'I want to go to there' - the endless rewards of iconic sitcom 30 Rock, by Emma Newlands

With more than seven gags a minute, Tina Fey’s comedy is a gem

Tina Fey and fellow 30 Rock cast members with their Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2009. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images.

It is a sign of the high calibre of iconic sitcom 30 Rock that when I recently rewatched an episode for the zillionth time – my favourite one, Black Tie – I noticed a joke that I never had before.

While I could be accused of having not paid enough attention, in my defence it has been calculated that the show – set behind the scenes at a thinly-veiled Saturday Night Live-style comedy sketch show – squeezes in a whopping 7.44 jokes a minute.

This is also not a case of quantity over quality, with the show picking up 103 Emmy nominations and winning 16 of these over its seven series. Smartly written, it’s packed full of excellent performances and visual gags plus quotable lines best enjoyed by watching the show, while I was pleased to hear it recently praised on the Off Menu podcast.

It was the brainchild of former SNL head writer Tina Fey, who plays basically the same role but in the fictionalised/modified form of lovably geeky character Liz Lemon, alongside her formidable eccentric boss Jack Donaghy played by a pre-Rust scandal Alec Baldwin.

There is also a host of excellent supporting characters, often played by former SNL stars including Chris Parnell’s inept medic Dr Spaceman, another that I have just learnt is called Scott Scottsman, while any show that can get the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J to cameo can be 100 per cent sure of counting me as an avid viewer.

Not every single moment is a winner/has aged well, but, without wanting to sound curmudgeonly, it’s one of the few modern comedies that I actually find consistently funny, and it reminds me at times of the excellently dry Police Squad! from the early 1980s starring Leslie Nielsen. On the flipside I also see the influence of the show’s snappy dialogue in later sitcoms like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Mindy Project as well as Fey’s also-excellent Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It’s all making me want to go and watch 30 Rock again right now – or, in the words of Liz Lemon, “I want to go to there”.

Emma Newlands​ is business journalist at The Scotsman