Solid Like A Rock

Lately on 30 Rock they've been giving Liz and Jack the A-story while Tracy gets shunted off to a less entertaining subplot. In the pilot, it seemed the main axis of the show would be harried headwriter of The Girlie Show Liz Lemon dealing with crazy new star Tracy Jordan. Meanwhile, network exec Jack Donaghy might occassionally drop by and crack the whip. But it turned out that Jack and Liz were the far more compelling couple.

The show has a low level of reality as it is, but even that is broken by Tracy, so he gets to be crazy in his own corner, I guess. It could be worse. Look at Scott Adsit as the producer of TGS. If he weren't in the opening credits, no one would even knows he's on the show.

Or it could be worse than that. Has Lonny Ross as Josh, the third cast member of the show within the show, been dropped? (At least he had his moments. Jane Krakowski replaced Rachel Dratch as Tracy's costar Jenna when the pilot was re-shot.)

Actually, for a half-hour non-hit with lots of big-name guest stars, it's amazing how many regular and recurring characters they do have: not only are there seven in the opening credits (Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander and Alex Baldwin), there's also Tracy's entourage (two people), the beautiful young secretary, the Harvard-educated black writer, the lazy writer, Jack's Indian (I think he's from India) assistant and the CEO of GE (plus Liz Lemon's boyfriends and a few other satellites who show up now and then, such as Dr. Spacemen, pronounced spe-chem-in).