Tina Fey’s comedy 30 Rock recently bid its fans adieu with a series finale full of humour, sentiment, and a snow globe.
When I realized it was THE FINAL EPISODE, I experienced a moment of panic. I had to make sure I set my PVR.
After all this time, the show was ending. A critical, if not commercial, success, the series brought excellent writing and an interesting ensemble cast together each week.
It created some of the best punch lines and inside jokes I’d never understood. And now it was over.
I couldn’t believe it. Now what was I going to watch on … wait a minute. When was it on?
Despite my admiration for writer, producer and star Tina Fey, I’d only watched a couple of episodes of 30 Rock since it premiered in 2006.
So why was I getting nostalgic for a show I didn’t even watch?
I had the same problem over the last few weeks before the demise of Fox’s Fringe.
Articles and blogs waxed poetic about the program that, despite being bounced around the schedule like a pinball, developed a cult following. And now I got sucked in to their nostalgia.
Early episodes turned me off with the creep- and the ick-factor. Later, it was the scheduling that did me in. Because I had trouble finding it on a regular basis (and when I did, it was usually part-way through an episode), I was often confused by Fringe’s shifting parallel universes and disappearing characters.
Never a sci-fi nut beyond The Trouble with Tribbles, I just couldn’t get into it. But reading about the show’s imminent demise made me feel I had missed something terribly important.
Of course, I have the same reaction when I read an obituary. (Yes, I read the obits. What of it?)
Maybe it’s because both programs always seemed to be on the verge of being cancelled. They were the Little Engine That Could every time they went to air.
Over the years, 30 Rock won awards from Emmys to Screen Actors Guild to Peabodys and even broke the record for most Emmy nominations in 2009. Fringe also had its share of nominations and awards over its four seasons.
And still, I can’t say that I would have watched had either show continued beyond this season. That’s the strange twist of quality programming. We often wonder why well-developed, well-written, well-acted shows are cancelled by the networks all too soon.
And the answer is: because sometimes, we’re the only ones watching.
And sometimes, we’re not.
Fortunately, someone else was watching 30 Rock and Fringe for me.
Enough someones for a few seasons anyway. So perhaps, I can catch up on my quality programming later. On DVD.
