'30 Rock' doesn't suck

I have to say, I enjoyed the "30 Rock" premiere.

It's a single-camera, laugh-track-free comedy about a "Saturday Night Live"-type show. And since the TV business veers toward the unreal and over-the-top, "30 Rock," as satire, isn't all that far from the reality of the situation. And who better to draw that fine line than Tina Fey and company, many of whom have been involved, in one capacity or another, in the real "SNL" (Fey, Tracy Morgan and frequent "SNL" host Alec Baldwin among them)?

As with all satire -- and with all fiction, be it televised, filmed or written -- there's the crucial "buy in": Do you, the viewer, feel comfortable in the world being created by the work? Can you suspend your disbelief enough to remain within the created fictional construct? (That's enough of my lit-crit-bullshit for one paragraph.)

Let's just say that while "30 Rock" isn't any more believable under scrutiny than any other show, it has, in its first episode, drawn a successful satirical world around what happens behind the scenes at a live comedy TV show (one which, at first glance, doesn't appear in the least bit funny -- but hey, that's part of the satire).

At this point, the show is Baldwin's to steal. His GE-"trivection oven"-creating executive is over the top -- but quiet (for Baldwin) and focused about it. The fact that the real General Electric ran about eight commercials during the 30-minute broadcast suggests that NBC-GE-Universal-Kmart (the real one, which hasn't yet purchased the flailing retail chain) either doesn't get it ... or really, really does.

If you listen to Baldwin's exec closely enough, you learn that "The Girlie Show," "30 Rock's" fictional NBC's "SNL"-like sketch comedy offering, has a big viewer deficit in males 18 to 49 that Baldwin aims to fix by adding Morgan's loose-cannon Martin Lawrence-like comic in the cast.

Somehow, having Alec Baldwin spout Nielsen numbers doesn't make my skin crawl, as it did aplenty when Steven Weber did the same thing in the premiere of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," NBC's other show-about-a-show.

At this point, Fey is playing straight woman to Baldwin and Morgan -- and her "Girlie Show" producer (Scott Adsit), head writer (Judah Friedlander), current star (Jane Krawkowski) and future star (Morgan) have plenty of potential.

Given that it's half as long as dramatic doppelganger "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," and probably costs about a fourth as much to produce, "30 Rock" should outlast Aaron Sorkin's entry in NBC's show-about-a-show sweepstakes.

We'll see if I'm right in the next month or so.