, well, stalking him. As The Wrap reports, he followed up yesterday’s series of tweets about the Post (“They camped out all day. Wait. Isn’t that…….?”) with an update this morning: “Outside my apt today, along side the other stalkers from the tabloid press, a crew that identified themselves as being with the Today Show. … I haven’t appeared on the Today Show in many years. But did they have to camp outside my apt?”
Of course, Baldwin happens to star in another NBC show, 30 Rock — and the awkwardness of the situation isn’t lost on him. “No one from NBC contacted me until the Today Show arrived at my apt,” he said, following up with his final tweet of the day (so far): “I think I’m leaving NBC just in time.” So, uh, what does that mean? In January, NBC Entertainment head Bob Greenblatt confirmed that Baldwin had decided to stick around for Season 7 of 30 Rock, next year. Could Baldwin be planning to make an early exit regardless of the deal, or is he simply referring to the delayed exit we already know about?
Is anyone else totally sick of the Harry Met Sally lameness that rears its ugly head in every single television show where heterosexual characters of the opposite gender hang out together? The New York Times certainly is, judging by their recent op-ed about platonic relationships in pop culture, but that hasn’t stopped the entertainment industry from constantly turning friends into lovers. In fact, they’re so common that they’re starting to make us long for more tension-free guy-on-girl friendships. These relationships are few and far between, but they’re out there, and we’ve got a list of our favorite examples on TV. Tell us yours in the comments.
James Wolcott loses me in the first line of his much-discussed Variety Fair piece “Prime Time’s Graduation,” which is pretty impressive, as far as those things go. “After I fell out of love with movies,” he writes, and I’ve checked out already — even more so with the parenthetical that follows: “(new movies, that is — classic Hollywood I still adulate)”. Oh goody, he’s one of those, one of the overbearing boors who insists nothing worthwhile has come out of Hollywood since Jaws, or Ben-Hur, or (if you’re a real, Bogdanovich-style purist) since the takeover of the talkies. But no, it’s worse: Mr. Wolcott is one of these inexplicable “TV is better than movies” people, and because he’s writing for one of the few remaining major glossies (to-do: write my “movies are better than magazines” piece), we now have to have this whole cultural conversation about whether television has, in fact, “surpassed” the motion picture.
How did you weather your first Sunday of quality television overload? With Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and (sigh) The Killing all jammed into one evening, we’ve resigned ourselves to spending the last wakeful moments of our weekend with some of TV’s most flawed and fascinating characters. (When Girls and Veep premiere, later this month, we’re really going to have to clear our calendar.) Above all, the new schedule — and particularly the return of Joffrey on Game of Thrones — has got us thinking that irredeemable creeps are having a sort of renaissance on the small screen. To celebrate the reassuring fact that they’re all entirely fictional, we’ve collected our top ten after the jump; leave your additions in the comments.
Is there anything more wonderful than watching Liz Lemon on the dance floor? In a new “Ask Tina” video, a fan writes in to say that every time Fey busts a move “an angel gets its wings,” and wonders how she accomplishes such feats of grace. Ever a good sport, the 30 Rock star gets up and schools us. “It’s about feeling the music or whatever’s happening,” she says, explaining that the rhythm “comes from my core, and whatever’s happening in my core eventually gets out into my limbs, and usually by the time it gets into my limbs, it gets kind of martial and military.” But you don’t want to just read her advice — you want to see her demonstrate. Do so, make your Friday just a little bit more bearable, and learn about how Fey would deal with a zombie apocalypse as a bonus, after the jump.
We love Alec Baldwin for always being chatty about NBC’s 30 Rock. During an interview with Extra (according to HuffPostTV) , the actor shared that the show will be performing another live episode on April 26. The last time the series broadcast live was in 2010, and it was a huge success (6.6 million viewers). Going before audiences makes sense for a show where so many of the stars and creators graduated from Saturday Night Live university. The draw will also help to boost ratings, which have been lagging ever so slightly at around 4 million viewers. The concept for a live show came about in 2007 during the Writer’s Guild of America strike when the cast performed at a fundraising event. The 2010 episode included guests Jon Hamm, Julia Louise-Dreyfus (as Liz Lemon during the flashback scenes), Bill Hader, and others. No word yet on who may be popping up for the April show, but it’s guaranteed to be good. Agree?
