30 Rock

I spent yesterday on a train, trying to see how many episodes of 30 Rock I could watch before my computer battery died.
This is partly because I’m convinced the little battery meter lies to me, but mostly because I couldn’t help myself.

30 Rock, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a television show written by a female head writer about making a television show which has a female head writer.
 If you followed that sentence you’re doing well.
Point is, they’re aren’t a lot of female writers in television. I just went through the list of Doctor Who writers and as far as I can tell there’s been less than five. Ever. Only a tiny handful of episodes. I’m not a feminist but that makes me a bit sad sometimes. (Ok, so I might have occasional feminist tendencies but that comes from being female in the twenty-first century.) I’ve long been searching for a show to love that has a female at its head.

I think that’s part of why I love Laid so much. A man would never have written a scene in which the love interest gets eaten by a giant satin, sabre toothed vagina. And that was brilliant. Similarly 30 Rock would be a very different show without Tina Fey.

This is the first post that I feel could sort of belong on the other blog (I seem to have done a weird sort of blog swap this week so you should probably read both posts). The reasons I love 30 Rock run a lot deeper than the brilliant writing, clever concept and spectacular characterisation. The show kind of epitomises a lot of my hopes, dreams and fears.

On the one hand, Liz Lemon is exactly who I want to be. She manages somehow to turn her obsessive, clumsy, dorkiness into sassy and charming. She’s succeeded in a world I desperately want to call my home. And her hair is quite amazing. The term “Head Writer” carries a wonderful, elusive mystique. Writing everyday for a show that is, in a very real sense, your own…lets just say I‘d give my right arm. I am not left handed.

On the other hand she’s also everything I’m afraid of. She’s got no social life, spasmodic friendships and a disastrous love life. And while staying in the office all night to pull a show together has a certain allure (maybe once) as a day to day reality it’s a little bit frightening.

I feel like I have a vested interest in Liz’s success and failures. I want desperately for happy endings. But I haven’t even finished season one yet. And I’m only nineteen.
So we’ll see.

For the record I watched eleven and a half episodes before my computer shut down. And yes, I do have kick ass battery life. Also- Alex’s Top Tip For Train Travel (via beccamarsh)- there’s a power point in the toilet. So I technically watched twelve…