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The 30 Rock Book: Inside the Iconic Show, from Blerg to EGOT
A fascinating and hilarious deep dive into 30 Rock, Tina Fey's beloved modern classic comedy
In the fall of 2006, NBC somehow unveiled two new shows set in the world of late-night sketch comedy: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and 30 Rock. It was Aaron Sorkin versus Tina Fey, and it was clear which series critics thought was more promising. The Baltimore Sun called it a competition 30 Rock “can’t win.” By November, the New York Times was noting lackluster ratings for both shows, and adding that 30 Rock was “perilously close to a flop.”
But while Studio 60 was canceled after 22 episodes, Fey’s madcap buddy comedy lasted 138 episodes. It resurrected the career of Alec Baldwin, survived an extended absence by Tracy Morgan, and permeated the culture—it’s breakneck pacing, oddball characters, and extremely rich joke writing are deeply beloved by millions of fans.
In this combination of narrative and oral history, culture writer and editor Mike Roe brings to life the history of the gloriously goofy show through interviews with the creators, stars, writers, and bit players.
In the fall of 2006, NBC somehow unveiled two new shows set in the world of late-night sketch comedy: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and 30 Rock. It was Aaron Sorkin versus Tina Fey, and it was clear which series critics thought was more promising. The Baltimore Sun called it a competition 30 Rock “can’t win.” By November, the New York Times was noting lackluster ratings for both shows, and adding that 30 Rock was “perilously close to a flop.”
But while Studio 60 was canceled after 22 episodes, Fey’s madcap buddy comedy lasted 138 episodes. It resurrected the career of Alec Baldwin, survived an extended absence by Tracy Morgan, and permeated the culture—it’s breakneck pacing, oddball characters, and extremely rich joke writing are deeply beloved by millions of fans.
In this combination of narrative and oral history, culture writer and editor Mike Roe brings to life the history of the gloriously goofy show through interviews with the creators, stars, writers, and bit players.
293 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2021
66 people are currently reading
1555 people want to read
About the author
Mike Roe
1 book8 followersMike Roe wrote The 30 Rock Book (Abrams) and won an L.A. Press Club award for his oral history of 30 Rock’s “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.”
Mike spent more than a decade at NPR station LAist/KPCC, where he hosted live event series TV Pilot Club. He worked as senior news editor for LateNighter and editor for Hollywood trade TheWrap.
Mike also writes TV drama scripts with his wife, Kristiana. Mike’s background includes writing and performing in the L.A. comedy scene for live talk shows and several house sketch teams.
Outside of work, Mike obsesses over comic books, writing, spirituality, productivity, and pro wrestling.
Mike spent more than a decade at NPR station LAist/KPCC, where he hosted live event series TV Pilot Club. He worked as senior news editor for LateNighter and editor for Hollywood trade TheWrap.
Mike also writes TV drama scripts with his wife, Kristiana. Mike’s background includes writing and performing in the L.A. comedy scene for live talk shows and several house sketch teams.
Outside of work, Mike obsesses over comic books, writing, spirituality, productivity, and pro wrestling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 122 reviews
July 16, 2021
Never has reading about something I love been so joyless. I almost gave this three stars, because it's exceedingly average. Then I almost gave it two stars, because it was annoying to slog through and finally reach the end. But as I reached the "sources", and realized that, as I suspected, all the bigger names quoted in this book came from DVD commentaries and previous interviews, and that the most notable interview this author actually landed was the 5th billed star, I was filled with a soft boiled rage. The rage you feel when the rug has been pulled out from under you. The quiet intensity of feeling you get when you perform a task for hours and then realize that task was useless. Reading this book is useless.
Where to start? The first thing is that it tries to be an oral history. I love oral histories. My favorite ones so far for tv have been The Wire and The Office. The Wire's author got interviews with almost everybody in the cast and crew, an incredible achievement. The office's author didn't get interviews with the really big stars of The Office, but made up for it by getting really good, in depth interviews with lots of the secondary actors and the crew. The author of THIS book, in contrast, I'm sure tried to get the best interviews possible, but didn't really. And some of the people interviewed are just really bizarre choices, or the sheer AMOUNT of page time they get is strange. It feels like he sent an email out to everybody who ever appeared on the show, and anybody who agreed to the interview, he decided to focus on them. Matthew Broderick, Paul Reubens, the girl who plays Kathy Giess and an actor that I barely remember in the show make up a staggering amount of the "actor" interviews for this. If you added up all the screen time of those people, it would be a third of an episode. And they are constantly giving quotes! The episode Paul Reubens is in is given like 10 pages. 10 pages for a Paul Reubens guest spot! This is outrageous!!
Make due with what you have, I suppose. But the early portions of this book spend A LOT of time on something that barely relates to 30 Rock, which is Aaron Sorkin's tv series that aired at the same time. The stars of that show are interviewed for this book, talking about THEIR show! What?!
The other thing that is bad about this book is that it is just flat out written in the most boring style ever. Imagine someone actually writing out the plot for 24 episodes of 30 Rock, including explaining some of the funniest jokes. Over and over again. For 7 seasons. That's this book. Occasionally a writer is given a quote about working on the episode. But mostly, this is an episode guide.
The final thing I hated about this book is just how much social justice naval gazing it is doing. "Hey, that's an important thing to point out and discuss", I hear you saying. You're not hearing me. It's ALOT. I would hazard a guess that 20% of this entire book is talking about jokes that didn't age well, or blackface, or jokes about gay people, or transgender people, and every single time, it just acts like everybody involved is the worst person ever, and then immediately backtracks to talk about how wonderful everyone is, as soon as the "incident" is done.
I absolutely think shows need to reckon with the way comedy evolves over time and how problematic aspects have been shoved aside for too long, and 30 Rock had multiple instances of blackface in the mid 2000s- this needs to be discussed. I don't fault the author for talking about it. I just think it should have maybe had an entire chapter dedicated to it as a whole, with some sort of focus, and actual commentary from the people affected (especially the black community, which the book hammers the show hard for, but as far as I know, has mostly white interviews). It felt like every 5 pages, the author was bringing up ANOTHER problematic joke and raking Fey over the coals for it. Then two pages later, more quotes about wonderful and hilarious and genius Fey is. Hell, when discussing Fey and Carlock's new show Mr. mayor, the author could not resist mentioning that while the show has a diverse cast, the two leads were white! THE GODDAMN HORROR!
Mostly, I'm upset that there are a finite number of books written about shows, and this was a total waste of a 30 Rock one. I hope somebody comes along that can do a better 30 Rock book, hopefully with some substantial interviews.
Where to start? The first thing is that it tries to be an oral history. I love oral histories. My favorite ones so far for tv have been The Wire and The Office. The Wire's author got interviews with almost everybody in the cast and crew, an incredible achievement. The office's author didn't get interviews with the really big stars of The Office, but made up for it by getting really good, in depth interviews with lots of the secondary actors and the crew. The author of THIS book, in contrast, I'm sure tried to get the best interviews possible, but didn't really. And some of the people interviewed are just really bizarre choices, or the sheer AMOUNT of page time they get is strange. It feels like he sent an email out to everybody who ever appeared on the show, and anybody who agreed to the interview, he decided to focus on them. Matthew Broderick, Paul Reubens, the girl who plays Kathy Giess and an actor that I barely remember in the show make up a staggering amount of the "actor" interviews for this. If you added up all the screen time of those people, it would be a third of an episode. And they are constantly giving quotes! The episode Paul Reubens is in is given like 10 pages. 10 pages for a Paul Reubens guest spot! This is outrageous!!
Make due with what you have, I suppose. But the early portions of this book spend A LOT of time on something that barely relates to 30 Rock, which is Aaron Sorkin's tv series that aired at the same time. The stars of that show are interviewed for this book, talking about THEIR show! What?!
The other thing that is bad about this book is that it is just flat out written in the most boring style ever. Imagine someone actually writing out the plot for 24 episodes of 30 Rock, including explaining some of the funniest jokes. Over and over again. For 7 seasons. That's this book. Occasionally a writer is given a quote about working on the episode. But mostly, this is an episode guide.
The final thing I hated about this book is just how much social justice naval gazing it is doing. "Hey, that's an important thing to point out and discuss", I hear you saying. You're not hearing me. It's ALOT. I would hazard a guess that 20% of this entire book is talking about jokes that didn't age well, or blackface, or jokes about gay people, or transgender people, and every single time, it just acts like everybody involved is the worst person ever, and then immediately backtracks to talk about how wonderful everyone is, as soon as the "incident" is done.
I absolutely think shows need to reckon with the way comedy evolves over time and how problematic aspects have been shoved aside for too long, and 30 Rock had multiple instances of blackface in the mid 2000s- this needs to be discussed. I don't fault the author for talking about it. I just think it should have maybe had an entire chapter dedicated to it as a whole, with some sort of focus, and actual commentary from the people affected (especially the black community, which the book hammers the show hard for, but as far as I know, has mostly white interviews). It felt like every 5 pages, the author was bringing up ANOTHER problematic joke and raking Fey over the coals for it. Then two pages later, more quotes about wonderful and hilarious and genius Fey is. Hell, when discussing Fey and Carlock's new show Mr. mayor, the author could not resist mentioning that while the show has a diverse cast, the two leads were white! THE GODDAMN HORROR!
Mostly, I'm upset that there are a finite number of books written about shows, and this was a total waste of a 30 Rock one. I hope somebody comes along that can do a better 30 Rock book, hopefully with some substantial interviews.
April 21, 2022
How could someone take something that is as amazing as 30 Rock and write such a TERRIBLE book about it?
I was about 50 pages in, wondering if I was alone in this when I looked up the rating and reviews. Apparently, the author just took interviews off the DVD commentaries and used that? WHAT? How does that even equal a published book? There weren't any legitimate interviews for this book by any of the main characters. And the author went on ad nauseam about how problematic and racist the show could be.
I literally don't have the words... I take that back, the words I have are "don't bother"
I was about 50 pages in, wondering if I was alone in this when I looked up the rating and reviews. Apparently, the author just took interviews off the DVD commentaries and used that? WHAT? How does that even equal a published book? There weren't any legitimate interviews for this book by any of the main characters. And the author went on ad nauseam about how problematic and racist the show could be.
I literally don't have the words... I take that back, the words I have are "don't bother"
May 29, 2022
2.5 stars, just blerg. Great book if you just want to read an episode guide.
December 9, 2021
I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you.
This book somehow managed to turn a quirky, fun, manic, intelligent, wacky TV show that I absolutely loved into something dull, dry, stilted and pedestrian. What I thought would be an oral history based on interviews with people involved with the show including stars Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and Jane Krackowski, turned out not to include such things. Instead it appears the author watched videos of the show with commentary. He then quoted that commentary. He also threw in quotes from magazine articles and shows such as "Extra" and "Entertainment Tonight."
He apparently did interview some directors of individual episodes and a few actors who appeared in small parts. While their insights are interesting to read, there is no new information to be had. Generally, this book is just a recap of every season, episode by episode with said quotes added in. It would have been a great addition to add dialog from some episodes or photos. No such luck.
There are statements made throughout the book that are wrong. The author needed an editor and someone to guide him toward making this book more interesting or at least shorten and polish the prose. It almost felt lazy in its construction. Please see notes I added while reading for some specifics.
This book is beyond disappointing. I cannot recommend it even to the biggest 30 Rock fan. I'm so glad I didn't pay for it.
This book somehow managed to turn a quirky, fun, manic, intelligent, wacky TV show that I absolutely loved into something dull, dry, stilted and pedestrian. What I thought would be an oral history based on interviews with people involved with the show including stars Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and Jane Krackowski, turned out not to include such things. Instead it appears the author watched videos of the show with commentary. He then quoted that commentary. He also threw in quotes from magazine articles and shows such as "Extra" and "Entertainment Tonight."
He apparently did interview some directors of individual episodes and a few actors who appeared in small parts. While their insights are interesting to read, there is no new information to be had. Generally, this book is just a recap of every season, episode by episode with said quotes added in. It would have been a great addition to add dialog from some episodes or photos. No such luck.
There are statements made throughout the book that are wrong. The author needed an editor and someone to guide him toward making this book more interesting or at least shorten and polish the prose. It almost felt lazy in its construction. Please see notes I added while reading for some specifics.
This book is beyond disappointing. I cannot recommend it even to the biggest 30 Rock fan. I'm so glad I didn't pay for it.
July 15, 2021
While it was on, 30 Rock was must-see tv in our house, and its inventiveness and the charm of its characters played a large part. Although I was looking forward to this well researched oral history, it didn't really break new ground.
July 10, 2025
What everyone says about this book is true: it’s essentially fraud, an episode guide spiced up by the novelty that writer Mike Roe watched the DVD commentaries, from which he shares trivia. There are a few unenlightening and somewhat inexplicable interviews—how are Matthew Broderick and Paul Rubens more willing to talk about the show than nearly any regular cast member?—but the only person who says a single compelling thing is Kevin Ladson (and possibly “Tracy Morgan’s former assistant”). The rest is trivia, and, since it comes so often from literal outsiders and AV Club critics, it’s not even good trivia.
Also true (as everyone says) is that the author and just about everyone he manages to interview is butthurt about how offensive 30 Rock was. Obviously it’s fair game for an oral history (which this book pretends to be) to address offense; but the unanimity of every interview is ultimately dull. Either Mike Roe is not interested in locating an alternate point of view or no one is about to tell the truth about delicate topics in 2021. Either way, it makes for a boring book, free from controversy (because everyone agrees, and, man the author agrees, too! Don’t worry, he’s also offended!). Everyone thought working with everyone was great. Safety first!
But other reviewers have already said all that, and I’m only here to add that I believe I have pinpointed the moment the book completely falls apart, failing us, the reader in its one job—i.e. being an actual book. Because that’s the question, right? Is this a book or is it a bunch of cute “write ups” packaged in book form?
Vali Chandrasekaran (whom Roe actually interviewed) tells an anecdote about a season-four show in which his wife had to be called in last minute to be a Hindi translator. “My wife came to the set that day [explains Chandrasekaran]…I had to frantically call Nithya and ask her to come up to Silvercup [Studios in Queens] to make sure we were pronouncing everything correctly.” Roe notes that “Nithya went on to be elected to the LA City Council in 2020 [followed by lame joke].”
One season later, season five, and Roe informs us that “Vali Chandrasekaran got engaged and married during this time, but dealt with a long-distance relationship with his wife in a job in India.”
None of this (aside from Roe’s clunky cascade of prepositional phrases) is fatal, or a sign of dishonesty. Chandrasekaran could easily have called his then-girlfriend his wife is casual conversation. Or maybe he got divorced and remarried! What do I know? But to explain or reconcile these two apparently contradictory facts—that a man is married to a woman who lives near Queens and then one year later affiances and marries a woman who lives in India—is the very job of a writer. Roe is happy to tell us Nithya’s future career—he’s not hesitant to break in and explain things—but he fails to explain this one.
And it gets worse. Some time later (in the book), Chandrasekaran talks about his wife again: “My wife and I had met in college, we dated for a while, broke up for five years, and got back together and got married. But after getting back together we had never lived in the same place—she was living in India.” So she didn’t live near Silvercup after all!
Again, there are several possibilities to explain this. Still could be more than one woman. A then-girlfriend who lives in India could be visiting New York and therefore in a position to hasten to Queens (later she moves to California). I don’t know the answer. But Roe, happily transcribing DVD commentaries and never looking behind him, does not seem to realize he’s left us a riddle. Just go back and reread the book you’ve written, dude!
If this were a series of blog posts, I would not be incensed, but a $26 hardcover book, which I paid real cash money for, should do its egg mcmuffin job!
Also true (as everyone says) is that the author and just about everyone he manages to interview is butthurt about how offensive 30 Rock was. Obviously it’s fair game for an oral history (which this book pretends to be) to address offense; but the unanimity of every interview is ultimately dull. Either Mike Roe is not interested in locating an alternate point of view or no one is about to tell the truth about delicate topics in 2021. Either way, it makes for a boring book, free from controversy (because everyone agrees, and, man the author agrees, too! Don’t worry, he’s also offended!). Everyone thought working with everyone was great. Safety first!
But other reviewers have already said all that, and I’m only here to add that I believe I have pinpointed the moment the book completely falls apart, failing us, the reader in its one job—i.e. being an actual book. Because that’s the question, right? Is this a book or is it a bunch of cute “write ups” packaged in book form?
Vali Chandrasekaran (whom Roe actually interviewed) tells an anecdote about a season-four show in which his wife had to be called in last minute to be a Hindi translator. “My wife came to the set that day [explains Chandrasekaran]…I had to frantically call Nithya and ask her to come up to Silvercup [Studios in Queens] to make sure we were pronouncing everything correctly.” Roe notes that “Nithya went on to be elected to the LA City Council in 2020 [followed by lame joke].”
One season later, season five, and Roe informs us that “Vali Chandrasekaran got engaged and married during this time, but dealt with a long-distance relationship with his wife in a job in India.”
None of this (aside from Roe’s clunky cascade of prepositional phrases) is fatal, or a sign of dishonesty. Chandrasekaran could easily have called his then-girlfriend his wife is casual conversation. Or maybe he got divorced and remarried! What do I know? But to explain or reconcile these two apparently contradictory facts—that a man is married to a woman who lives near Queens and then one year later affiances and marries a woman who lives in India—is the very job of a writer. Roe is happy to tell us Nithya’s future career—he’s not hesitant to break in and explain things—but he fails to explain this one.
And it gets worse. Some time later (in the book), Chandrasekaran talks about his wife again: “My wife and I had met in college, we dated for a while, broke up for five years, and got back together and got married. But after getting back together we had never lived in the same place—she was living in India.” So she didn’t live near Silvercup after all!
Again, there are several possibilities to explain this. Still could be more than one woman. A then-girlfriend who lives in India could be visiting New York and therefore in a position to hasten to Queens (later she moves to California). I don’t know the answer. But Roe, happily transcribing DVD commentaries and never looking behind him, does not seem to realize he’s left us a riddle. Just go back and reread the book you’ve written, dude!
If this were a series of blog posts, I would not be incensed, but a $26 hardcover book, which I paid real cash money for, should do its egg mcmuffin job!
February 9, 2022
Very unfortunately, this is not a great book. It pains me to say that because there’s little else I love like 30 Rock. Everyone’s already said what’s wrong with this one, but I’m honestly curious how it got published. The writing’s not great, it’s basically just an episode guide - there’s little structure beyond just telling you what happens in every episode. The organization is terrible, with people introduced and then way later some quote will come that fundamentally anchors who they are and their importance, but it’s like 20 pages late.
Speaking of pages, this is LONG. It says 304 pages but the type is super small. I would read a thousand-page book about 30 Rock, but not like this. I’ve never watched the DVD commentary but according to the sources listed, the majority of quotes are just from that. There are some interviews with very minor characters, and some are bizarrely detailed. Like if you really care about Kathy Geiss’s acting process and creative input, here you go. Some of the writers’ and crew members’ input is more meaningful, but there’s so much that could’ve been trimmed. It feels completely unedited in addition to being disorganized.
It takes great pains to address any and all instances of the show’s insensitivity, political incorrectness, and outright offensive moments, but not in a meaningful way. It just lists them, hand-wrings about them for pages and pages, then drops it and moves on. It would’ve been much more helpful to hear from the people who made the decisions around these (like hearing from Margaret Cho about one was much more significant and useful) but I guess they just refused to do interviews.
I still kind of can’t believe this was allowed to be published when it’s basically an episode guide (which insultingly actually just explains jokes to you at times; MADDENING) that regurgitates DVD commentary.
Still, I learned a lot of things I didn’t know about the inspirations for certain stories and what was going on with some of the actors (poor Dean Winters!!)
PS I won it in a goodreads giveaway, thanks to the publisher for that.
Speaking of pages, this is LONG. It says 304 pages but the type is super small. I would read a thousand-page book about 30 Rock, but not like this. I’ve never watched the DVD commentary but according to the sources listed, the majority of quotes are just from that. There are some interviews with very minor characters, and some are bizarrely detailed. Like if you really care about Kathy Geiss’s acting process and creative input, here you go. Some of the writers’ and crew members’ input is more meaningful, but there’s so much that could’ve been trimmed. It feels completely unedited in addition to being disorganized.
It takes great pains to address any and all instances of the show’s insensitivity, political incorrectness, and outright offensive moments, but not in a meaningful way. It just lists them, hand-wrings about them for pages and pages, then drops it and moves on. It would’ve been much more helpful to hear from the people who made the decisions around these (like hearing from Margaret Cho about one was much more significant and useful) but I guess they just refused to do interviews.
I still kind of can’t believe this was allowed to be published when it’s basically an episode guide (which insultingly actually just explains jokes to you at times; MADDENING) that regurgitates DVD commentary.
Still, I learned a lot of things I didn’t know about the inspirations for certain stories and what was going on with some of the actors (poor Dean Winters!!)
PS I won it in a goodreads giveaway, thanks to the publisher for that.
November 15, 2024
I'm a diehard 30 Rock fan and I had a hard time putting this book down because I had so much fun reading it. If you love the show I would highly recommend this book, especially if you didn't watch it while it was airing--I learned a lot about how it was developed and how things like the writer's strike and NBC being sold to Comcast affected the show. I also didn't realize until I read this book how many plotlines were influenced by actual events (for instance, I never put together that "Khonani" was about the Leno/Conan situation). If you're a serious fan there's probably a lot you'll already know but it's still a great read in my opinion--there's a lot of interesting anecdotes, and the interviews with former actors and writers are what really make it. I think the weakest part of the book was how the author discussed how some of the show's jokes have aged with time, particularly the decision to remove the several episodes containing blackface from streaming following last year's protests. The book included repeated asides that x joke or storyline wouldn't be considered appropriate today in a way that felt more moralizing than informative, and it's also interesting which things the author felt the need to point out as problematic. I think that angle of the book could have been improved by interviewing more cultural critics. It would be interesting to read this book 10 years from now to see how our opinions about comedy have evolved both from today and from when 30 Rock was on air--I hope people will still be watching in 2031.
April 27, 2022
I really wanted to love this because 30 Rock is my absolute favorite show, but the author's prose is distractingly bad. Jokes fall flat, summaries of episodes are oddly stilted and not necessary (Episode summaries-One problem: Where do you get them? Anywhere! You get them anywhere online!), and there are some obvious syntax mistakes and irrelevant non sequiturs. I think the author's writing style probably lends itself better to Vulture, where the fast turnaround means lazy writing goes unnoticed. I did appreciate his attention to detail. I'd rather have just read the oral history sections with no author interjections.
November 14, 2023
Sloppily written, underdeveloped in some areas - none of the lead principal actors are interviewed - and overlaid in others - we do not need 20 pull quotes from the guy who played Jeffrey Wienerslav, as lovely a person as he seems to be.
To be clear: speaking honestly and critically about Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s problematic treatment of race and gender is laudable and necessary. But this book simply doesn’t bring anything else to the table. The author has no discernible viewpoint or style. It’s a slapdash effort unworthy of one of the greatest sitcoms - maybe the greatest - of all time.
To be clear: speaking honestly and critically about Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s problematic treatment of race and gender is laudable and necessary. But this book simply doesn’t bring anything else to the table. The author has no discernible viewpoint or style. It’s a slapdash effort unworthy of one of the greatest sitcoms - maybe the greatest - of all time.
February 6, 2022
What a letdown! Not much more than a rundown of each episode intercut with interviews (most of which were lifted from elsewhere). It honestly deserves two stars but I love the show too much to do that.
March 28, 2022
I stopped reading this book before I could end the first chapter so that I don’t completely lose my admiration for “30 rock” and Tina fey. I was really excited to read this book since 30 Rock is currently my favorite show of all time. I’ve watched and rewatched it so many times but I wanted to know the “stories behind the stories” but this book is not a good source for that. There are two big problems with this book:
1. The format: the writing intersperses the views of the author with interviews with the people involved with each episode that the author is describing at the time. It is really confusing. He should have just amalgamated the interviews as part of his writing.
2. The content: Mike is going episode by episode from season 1 and describing the storyline of each episode. Why am I reading the exact thing that I’ve watched on the show?
I’m glad that I stopped reading this book early to save my love for the show.
1. The format: the writing intersperses the views of the author with interviews with the people involved with each episode that the author is describing at the time. It is really confusing. He should have just amalgamated the interviews as part of his writing.
2. The content: Mike is going episode by episode from season 1 and describing the storyline of each episode. Why am I reading the exact thing that I’ve watched on the show?
I’m glad that I stopped reading this book early to save my love for the show.
May 14, 2021
As a massive 30 Rock fan, I was intrigued by this book. Unfortunately it’s more of an episode guide with some oral history sprinkled in. For a fan there’s not much that is new and it’s probably best for someone who is watching or rewatching the series to use as a read-long. Inexplicably a lot of the TV critics interviewed seem to hate the show. Furthermore, if you want to criticise a show for being racist, maybe don’t use quotes almost exclusively from white people to support your claims. Just a thought.
Thanks to Mike Roe, Abrams Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to Mike Roe, Abrams Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
March 7, 2025
A fun and well researched read, and great about cementing the show's legacy while calling out its blind spots. While not having Jane Krakowski as an interview is a noticeable flaw, it's more than made up for by so many writers and directors giving such a vivid picture of the day to day of creating this touchstone.
February 24, 2023
Sorry that I’ll be telling you all behind-the-scenes 30 Rock stories for the rest of time
February 26, 2023
Rounded up to 3 stars for Goodreads, mostly because I work in television production so I found some of the behind the scenes stuff fascinating, but not sure the average reader would. Chapters were LONG and not super engaging and it read more like like an episode guide than an oral history.
November 18, 2025
I was about to pick up another psychological thriller audiobook, but I wanted something that was more of a warm lil’ hug. This is like doing a rewatch with fun DVD commentary. Now rewatching the show (for the 100th time) and noticing things mentioned in the book!
January 11, 2022
As a long time 30 Rock fan and someone who has the show playing all the time while cooking or cleaning, I was super pumped for this book. I looooove 30 Rock. And, yes, just like anything from the early 2000s, some jokes don’t translate well in today’s culture and there is some drama surrounding a few episodes that were taken off air, but I still have mad love for this show. My husband jokes that I have a 30 Rock quote for any situation in life and I know every episode like the back of my step father Ron’s hand. (See what I did there?)
And that is why this book was a disappointment.
70% of this book is just a recounted of the plot of each episode vs stories of its creation. I don’t need a recap of each episode, I know each episode! I’ve seen them all a hundred times! I was skimming to get to the details of the behind the scenes stuff and didn’t find nearly as much bonus information that I wanted.
I think that there wasn’t really much of a story to tell in the first place, so this book was just…meh.
And that is why this book was a disappointment.
70% of this book is just a recounted of the plot of each episode vs stories of its creation. I don’t need a recap of each episode, I know each episode! I’ve seen them all a hundred times! I was skimming to get to the details of the behind the scenes stuff and didn’t find nearly as much bonus information that I wanted.
I think that there wasn’t really much of a story to tell in the first place, so this book was just…meh.
April 5, 2022
“lemon numbers among my employees” - jack donaghy
the author didn’t actually interview anyone in the main cast, just took quotes from articles and the dvd commentary, what the whaaaaat. also somehow missing a significant amount of information? or i’ve watched too many times that i know more than the author would? probably. meh.
the author didn’t actually interview anyone in the main cast, just took quotes from articles and the dvd commentary, what the whaaaaat. also somehow missing a significant amount of information? or i’ve watched too many times that i know more than the author would? probably. meh.
November 21, 2022
A quick read that will warm the cockles of most 30 Rock fans for its mere existence, but which has some serious flaws that must be pointed out. With love, truly, because this book clearly was born from love. But still...
First, as with any unauthorised oral history, Mike Roe has had to do the best he can with relatively little. While he managed to track down a cross-section of interviewees, including at least one writer, director, assistant, guest actor, recurring actor, and media commentator, he is (understandably) missing the lead actors, most of the core creative forces, and network representation. As a result, there is a great disparity of knowledge here. Roe has access to the guy who played funny minor character Jeffrey Wienerslav, so we get insights into how he was auditioned, cast, and reused. But he doesn't have access to, say, Kristen Schaal, so her more important character, who brought with her a tonal shift in the program that some fans didn't warm to, and had to respond to that, gets literally a single mention. While you're always going to have to pick and choose, it's a shame he couldn't be as picky as one might have liked. We know a lot about how Scott Adist approached the role of Pete, but almost nothing about Jack McBrayer and Kenneth; Roe has to guess at why Rip Torn's character was killed offscreen but can at least give us insight into why Kathy Geiss pulls a toy car out of her mouth. While we get plenty of good material on how difficult Alec Baldwin was in the early seasons or the challenge of replacing Rachel Dratch with Jane Krakowski in the role of Jenna, because Roe has access to people who were involved in those moments, we understand almost nothing about why Baldwin suddenly loves the show come season six, nor do we ever get a chance to be inside Krakowski's head aside from her crying as they taped the final episodes, because she said so on the DVD commentary.
There's plenty of great material salvaged from these sources, but little more than you could gain yourself. Was the increase in episodes entirely centered around a special guest star at the start of season 3 due to network notes and concerns about falling ratings? We don't know, because no-one from the network or the lead production team is interviewed, so it's mentioned again in one brief comment. Was Schaal's character, Hazel, actually disliked by most viewers, as Roe indicates with his personal opinion, or is this not based on evidence? (I say, as a declared Hazel fan.) Was there discussion about how to portray Kenneth's mum's much vaunted "friend" Ron when he finally appeared in the final season? Were they originally intending Jack to stay with Avery through to the end? Were the production team disappointed not to use Cheyenne Jackson more or was this intentional? (We have his interviews, in which he says that he would've liked to do more; but no-one is available on the other end to provide context.)
I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I reached the Bibliography section. It's a single page with about eight sources, a few of which are just names of publications (e.g. Hollywood Reporter) without specific issues, one of which is the DVDs, and another is the commentaries on those DVDs. If we're honest, Roe has (to his credit) tracked down some important names to interview but then gleaned everything else from publicly available information. Aside from some notes kept by one of the writers from the very first episodes, he has no access to internal network reports or production documentation, which leads to some of the other issues outlined below.
Second, I feel that Roe could have benefitted from a co-author who wasn't so involved in "the biz". While I appreciate many fans of this show will, like me, have a basic understanding of network television production, there are numerous occasions where he rushes through an issue on the assumption that the audience will get it. That we'll know how a table read works, or why episodes can't be given new titles during a writer's strike, for example. Occasionally, too, this foreknowledge is further impeded by the formatting. For example Roe notes how different the show would have been if Michael Schur had ended up producing it, but it takes a couple more pages before he tells us who Michael Schur is. Unless you're in the know, that comment ricochets off the walls and returns to sender.
Third, and I appreciate this will be more contentious, Roe's book is very much of the moment in its approach to progressive identity politics. It’s right that any show should be open to criticism, and Roe does a reasonable job of untangling the threads of some of the jokes that look a little rough in retrospect. And jokes that, as with the two Jenna-wears-blackface jokes, looked pretty unfortunate to me, a white Australian kid in my early ‘20s, at the time. He often successfully navigates the journey of explaining why the jokes were considered funny, whether they worked at the time, and how they’ve been handled since (with some episodes being removed from streaming services as of 2022). Yet just as often his own opinions are pushed through a little too forcefully, dare I say. There are jokes that I think could be debated further – I don’t think most viewers will share Roe’s concern about the many gags clearly satirizing the broadly white male corporate view of the world (even if, yes, they come from a privileged white point-of-view themselves), or the sequence in which Liz hallucinates three Jamaican female nurses in the body of her three ex-boyfriends (I mean, she's hallucinating! They're not supposed to be playing Jamaicans!), or indeed the scene where Jon Hamm is attacked by a white woman’s disembodied hand (which Roe says is “somewhat less offensive” than a scene where it’s a black man’s hand... how a woman's hand could be offensive at all is beyond me). At times, as with the episode where Alec Baldwin’s character is a dead ringer for a Mexican soap opera star, also played by Baldwin in a deliberately cartoonish manner, I suspect no-one outside of the progressive media bubble would even sense a hint of anything evil or ill-intentioned. I appreciate that Roe lives in a different world to me, cares about these issues deeply, and probably felt a great deal of pressure to challenge them, as the book would face issues with reviewers had it not. The difficulty lies partly in the fact that this is the only area where Roe ever pushes back against the show. His authorial voice essentially never intrudes elsewhere, allowing the oral history to function as intended or, at most, allowing that some reviewers felt a certain season wasn't as good as the previous one but never indicating that he feels it doesn't work himself. So the fact that he's pushing his own angle here, often supported only by other TV commentators or a junior member of the crew, feels out of place in a book where he so resolutely refuses to offer opinions elsewhere. For my part, as one of the interviewees notes on this issue, we can't accurately view these episodes' content now, as we're in the middle of a zeitgeisty re-reckoning of identity. After a few decades we will be able to see these episodes in the light of their time, as we do now with “edgy” comedies from the past like All in the Family. I would have liked to have heard, for example, what the various black cast members thought about some of the race jokes. It’s interesting, too, that race is the focus of 90% of the complaints. While he very briefly touches on fat people and queer culture, Roe largely brushes jokes about them aside. Elsewhere he raises no qualms about actors playing the mentally ill (think Liz's brother), the physically disabled, or those with other mental health issues, even when he actively notes that Kathy Geiss' character is based on the actually autistic Temple Grandin, and yet is the focus of jokes for her all-out weirdness. (And that's leaving aside the jokes about child sex predators and much else!) Besides which, it's frustrating that Roe calls for more diversity on the program but then completely ignores or brushes over those occurrences: no references to the storyline in which Liz's gay cousin visits NYC or Tracy engages with an older black actress playing his mum who has clearly had a tough career; very little focus on Queen Latifah as a black congresswoman pushing for more diversity on the show-within-the-show; and Salma Hayek's fantastic recurring character basically gets dismissed for having an accent (despite being an immigrant) with nothing more apparently needing to be said on the matter. While he mentions that someone online found Margaret Cho's performance as Kim Jong-il "minstrelsy", it's clear that Cho doesn't feel that way, so I'm not even sure the criticism is valid - or at least it could've been delved into a bit further. Roe seems to enjoy edgy comedy, or he could not claim this as one of his favourite programs, but only when it's on his terms. There are clearly jokes on the program that won't sit well with future generations and a few that went too far, but Roe's level of investment in policing jokes is not on par with the expectations of most TV viewers. (Late in the book he notes that one of Fey's follow-up shows, Mr Mayor, had a suitably diverse cast but its "two leads" were white, which he sees as shameful. As someone who loved that show, I'm not sure I even accept the argument. The two "big name" actors in the cast were white, true, but the Liz Lemons of the program were undoubtedly those played by Vella Lovell and Mike Cabellon, both non-white.)
On its own, I would have no problem with this, but - as I said - it's the only thing that Roe analyses in great critical detail. As the book goes on and his sources grow dimmer, a palpable laziness kicks in. By season six he is often just writing out a plot synopsis of a given episode and recounting particular jokes. While it's nice to know that Paula Leggett Chase took pole dancing lessons before playing Randi in the reality TV episodes, or that Elaine Stritch was mean to some directors, I'd like to know more about whether the show felt that doing a second reality TV episode felt like going back to the same well, or why Stritch kept coming back to the program. When a commentator (not involved in making the program) notes that the character of Angie Jordan may be a stereotypical black woman, I wanted insight from Sherri Shepherd or Tracy Morgan or at least someone who wrote for the character, but the moment merely passes by. Sometimes he literally just provides a paragraph summarising a funny plot from an episode, but in a manner that removes all the juice from the humour. These sections drag because I can't imagine a non-fan would get this far into the book, and thus I don't understand whom the listing of funny jokes could be for?
It didn't surprise me to learn that this book essentially originated from an online oral history Roe wrote about the making of one of the novelty songs from an early episode. This is a show that deserves to be venerated, and that certainly deserves to have its flaws called out too. Yet this may have worked better as a series of blog articles, in which the author's penchant for spotlighting his core concerns and favourite moments, and his inability to get to the heart of much else, would have been less exasperating.
But I liked it.
First, as with any unauthorised oral history, Mike Roe has had to do the best he can with relatively little. While he managed to track down a cross-section of interviewees, including at least one writer, director, assistant, guest actor, recurring actor, and media commentator, he is (understandably) missing the lead actors, most of the core creative forces, and network representation. As a result, there is a great disparity of knowledge here. Roe has access to the guy who played funny minor character Jeffrey Wienerslav, so we get insights into how he was auditioned, cast, and reused. But he doesn't have access to, say, Kristen Schaal, so her more important character, who brought with her a tonal shift in the program that some fans didn't warm to, and had to respond to that, gets literally a single mention. While you're always going to have to pick and choose, it's a shame he couldn't be as picky as one might have liked. We know a lot about how Scott Adist approached the role of Pete, but almost nothing about Jack McBrayer and Kenneth; Roe has to guess at why Rip Torn's character was killed offscreen but can at least give us insight into why Kathy Geiss pulls a toy car out of her mouth. While we get plenty of good material on how difficult Alec Baldwin was in the early seasons or the challenge of replacing Rachel Dratch with Jane Krakowski in the role of Jenna, because Roe has access to people who were involved in those moments, we understand almost nothing about why Baldwin suddenly loves the show come season six, nor do we ever get a chance to be inside Krakowski's head aside from her crying as they taped the final episodes, because she said so on the DVD commentary.
There's plenty of great material salvaged from these sources, but little more than you could gain yourself. Was the increase in episodes entirely centered around a special guest star at the start of season 3 due to network notes and concerns about falling ratings? We don't know, because no-one from the network or the lead production team is interviewed, so it's mentioned again in one brief comment. Was Schaal's character, Hazel, actually disliked by most viewers, as Roe indicates with his personal opinion, or is this not based on evidence? (I say, as a declared Hazel fan.) Was there discussion about how to portray Kenneth's mum's much vaunted "friend" Ron when he finally appeared in the final season? Were they originally intending Jack to stay with Avery through to the end? Were the production team disappointed not to use Cheyenne Jackson more or was this intentional? (We have his interviews, in which he says that he would've liked to do more; but no-one is available on the other end to provide context.)
I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I reached the Bibliography section. It's a single page with about eight sources, a few of which are just names of publications (e.g. Hollywood Reporter) without specific issues, one of which is the DVDs, and another is the commentaries on those DVDs. If we're honest, Roe has (to his credit) tracked down some important names to interview but then gleaned everything else from publicly available information. Aside from some notes kept by one of the writers from the very first episodes, he has no access to internal network reports or production documentation, which leads to some of the other issues outlined below.
Second, I feel that Roe could have benefitted from a co-author who wasn't so involved in "the biz". While I appreciate many fans of this show will, like me, have a basic understanding of network television production, there are numerous occasions where he rushes through an issue on the assumption that the audience will get it. That we'll know how a table read works, or why episodes can't be given new titles during a writer's strike, for example. Occasionally, too, this foreknowledge is further impeded by the formatting. For example Roe notes how different the show would have been if Michael Schur had ended up producing it, but it takes a couple more pages before he tells us who Michael Schur is. Unless you're in the know, that comment ricochets off the walls and returns to sender.
Third, and I appreciate this will be more contentious, Roe's book is very much of the moment in its approach to progressive identity politics. It’s right that any show should be open to criticism, and Roe does a reasonable job of untangling the threads of some of the jokes that look a little rough in retrospect. And jokes that, as with the two Jenna-wears-blackface jokes, looked pretty unfortunate to me, a white Australian kid in my early ‘20s, at the time. He often successfully navigates the journey of explaining why the jokes were considered funny, whether they worked at the time, and how they’ve been handled since (with some episodes being removed from streaming services as of 2022). Yet just as often his own opinions are pushed through a little too forcefully, dare I say. There are jokes that I think could be debated further – I don’t think most viewers will share Roe’s concern about the many gags clearly satirizing the broadly white male corporate view of the world (even if, yes, they come from a privileged white point-of-view themselves), or the sequence in which Liz hallucinates three Jamaican female nurses in the body of her three ex-boyfriends (I mean, she's hallucinating! They're not supposed to be playing Jamaicans!), or indeed the scene where Jon Hamm is attacked by a white woman’s disembodied hand (which Roe says is “somewhat less offensive” than a scene where it’s a black man’s hand... how a woman's hand could be offensive at all is beyond me). At times, as with the episode where Alec Baldwin’s character is a dead ringer for a Mexican soap opera star, also played by Baldwin in a deliberately cartoonish manner, I suspect no-one outside of the progressive media bubble would even sense a hint of anything evil or ill-intentioned. I appreciate that Roe lives in a different world to me, cares about these issues deeply, and probably felt a great deal of pressure to challenge them, as the book would face issues with reviewers had it not. The difficulty lies partly in the fact that this is the only area where Roe ever pushes back against the show. His authorial voice essentially never intrudes elsewhere, allowing the oral history to function as intended or, at most, allowing that some reviewers felt a certain season wasn't as good as the previous one but never indicating that he feels it doesn't work himself. So the fact that he's pushing his own angle here, often supported only by other TV commentators or a junior member of the crew, feels out of place in a book where he so resolutely refuses to offer opinions elsewhere. For my part, as one of the interviewees notes on this issue, we can't accurately view these episodes' content now, as we're in the middle of a zeitgeisty re-reckoning of identity. After a few decades we will be able to see these episodes in the light of their time, as we do now with “edgy” comedies from the past like All in the Family. I would have liked to have heard, for example, what the various black cast members thought about some of the race jokes. It’s interesting, too, that race is the focus of 90% of the complaints. While he very briefly touches on fat people and queer culture, Roe largely brushes jokes about them aside. Elsewhere he raises no qualms about actors playing the mentally ill (think Liz's brother), the physically disabled, or those with other mental health issues, even when he actively notes that Kathy Geiss' character is based on the actually autistic Temple Grandin, and yet is the focus of jokes for her all-out weirdness. (And that's leaving aside the jokes about child sex predators and much else!) Besides which, it's frustrating that Roe calls for more diversity on the program but then completely ignores or brushes over those occurrences: no references to the storyline in which Liz's gay cousin visits NYC or Tracy engages with an older black actress playing his mum who has clearly had a tough career; very little focus on Queen Latifah as a black congresswoman pushing for more diversity on the show-within-the-show; and Salma Hayek's fantastic recurring character basically gets dismissed for having an accent (despite being an immigrant) with nothing more apparently needing to be said on the matter. While he mentions that someone online found Margaret Cho's performance as Kim Jong-il "minstrelsy", it's clear that Cho doesn't feel that way, so I'm not even sure the criticism is valid - or at least it could've been delved into a bit further. Roe seems to enjoy edgy comedy, or he could not claim this as one of his favourite programs, but only when it's on his terms. There are clearly jokes on the program that won't sit well with future generations and a few that went too far, but Roe's level of investment in policing jokes is not on par with the expectations of most TV viewers. (Late in the book he notes that one of Fey's follow-up shows, Mr Mayor, had a suitably diverse cast but its "two leads" were white, which he sees as shameful. As someone who loved that show, I'm not sure I even accept the argument. The two "big name" actors in the cast were white, true, but the Liz Lemons of the program were undoubtedly those played by Vella Lovell and Mike Cabellon, both non-white.)
On its own, I would have no problem with this, but - as I said - it's the only thing that Roe analyses in great critical detail. As the book goes on and his sources grow dimmer, a palpable laziness kicks in. By season six he is often just writing out a plot synopsis of a given episode and recounting particular jokes. While it's nice to know that Paula Leggett Chase took pole dancing lessons before playing Randi in the reality TV episodes, or that Elaine Stritch was mean to some directors, I'd like to know more about whether the show felt that doing a second reality TV episode felt like going back to the same well, or why Stritch kept coming back to the program. When a commentator (not involved in making the program) notes that the character of Angie Jordan may be a stereotypical black woman, I wanted insight from Sherri Shepherd or Tracy Morgan or at least someone who wrote for the character, but the moment merely passes by. Sometimes he literally just provides a paragraph summarising a funny plot from an episode, but in a manner that removes all the juice from the humour. These sections drag because I can't imagine a non-fan would get this far into the book, and thus I don't understand whom the listing of funny jokes could be for?
It didn't surprise me to learn that this book essentially originated from an online oral history Roe wrote about the making of one of the novelty songs from an early episode. This is a show that deserves to be venerated, and that certainly deserves to have its flaws called out too. Yet this may have worked better as a series of blog articles, in which the author's penchant for spotlighting his core concerns and favourite moments, and his inability to get to the heart of much else, would have been less exasperating.
But I liked it.
Read
July 4, 2025I really didn't mind the fact of the author not getting actual interviews with the main cast or creators; evidently that's annoyed many other readers, but I think that the interviews the author did snag with other supporting or recurring cast members, writers, directors, and other below-the-line crew offers a fresh perspective that still makes the episode-by-episode recaps rewarding.
What I do mind is the author stopping every five pages to endlessly apologise and lecture to us about every single uncomfortable, distasteful, or even just slightly dated joke. It's not that I don't think shows shouldn't take accountability for deliberately offensive material (even though Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has always been a far worse offender than I ever found 30 Rock to be) — it's just that the author really just does shoot himself in the foot with this approach and muddies whatever the entire point of the book was supposed to be.
Like, is this show a perfect work of comedic art, or is it an intolerant artifact that needs to be constantly shamed and held liable for even the most innocuous of throwaway jokes? Is this book supposed to be fan service or a haranguing? Every two pages, it's one or the other.
By the end of the book, I almost felt bad for even liking 30 Rock in the first place — and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that is probably not the reaction the author intended anyone reading this to come away with.
What I do mind is the author stopping every five pages to endlessly apologise and lecture to us about every single uncomfortable, distasteful, or even just slightly dated joke. It's not that I don't think shows shouldn't take accountability for deliberately offensive material (even though Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has always been a far worse offender than I ever found 30 Rock to be) — it's just that the author really just does shoot himself in the foot with this approach and muddies whatever the entire point of the book was supposed to be.
Like, is this show a perfect work of comedic art, or is it an intolerant artifact that needs to be constantly shamed and held liable for even the most innocuous of throwaway jokes? Is this book supposed to be fan service or a haranguing? Every two pages, it's one or the other.
By the end of the book, I almost felt bad for even liking 30 Rock in the first place — and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that is probably not the reaction the author intended anyone reading this to come away with.
November 21, 2025
I wanted to enjoy this. I was excited to read it. And then Mike Rowe spent nearly 300 pages sucking the joy out of one of my favorite series.
My original draft of this review was much kinder, bemoaning that Rowe managed to get good behind the scenes details but buried them in a clumsy play-by-play of each episode. But THEN I discovered that nearly all of Rowe’s sources for this book were DVD commentaries and existing published interviews—chopped up and repackaged as if it was original research.
And he couldn’t even manage to make his hardcover fan blog entertaining in the process.
To anyone who aspires to write a book but fears they don’t have what it takes, I offer Mike Rowe as motivation to overcome your imposter syndrome.
My original draft of this review was much kinder, bemoaning that Rowe managed to get good behind the scenes details but buried them in a clumsy play-by-play of each episode. But THEN I discovered that nearly all of Rowe’s sources for this book were DVD commentaries and existing published interviews—chopped up and repackaged as if it was original research.
And he couldn’t even manage to make his hardcover fan blog entertaining in the process.
To anyone who aspires to write a book but fears they don’t have what it takes, I offer Mike Rowe as motivation to overcome your imposter syndrome.
July 18, 2022
2021 was the perfect year for the release of The 30 Rock Book, which was especially engaging as an audiobook. Mike Roe took the care to craft a comprehensive look into the staff and events that went into the making of 30 Rock, paired with a tasteful exploration into the show’s problematic content that has not withstood the test of time.
Check this book out on Hoopla!
Check this book out on Hoopla!
April 25, 2022
DNF
I love 30 Rock, but the review for this book are right. It was a boring rundown of episodes sprinkled with the author leading us from quote to quote. The other 1 star review are accurate. The book has no insight into behind the scenes beyond what you can read in articles or commentary. For a show so packed with jokes, this book was lackluster. I ended somewhere in Season 6 and just can't bring myself to finish.
I love 30 Rock, but the review for this book are right. It was a boring rundown of episodes sprinkled with the author leading us from quote to quote. The other 1 star review are accurate. The book has no insight into behind the scenes beyond what you can read in articles or commentary. For a show so packed with jokes, this book was lackluster. I ended somewhere in Season 6 and just can't bring myself to finish.
February 18, 2022
only didn’t get it 5 stars because like most (if not all readers) of this book don’t really need the play by play synopsis of the plot of every episode. That made the reading a little slower but everything else is great!
April 22, 2025
like reading the Wikipedia recap of each season, which is a delight because 30 Rock is a delight, but probably needed some additional insight and new info for a whole ass book
December 1, 2025
I love 30 Rock, so this was great for me. I listened to it as I drove back and forth to work, so it was kind of like listening to a podcast going through each episode.
December 26, 2021
I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I think I've seen every episode of 30 Rock, so I was looking forward to this book. I really enjoy oral histories, such as this. The book is missing some people that were a big part of the show, but no book like this is perfect. If you enjoyed the show, you'll enjoy this book.
I think I've seen every episode of 30 Rock, so I was looking forward to this book. I really enjoy oral histories, such as this. The book is missing some people that were a big part of the show, but no book like this is perfect. If you enjoyed the show, you'll enjoy this book.
December 7, 2021
I found this was really well researched and thoughtful. I appreciated that the author did not hide any of the problematic issues that took place, many of which I was not aware of. I don’t know if something like this needed to detail every episode in order. I also felt that too much time was spent discussing Studio 60, even though I understood the relevance. I thought the interviews really broke everything up well
April 2, 2022
Was this truly enjoyable or was it simply written recaps of every episode that I had to keep pausing reading to watch clips from the actual episodes? Who can say.
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