The writer's strike affected everybody. Hollywood employees were forced out of work and viewers had to watch reruns or reality shows. Now many shows are back, including NBC's 30 Rock, a show about writers. They have five new episodes to finish out this season, some of which were adapted from pre-strike ideas.
Tina Fey Talks 30 Rock
"Before the strike, we had two scripts that were in the outline phase," said star and writer Tina Fey. "So we went back to those, and kind of tried to adjust them with the mindset that now rather than being in the middle of a season, these were now sort of a mini re-premiere and relaunch to this mini season that we’re having. So we did have some story areas and then it was a matter of taking what would have been the middle of the season and finding a way to build it to hopefully an interesting and climactic end to the season."
Though they crammed as many shows as possible into the remaining time before summer, it was not as tight a squeeze as you might think. "It’s actually maybe less because from knowing it was only five from the beginning, there was always a light at the end of the tunnel where sometimes, the back half of last year when we had 12 to do, that becomes daunting."
The forced break gave some shows a chance to re-evaluate the direction of their current season, but 30 Rock just went right back to work. "I don’t know if these episodes will feel different. I almost hope that they don’t. Because our whole staff scattered right at the beginning of the strike, because many of our staffers live in California, we didn’t really have a chance to sit down as a group and sort of hash out how the season has gone. We will actually probably do that after these five. We’ll do a big postmortem of what we liked, what we didn’t like. The strike was strange. Everybody went home immediately and didn’t really see each other until we came back."
The last five 30 Rocks will feature more big guest stars, including comedy legend Tim Conway. "He plays a very sweet TV veteran named Bucky Bright who used to be on a show in the '50s called Wagons Ho. Kenneth is very excited. He’s there to be a celebrity for a Republican Party Rally that Jack is trying to organize but Jack is looking for a younger, hipper celebrity, so he pawns him off on Kenneth and he tells Kenneth some very, very shocking and racy stories about the old days of television. He was really funny."
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