The Mighty Peacock

With the recent, almost-certain demise of one of telly's best shows, I have been consoling myself by trying to find more telly. I must have telly, people!

And so I stumbled across a show that was getting rave reviews across the pond, a new sitcom from Tina Fey - the only woman to be made head writer of Saturday Night Live, and the sole reason that show became good again. This new telly is '30 Rock', and the only way to describe it is to imagine 'Scrubs' set in a TV studio (short, sharp humour with surreal and frankly ludicrous cutaways). It is, almost, the funniest thing on telly.

'Almost, you say, Ian?' I hear you not cry. Yes, it's almost the funniest thing showing right now, which doesn't sound like great praise worthy of a blog, but it segue ways nicely into the point of this blog. You see, '30 Rock' is set behind the scenes of a fictional sitcom called The Girlie Show at the NBC network, an awful, intentionally unfunny sketch show that all the writers believe is hilarious. This is meant for both sight-gag comedy and a comment on the current state of network sitcoms. Kudos to NBC for being ballsy enough to take the piss out of themselves and their output (Conan O'Brian makes cameos as a useless womanising ignoramus). Especially for a show still in its first season, this shows incredible faith in Tina Fey on the part of NBC.

This got me thinking. And about the fact that I considered it "almost" the best sitcom on telly. Remember I compared it to the style of Scrubs? Well, Scrubs also happens to be an NBC show, a program that regularly takes potshots at the medical industry (but never forgetting to include some sex and drugs references). And then I got to thinking about 'The Office' (yes the American one), which in my opinion is now flat-out the funniest thing on telly in years. The yankee Office goes even further than the Brit version in the cringe stakes (the boss getting pissed off that some one's possibly terminal diagnosis could overshadow his birthday and turning it into an excuse for his own birthday party) as well as upping the character moments.

Other networks have their great shows. But none have quite the barrage of quality being fired at the general public as NBC, and none seem so eager to drift close to the edge of taste as them. So bravo, Senor Peacock, NBC officially makes the best comedy on the telly!

Oh wait a frakking minute... they also make 'Heroes' too! Wowsers!....

IT'S IN THE BAG!!!