page_title: 30 Rock
section_title: Critical
hierarchical_section_title: 30 Rock / Reception / Critical
caption_attribution_description: English: Alec Baldwin speaking at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: 30 Rock is an American satirical sitcom television series created by Tina Fey that originally aired on NBC from October 11, 2006 to January 31, 2013. The series, based on Fey's experiences as head writer for Saturday Night Live, takes place behind the scenes of a fictional live sketch comedy show depicted as airing on NBC. The series's name refers to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, the address of the Comcast Building, where the NBC Studios are located and where Saturday Night Live is written, produced, and performed. The series was produced by Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video and Fey's Little Stranger, Inc., in association with NBCUniversal.
  30 Rock episodes were produced in a single-camera setup, and were filmed in New York. The pilot episode premiered on October 11, 2006, and seven seasons followed. The series stars Fey with a supporting cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Lonny Ross, John Lutz, Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman, and Maulik Pancholy.
  Tonally, 30 Rock uses surreal humor to parody the complex corporate structure of NBC and its then parent company General Electric.
context_section_description: 30 Rock has received positive reviews from critics. Chris Harnick, writing in the Huffington Post, has ranked it along with I Love Lucy and Seinfeld as one of the great TV comedies. The Writers Guild of America West listed it as the 21st best written TV series.  Its series finale has been rated highly by several publications. HitFix ranked it the 15th best series final, IndieWire included it in its list of 16 best series finals, and HuffPost named it the 5th best.
  The first season of 30 Rock was reviewed favorably by critics. Metacritic gave the pilot episode a Metascore—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select thirty-one critical reviews—of 67 out of 100. Robert Abele of LA Weekly declared that the show was a "weirdly appropriate and hilarious symbol of our times". The Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote that the "standard caution is relevant—debut episodes tend to be highly polished. All the more reason to enjoy the hilarious scenes and fine ensemble cast here". Some less favorable reviews were received from Brian Lowry of Variety. Lowry said, "Despite her success with Mean Girls, [Tina] Fey mostly hits too-familiar notes in the pilot. Moreover, she's a limited protagonist, which is problematic." Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune criticized "30 Rock for being less than the sum of its parts, and, as an entry in the single-camera comedy sweepstakes, it fails to show either the inspired inventiveness of Arrested Development or provide the surprisingly perceptive character studies of The Office".
  At the end of 2006, LA Weekly listed 30 Rock as one of the best "Series of the Year". The show also appeared on similar year end "best of" 2006 lists published by The New York Times, The A.V. Club, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, People Weekly, and TV Guide. The Associated Press wrote that NBC's "Thursday night comedy block—made up of My Name Is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock—is consistently the best night of prime time viewing for any network." In 2007, it appeared on The Boston Globe's "best of" list as well as the "best of" lists of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Newark Star-Ledger, The New York Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, TV Guide and USA Today. 30 Rock was named the best series of 2007 by Entertainment Weekly.
  At the end of 2009, Newsweek magazine ranked 30 Rock as the best comedy on TV in the past decade, and at the end of 2010, Metacritic reported that the show ranked 12th place in their list of collected Television Critic Top Ten Lists. At the end of 2012, a poll undertaken by 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair named 30 Rock the seventh greatest sitcom of all time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America named 30 Rock as one of the best-written television series of all time, ranking it at 21st place. In 2019, the series was ranked 12th on The Guardian newspaper's list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century.
caption: Alec Baldwin's performance as Jack Donaghy was praised by critics.
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